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AGP Problem with 9700Pro

D

Ditch

n00b
Joined
Mar 27, 2003
Messages
57
I am having a problem with AGP acceleration. In some games I was getting artifacts and others were very choppy. This problem suddenly cropped up. I looked at the display properties and noticed that smartgart had totally disabled AGP acceleration.

Last week I updated to CAT 3.10 so I thought maybe this was related. I had also updated my nForce drivers to the latest nvidia 3.13. I reset AGP to 8x, rebooted and a lot of weird black, blue, choppy screens came up at the start. The system then chilled out, but when I looked at smartgart again, it had again disabled AGP acceleration.

I have had this system almost 1 year and nothing is OC'd. For some time before this bigger problem, after exiting some games, the icons on the desktop and inside folders I have on the desktop would get all mixed up and distorted. The quicklaunch icons would be replaced with other random icons as well.

Also, I was a dumb ass and did not uninstall either set of drivers before I updated. But I don't think that is the root of the problem, since I have another identical PC and it runs flawlessly, even after the same update method.

Does anyone have any ideas what my underlying problem could be? I really think my video card is fried. Some chipset on it must not be working right or may be running way too hot. However, overall, my system is cool and the CPU runs fairly cool as well.

Tonight I will open things up and ensure the VPU fan is working right (I am sure it is or else I would have bigger problems). I am also going to put the identical card from the 2nd PC in to see if the problem goes away. I was also thinking of uninstalling smartgart but I really think smartgart is telling me my system is unstable enough to not do any AGP acceleration.

Other than that, I am worried about bigger problems like something wrong with the motherboard. The 3.13 drivers didn't really seem to load right, not compared to the 2nd PC. After the setup program copied the drivers to the hard drive, the install screens for the different driver components didn't come up. I am not sure the update occurred at all. This would lead me to believe there is a mobo issue of some kind. I still need to check the versions to see if it really installed.

Additionally, for some time, load times on this PC have been slightly longer than the 2nd PC. For example, in NWN, when a person on each PC enters an area at the same time, the person of the 2nd PC will get in several seconds before I do, even if I go through first at times. I am the host, but in my experience it doesn't seem like a network issue at all. The delay is too significant for identical PC's running a game like NWN.

Any other ideas would help since I only know to try a different video card right now and compare driver versions.

Here are the system specs:

- A7N8X Deluxe
- 2800+ Barton
- 2-256 MB Corsair XMS RAM Sticks w/plat heat spreaders, for that mobo/CPU (2700LL I think for 333MHz)
- WD800JB for games
- WD400JB for OS
- ATI 9700Pro
- sound and LAN run off mobo
- CAT 3.10 Drivers
- NForce 3.13 Drivers
- WinXP Home

I can't remember what BIOS I am running, but I think it is 1004 on both PC's (sorry I am at work). I never upgraded because I really wasn't having any serious compatibility problems. Like I said, the 2nd PC has been flawless.

Thanks.
 
I have the same mobo that you have w/ XP2800. I also just purchased the 9600XT ATi and had probs. But, mine seemed different. And, now they are fixed:)

Several things you definitely need to do. Upgrade that BIOS! I have 1007 (latest). Second, make sure your primary display in mobo says AGP VGA. Some A7N8X came w/ PCI VGA set. Although it might work, better to set to AGP as primary. Next competely uninstall old video card drivers and latest ATI Cat3.10. Then, completely trash Nforce driver you got from nvidia and get the older ones from ASUS (I tried the latest nvidia driver and the blow #*&$#. Set my 52xCD burner to PIO when it really is UDMA 33. So went back to older Nforce drives and everything is tip top.) After you reinstall nforce driver, then install cat 3.10 drivers.

Just looked at your sig, and we have almost the same system except I have the 9600XT. I think that the 9700 pros also required an external power connector that you could hook up to your Power Supply.
 
Thanks for the replies. Last night I upgraded to 1007, removed the CAT 3.10 drivers and reinstalled them. I also removed the nForce drivers and upon reboot it reinstalled what it needed to. However, in the control panel, the soundstorm icon won't work now, as if the link is broken (it brings up an error report msg). But, it ran fine from the folder I had unpacked the drivers to. I am not sure what is up with that, but it didn't seem like a big deal.

I checked smartgart again and it still had AGP set to 0. I set it to 8, rebooted, and got the same weirdness as before for a few seconds. It again calmed down and reset AGP to 0 to make things stable.

I haven't tried to remove the nForce drivers yet and I had thought about going to the Asus driver, but I thought that might actually be a step back. It sounds like it may be a good step to try.

What is the best way to remove that unified set of drivers jaboo? I did it from the control panel, but I couldn't uninstall the nForce utilities. Should it be done from the control panel or is there a better way?

I ran a bunch of tests using SiSoft Sandra and both PC's tell me pretty much the same thing, except mine tells me that AGP is set to 0 and AGP fast write is off. I checked everything in the BIOS and both are enabled and other settings are correct. I will check out if the BIOS is set to AGP VGA, but I am pretty sure it is.

One strange result during the analysis was that Sandra warned that my mobo temp was 257 deg C. Whatever, I don't think so. The BIOS reports it at about 27 deg C and my CPU is running at 43 deg C. The 2nd PC is about the same, but Sandra told me it was running at about 85 deg C, giving a warning on that as well. I think Sandra is just misinterpreting some info or something.

I also ran dxdiag and all the tests were fine. I ran 3DMark03 and got about 4500 marks. I played some NWN with my wife and noticed that it ran much like it did a few days ago and not like yesterday, really choppy and slow. However, AGP is still not working and it is pissing me off. I even tried 4x and it reset that as well.

I'll dl the asus driver today and try it tonight. I still have to try swapping vid cards from the 2nd machine to mine as well.
 
Here is an update of where I am at.

I unistalled smartgart with the uninstaller for it. No help.

I wanted to remove the nForce drivers and then reinstall 2.16 from Asus like you suggested jaboo. However, control panel does not even show the nForce drivers. I tried to install the drivers and the NVIDIA logo comes up with the loading progress bar and then... nothing. The setup program just dies. I even tried to install the original nForce drivers from my mobo CD and got the same thing. This is really weird to see a setup program load up and then do nothing. It doesn't even stay in task manager; it just goes away.

Is something in the registry missing? Why don't the 3.13 drivers I loaded show up in control panel? The only NVIDIA entries in add/remove programs are the audio driver and utilities.

I wonder if a WinXP repair will reset a few things. I don't want to try that if a better fix is possible, but I will do that before a reformat of course.

I looked through the registry and found that almost all the nForce/NVIDIA entries are audio related. It seems my system is running without any nForce drivers (other than audio of course) and it won't let me install any version of them. If I can fix this driver problem, maybe AGP 8x will come back to me.
 
I'd reformat and start again.

It's obviously borked.

Bite the bullet - reformat and reinstall again.
 
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