SG Broadband Community

I have had this problem before and i can't remember how i fixed it.

I just reformatted my harddrive and installed updates and drivers but i can't get my 9800 to run at 8x AGP (or 4x AGP for that matter)

Mobo: ASUS A7N8X-E (flashed latest bios)
Graphics Card: Saphire 9800pro
OS: WinXP

-installed catalyst 4.9 drivers
-installed/reinstalled VIA 4in1 Hyperion v453


Any help would be appreciated ...T.I.A.

How do you know it's not running at 8X, and have you checked the settings in the bios?

RoundEye wrote:How do you know it's not running at 8X, and have you checked the settings in the bios?

8x agp is enabled in the bios. but start>run>smartgart says its off and in the display settings it says that it is off also.

i tried to turn them on, but after reboot it turns them off again even after reinstalling chipset drivers.

Which drivers are you using? I had trouble with the drivers from ATI that required .net to be installed. They would cause Doom 3 to crash back to the desktop.

I uninstalled those drivers and .net and used the other set of drivers and my card worked a lot better. I only have a 9700 Pro though.

Have you tried turning off VPU recover? Maybe that's what keeps setting your card back for some reason.

does your mobo even support 8x? i'd look it up but im being lazy tonight

RoundEye wrote:Which drivers are you using? I had trouble with the drivers from ATI that required .net to be installed. They would cause Doom 3 to crash back to the desktop.

I uninstalled those drivers and .net and used the other set of drivers and my card worked a lot better. I only have a 9700 Pro though.

Have you tried turning off VPU recover? Maybe that's what keeps setting your card back for some reason.

I uninstalled the Cat 4.9 and installed the Cat 4.8 but nothing changed.

does your mobo even support 8x? i'd look it up but im being lazy tonight

Yes

have smartgart check for 8x, etc.. then reboot and set your mobo AGP to 64, even if it is a 128, etc.. I have a 9600 proXT 256mb runs like crap @ 256 AGP slot, but screams like a banshee on 64mb setting.. go figure?

uninstall video card Reinstall chipset drivers, and reinstall drivers in that order

knightmare wrote:have smartgart check for 8x, etc.. then reboot and set your mobo AGP to 64, even if it is a 128, etc.. I have a 9600 proXT 256mb runs like crap @ 256 AGP slot, but screams like a banshee on 64mb setting.. go figure?

Tried with no luck.

uninstall video card Reinstall chipset drivers, and reinstall drivers in that order

Tried this, after reboot the screen flashes like it doesn't want to accept the settings of 8x agp or 4x agp.

**thanks all for suggestions keep them coming***

*starts to get headache and goes to sleep having nightmares of trying to get this fixed tommorrow.

try "Powerstrip" a program you can try free for awhile, check the voltage to the AGP slot too.. it is probably on auto, but go to hardware monitoring, etc see what the real voltage going to it is. You might have to up it [.5]v to trigger it to 8x

Oh man, my comp was doin that the other day too. Would not give me ANY AGP acceleration whatsoever. SmartGart just puked the settings. I ended up going back to old OLD chipset drivers and seeing what happened. Sure enough it allowed me to get back to my modest 4x(socket 423 P4), the max setting for this particular MB.

Knight-

When you say 256 AGP slot, are you talkin about the AGP aperture?

the card is 256mb, but i set it in the bios @64mb....

here are some tools, some free, some long term shareware

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?id=22&sort=25


i like this one

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download718.html

So yer telling the bios that you have a 64 meg vid card when it really is a 256? Or setting the AGP aperture to 64?

Aperture settings are really just how much system ram yer willing to let the video sub-systems have. Prior to vid cards with massive ram amounts(256 and 512 in the near future) it was a good idea to let the comp play with lotsa ram. The recommended number was 1/2 of the overall system ram(not vid card ram but normal ram). I'd guess if you were to throttle the system ram and force the vid card to do the grunt on its VERY zippy ram, it would speed things up.

Or, if the setting in your particualr bios is in fact a reflection of what the comp thinks you have on the card, it might be tossing smaller instruction sets and textures to it. Knocking back some of the eye-candy for better frame rates. I dunno. I am very curious tho.

Paindriver wrote:.....I just reformatted my harddrive and installed updates and drivers...

Did you install direct x 9c? Go to the start/run box and type in dxdiag and double check. Also while you are there, go to the Display tab and make sure all of the DX features are enabled and the test run fine.

RoundEye wrote:Did you install direct x 9c? Go to the start/run box and type in dxdiag and double check. Also while you are there, go to the Display tab and make sure all of the DX features are enabled and the test run fine.

Running DirectX9c

-DirectDraw Accelertation - Enabled (tested runs fine)
-Direct3d Acceleration - Enabled (tested runs fine)
-AGP Texture Acceleration - Unavailable ??

I also tried a older version catatlyst driver (4.5) and an older version of VIA4in1's ....but still a no go.

ya brembro, seems ya know your video setting stuff. In advanced bios(shuttle mobo), i set the aperture to 64, let it think i have a 64. The bios has an optimal/turbo setting, and that is exactly the same thing it does for max performance. Also a setting for the 8x to be enabled,...but until I set my agp aperture to 64, i could never get 8x to stay on after a reboot, i had to manually set it, which means i probably never had it there either. 4.9 drivers are the best for me so far, my card has never run better.

Paindriver wrote:....AGP Texture Acceleration - Unavailable ??.....

In the display properties, is the slider all the way to the right?

RoundEye wrote:In the display properties, is the slider all the way to the right?

yes, looks exactly like that pic.

have you installed atleast SP1 yet? or SP2?

maybe try enabling/disabling fastwrites in both the bios and smartgart and then go for 8x agp... Maybe try what burke said as well.. you might have installed the ati drivers before you installed the chipset drivers causing a conflict?? Or maybe see if sapphire has their own drivers wich might fix the issue?

-Joe

I had a similar problem with my 9800 pro (ASUS MOBO as well) and the problem went away as soon as I updated the USB controller drivers. Have you tried that?

Joe wrote:have you installed atleast SP1 yet? or SP2?

maybe try enabling/disabling fastwrites in both the bios and smartgart and then go for 8x agp... Maybe try what burke said as well.. you might have installed the ati drivers before you installed the chipset drivers causing a conflict?? Or maybe see if sapphire has their own drivers wich might fix the issue?

-Joe

tried and still a no go.

Paindriver wrote:tried and still a no go.

Set your bios to a lower speed below 8x 2 or 4 and then see if smartgart will let you change it.. if so reboot and change your bios back to 8x.? This is going out on limb... Ive had strange procedures fix problems like this before... Also check what your AGP voltage is running at in the bios... just for kicks..

Joe wrote:Set your bios to a lower speed below 8x 2 or 4 and then see if smartgart will let you change it.. if so reboot and change your bios back to 8x.? This is going out on limb... Ive had strange procedures fix problems like this before... Also check what your AGP voltage is running at in the bios... just for kicks..

All of these good ideas don't seem to be working....i am almost ready to rip the card out and replace it.....i'm a gamer and i can't go on with video lag.

I had the exact same problem with my Radeon 9550 and MSI KT4V motherboard. It appears that there are different versions of AGP compliancy. Most, if not all 8x video cards are v3.0 AGP complaint, whereas some motherboards support 8x but are only v2.0 AGP complaint. This link explains it in more detail: http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/10,63.html

To solve the problem, I updated to the latest VIA chipset drivers from the MSI site, included in the update was an update to AGP v3.0. After installing these drivers I rebooted and now my card is working at 8x. (Note that a previous poster mentioned his video card started working at 8x after upgrading his chipset USB drivers, it could be that the AGP update was in the same package, my package included the USB updates in addition to the AGP update)

Barring a bum card, this issue is ALWAYS tied to not having the chipset drivers installed.

Burke wrote:Barring a bum card, this issue is ALWAYS tied to not having the chipset drivers installed.