9700 Pro returns to 640x480x4 in WinXP

Hi I found the intel article relating to the chipset problem
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/e7205/specupdt/25193802.pdf
there is also a bit about it at Lostcircuits
http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/asus_p4g8x/
The AGP prefetch problem seems like it will be solved by a Bios update but what about the AGP timing issue?
From lost circuits ‘Exacerbating in this situation is that both the E7205 "Granite Bay" and the E7505 "Placer" chipsets are plagued by a few bugs in form of some signal timing issues that don't meet the AGP 3.0 specifications, specifically, the tVALmin or data valid window skew meaning that the data arrive and expire too early. This can be remedied by adjusting the trace length on the main board level’
Basically I think we have to wait for a Bios update to ensure stability. I may also try turning ‘Fast Writes’ off as I have seen a few post on the 9700 in general which say this helps with stability.

Wizard, I not sure which Bios I have (will check tonight) but notice you have 1003. On Asus.com there is only 1001(release) and 1002 (improve AGP8x timing). The article at Lostcircuits talks about a 1004 release ?

MacrosII
Asus AP4GX Delux (need to check bios no)
P4 - 3GH, Hyperthreading
2 x 512 3200 Corsair, 2,3,3,5
Saphire 9700
2 x MaxtorPlus9 120GB
Lite On 16X DVD (Master)
Pioneer A05 (Slave)
Qtec 400W PSU
XP Pro, SP1
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3beta
Catalyst 7.81 Drivers, AGP Apature 64MB, Fast write enabled, 8x, USCW
DX 8.1
 
Hi macrosii

Hi macrosii

It is sure I have BIOS 1003. I was wondering how this happend, as I got the mobo with this one, and noticed that nor ASUS nor the mobo CD have this version... Not even at the Beta section.
Anyway, if the problem is in the 7205 Chipset, what can we do?
Could this be fixed with a driver from either Intel or Ati?

Intel says to do this:
"
2. AGP Prefetch Cache Must Be Disabled
Problem: System hangs can occur during AGP transactions when the AGP Prefetcher is enabled.
Implication: System hang.
Workaround: Disable AGP Prefetch Cache by clearing bit 0 of AGP Miscellaneous Register (Device 1 Function 0
Offset A0-A3h).
Status: No fix planned for this erratum. System performance is not affected by this erratum.
"

How can we do it? Is it in Registry? It is an option somewhere?
Can we do it with a tweaker?

Thanx.

PS.>Reanimator> I am using DX 9.0 but Catalyst 2.5. I had much more problems with ver 3.0 while gaming. If you see prev post, you can see the exact version.
 
Also found that:

Also found that:

Uncached Speculative Write Combining

One of the settings in the Chip Configuration menu is called Video Memory Cache Mode and this title is rather incorect. What really stands behind the entry is write combining of single bit writes to a full burst from the processor to the LFB of the graphics card using the full bandwidth of the AGP interface. Depending on the number and depth of write combine buffers on the CPU, more or fewer data can be sampled for a burst write. All current graphics cards support write combining. Moreover, leaving the setting on uncached and forcing the processor to interleave duty cycles with write cycles can cause stability problems. The performance difference with modern CPUs is negligible, processors in the sub 500 MHz frequency range can see as much as 20-30% performance increase from USCW at low resolutions. With the P4G8X running a RADEON9700 and UC selected, the system developed all kinds of spontaneous errors like sudden lock-up in Winstone, or suddenly switching to VGA mode just to mention a few. The error messages pointed towards the ATI drivers, however, those are working without a problem on different platforms. Switching to USCW solved the problems. This is consistent with the findings over at [H]ardOCP on the same board
 
I spent a long time searching and cant find any tools or articules on how to hack the pre fetch. I have seen it as a Bios option on othe MB so I think we will have to wait for ASUS to release a bios update.

MacrosII
Asus AP4GX Delux (need to check bios no)
P4 - 3GH, Hyperthreading
2 x 512 3200 Corsair, 2,3,3,5
Saphire 9700
2 x MaxtorPlus9 120GB
Lite On 16X DVD (Master)
Pioneer A05 (Slave)
Qtec 400W PSU
XP Pro, SP1
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3beta
Catalyst 7.81 Drivers, AGP Apature 64MB, Fast write enabled, 8x, USCW
DX 8.1
 
I can see that almost all posts in this topic are concerning the the new Intel Granity Bay chipset.
I have these same problems with a 845PE chipset (Asus P4PE)
So maybe it's not only the chipset that is causing all the trouble.
 
I am a little confused...

Microsoft says that we sould disable Write Combine from the Display Adapter settings.
Is this the same as to change the BIOS setting from USWC to UC? Cause if it is, all the others say to do the opposite!!!

Anyway, if you go to ftp://www.asus.com.tw/ you will find in the p4g8x section, a bios version 1004.004
I think it is a beta one, but it wasn't at the beta section.
It also has a 1003g (I have 1003) that it is not posted on the web.
Dnld them both, and I will test them the sooner.
 
Good point.

I have a P4PE at work with a 3GHz and as Radeon 9000 and it runs rock solid. Looking around the 9700 doesnt like the ASUS P4S8X either. So its probably a more generic Radeon 9700 problem.

There's nothing I could find on the ATI web site., and I just rang Saphire tech support who had no clue

MacrosII
Asus AP4GX Delux (need to check bios no)
P4 - 3GH, Hyperthreading
2 x 512 3200 Corsair, 2,3,3,5
Saphire 9700
2 x MaxtorPlus9 120GB
Lite On 16X DVD (Master)
Pioneer A05 (Slave)
Qtec 400W PSU
XP Pro, SP1
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3beta
Catalyst 7.81 Drivers, AGP Apature 64MB, Fast write enabled, 8x, USCW
DX 8.1
 
Actualy the only common between P4G8X and P4S8X is the 8x...
Maybe it is too soon to work with 8x...
Idea: I'll switch to 4x to see if there is more stability...
Don't think will matter to DX 8.1 games
Until 28 Feb where Splinter Cell will be released, we have enough time to check for updates and drivers
 
Thanks

Downloaded the 1003g and the 1004. The 1003g contains a .awd file and the 1004 contains a .bin file?

I tried at 4X when I first got the problem and it didnt make any difference.

MacrosII
Asus AP4GX Delux (need to check bios no)
P4 - 3GH, Hyperthreading
2 x 512 3200 Corsair, 2,3,3,5
Saphire 9700
2 x MaxtorPlus9 120GB
Lite On 16X DVD (Master)
Pioneer A05 (Slave)
Qtec 400W PSU
XP Pro, SP1
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3
Catalyst 7.81 Drivers, AGP Apature 64MB, Fast write enabled, 8x, USCW
DX 8.1
 
I am waiting for an answer from another member of the forum, who has a very similar to mine system, and have no problems.
On the other hand he works as a Technical Support
Maybe he knows something we don't
Now for the files, I just got them, but I will check them at noon when I go home. So I don't really know treir content.

PS>macrosii> Do you have an AP4GX or a P4G8X :)
 
opps, maybe if I had a AP4GX it would work!


Looking round various forums the 9700pro seems to have a long history of instabillity problems on all sorts of MB and yet I never picked any of this up in reviews of the card.

MacrosII
Asus P4G8X Delux (need to check bios no)
*********
P4 - 3GH, Hyperthreading
2 x 512 3200 Corsair, 2,3,3,5
Saphire 9700
2 x MaxtorPlus9 120GB
Lite On 16X DVD (Master)
Pioneer A05 (Slave)
Qtec 400W PSU
XP Pro, SP1
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3beta
Catalyst 7.81 Drivers, AGP Apature 64MB, Fast write enabled, 8x, USCW
DX 8.1
 
Try this,it's more stable with these settings for me:


bios 1002
agp/pci fixed at 67/34
agp at 1.6v
agp aperture size 64mo
agp 8x
video memory on UCWC
pci latency timer at 64
fastwrites disabled

Config:

Pentium 4 2.80 Ghz
Asus P4G8X
2x512Mo Corsair XMS3200PT
Crucial Ati Radeon 9700 Pro
Creative Labs Audigy 2
Plextor PX-W4012A
Lite-on LTD163
Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A
3xMaxtor Diamondmax 9 Plus 80Go RAID 0
Super Flower 400W PSU
Cooler Master ATC 110 Case
 
I had this very problem.

Check in the system event log for entries from the source "ati2mtag".
[EDIT] Forgot to say, it's the "infinite loop" problem [/EDIT]

EventVwr.jpg



I did two things, and my machine has been rock solid since.

1. Move the mouse from the USB ports that share an IRQ with the AGP slot. (Top 2 nearest the PS/2 connectors)

2. Disabled Fast Writes in the SmartGart tab.

I suspect it was the Fast Writes, but moving "busy" kit off the IRQ can't have hurt it either.

Hope this helps.
 
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Thanx DSOTM

Thanx DSOTM

One of the fisrt things I checked were the IRQ's. Fortunatelly, I have nothing on those two ports you described.
On the other hand I tried to disable FastWrites and the only thing I got was a terribly slow machine! I mean I could see the windows drawn!!!
I remembered old good times when we were testing VGA's speed by draging fast a window to se the trail...
If you say that this is the point to check, then I must did something wrong...
Another thing is that I pressed the button under fast writes, to do the test, and after rebooting I got a message that there is a problem so I have to disable it to work right.
 
Thnx all

I disabled smart writes last night but didnt get much time to test. I didnt see any slow down in windows. I tried AVP2 @ max settings 1024x768 for about half hour with no problems. Not tried upping my AGP voltage yet.

Macrosii

Asus P4G8X Delux (need to check bios no)
P4 - 3GH, Hyperthreading Enabled
2 x 512 3200 Corsair, 2,3,3,5
Saphire 9700 Pro
2 x MaxtorPlus9 120GB
Lite On 16X DVD (Master)
Pioneer A05 (Slave)
Qtec 400W PSU
XP Pro, SP1
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3
Catalyst 7.81 Drivers, AGP Apature 64MB, Fast write disabled, 8x, USCW, 1.5V
DX 8.1
 
I also get occasional stuck thread crashes on the desktop, usually from something as innocuous as IE or ICQ. In games, Hitman 2 is driving me nuts as it freezes a short way into the game, causing the monitor to power down - the music/sound effects continue as if there is nothing wrong, but mouse and keyboard have no effect.

I have tried all sorts of things, feeling more like a witchdoctor than anything else:

• Completely uninstalled the graphics drivers, cleansed the registry and INF folder of ATI keys and files, then did a fresh install of the latest Catalyst 3.0 (3.0a?) drivers, the ones that don’t cause the stutter problems in OpenGL.

• Went into the 8INXP’s BIOS and reset to Fail-Safe Defaults. Actually, I’ve gone even more conservative than that, by disabling the built-in audio and modem, and disabling the RAID and SATA controllers (no need for them yet anyway). One of the key things I’ve found helpful is to DISABLE Top Performance - I heard that enabling it causes instability if your RAM doesn’t have ECC (which mine doesn’t).

• Disabled AGP Fast Write. Couldn’t find any way to do this in the BIOS, so I ended up changing the setting in the ATI Control Panel (SMARTGART tab). Actually, this caused some unpleasant jerkiness in 3D games - not desirable!

• Increased the AGP card’s voltage in the BIOS by +0.1V (1.65V) and later by +0.2V (1.75V).

• Turned Hardware Acceleration down one notch from “Full”. A distasteful solution, to be certain... Turning it completely off (like the Microsoft Help suggests) is obviously pointless because 3D games become unlaunchable (never mind unplayable).

• Turned off Write Combining. No apparent difference, though.

• Checked that my graphics card was getting dedicated power from the PSU (430W) without piggybacking on any other devices.

• Flashed a new BIOS on the graphics card (what a waste of time this was - don't bother doing this!). No new BIOSes available for the MB, though.

So far, nothing has helped. The crashes on the desktop are infrequent enough to not be a bother (although it JUST happened again right now as I am typing this!!!). Besides which, Windows recovers in Safe Mode for those so no big deal.

But in 3D games like Hitman 2, the crash is not recoverable at all, and it happens every time. Same for Soldier of Fortune 2 and Heavy Metal FAKK 2 (stupid game anyway...). It is very frustrating.

-=W=-
 
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This may be relevant to many of you here having problems with the Asus P4G8X boards and the ATI 9700 Pro graphic cards. I received my Asus board 2 weeks ago and have been experiencing all the symptoms that the postings here have been reporting. After upgrading m/b bios, ATI bios and trying all different drivers and bios settings to no avail I contacted Asus technical support in Germany today. The techie advised me that this is a known problem with the ATI 9700 Pro with earlier chipset revisions and that their motherboard only works correctly on the latest revision, how do you know which revision you have? :-

On the top left of the ATI 9700 Pro board is PN number, the early revision number on my card is:

PN 109-94200-11

The revision number that Asus claim is compatible is:

PN 109-94200-30

I don't know how this works with cards manufactured by other brand names.
 
I had the same problem in my AMD system with an MSI KT266A motherboard.

It only happens though if i load the Cat 3.0 drivers. If i use the drivers that came with the card it's rock stable.

So..could definitly be some issue with the drivers. Which is very typical for ATI. Last card i had from them was the Radeon 64 when it first came out. Drivers were a complete pain and i vowed i'd never buy ATI again.

So...time passed, i figured i'd take a chance, they must have got it all sorted by now? Wrong! Same buggy drivers. Maybe they ought to poach some developers from Nvidia?

Anyway...still working on it, i reckon the hardware is now worth the hassle :)
 
Actually I managed to Disable FastWrites without the effects I described in previous post.
I have everuthing running in full mode (WriteCombine, Full Acceleration, 8x, USWC) and while gaming is rock stable.
In windows I can't say yet, I don't have a good sample to deside. Yet though runs fine.
I tried (as also mentioned in prev posts) with older drivers. Gamming was fine again but desktop crashed normally!!!

Be back with news. Even if it crashes or not.
 
Results are:

Results are:

Since I disabled FW I can say I have a stable machine while on the desktop. Details:

With Catalyst 2.5 Drivers, FastWrites Enabled, Write Combine Enabled, 8x, USWC, DX 9.0 it is 99% stable while gaming but have the 640x480 effect while on desktop.

With Catalyst 3.0, FastWrites Disabled, Write Combine Enabled, 8x, USWC, DX 9.0 I have very stable desktop but picture freezed while on the "Many Small People Killing Eachother" screen of 3DMark2001SE while keyboard, mouse, music still played.

Fortunately I have 2 WinXP installations one for gaming and one for working (cause I have IIS, SQL, Exchange etc. for my work) so I can have different drivers and settings. But not everybody can do that.
All other settings are default from driver options to bios/voltage

Will keep trying...

PS. I also wait for Gigabyte to release a new driver that is based on Cat 3.0, because at least with games GB's driver had excellent performance and stability.
 
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