Need help finding proper videocard for GA-5AX/K6-III+ 500

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

DasMan2 wrote:O.K. I re-installed Win 98 S/E in the GA-5AX rev. 4.1 and tried the A.I.W. Rage 128 AGP and it runs but not when I try the TV portion. Used two different sets of drivers + Media Center versions. (6.3 + 7.2)

Put in the Radeon 7500 AGP 64 meg DDR and it runs but not very long with a simple test game (Duke Nukem) ....took it out put in a PCI video card (BFG.) GeForce 4 MMX440 S.E. ..thats runs the game well with rev 43 or 45 Nvidia drivers, tried the latest 89 version and that crashed.

So far it has been picky in the Win 98 S/E setup and I have trouble running higher than 550 Mhz with the AMD K6-2 450+ at any bus speed of 100 + :(

More testing ...lol. Will try the AGP version of the GF 4 440 ...see it can be stable , that will tell me lots on the AGP
O.K. , installed the GF 4 MX440 and it too works well ,even using rev 56 Nvidia drivers. Took out Nvidia drivers put in the ATI Radeon 7500 ...still same issues as before. So the AGP slot works , just not so nice with the Radeon with Win 98 S/E , so far.... hmm try another ALi AGP driver (older than 1.83) or another re-install.
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

When I used a Radeon aiw 7500 w/ an ALi chipset, I had to go in and change some memory assignments to get ti to work. Original Superpuppy 3; - K6-2+ 550 on ASUS P5A-B w/ 768 Meg RAM (& Radeon aiw 7500 now in Sonja's machine).
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

Finally trying a EP-MVP3C VIAMVP chipset motherboard to get the A.I.W. Rage 128 AGP 32 meg unit to fully produce. It works fine in XP on a 440BX chipset motherboard , but not the GA-5AX rev 4.2 ALi 5 rev E. in Win98 S/E.
(enough time wasted there) :(

Will go back to another ALi 5 chipset motherboard only afterwards... :?
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

DasMan2 wrote:Finally trying a EP-MVP3C VIAMVP chipset motherboard to get the A.I.W. Rage 128 AGP 32 meg unit to fully produce. It works fine in XP on a 440BX chipset motherboard , but not the GA-5AX rev 4.2 ALi 5 rev E. in Win98 S/E.
(enough time wasted there) :(

Will go back to another ALi 5 chipset motherboard only afterwards... :?
I went back to the GA-5AX rev 5.2 (ALi 5)motherboard with the Radeon 7500 A.I.W. and that worked in Win 98 S/E as well as the GF 4 440 AGP unit.
I took out the ISA AWE 64 sound card and put in a PCI type and that seemed to help clear up some game running issues in the test that did not run smoothly before.
This means that the Nvidia were easier to run but the ATI cards were more choosey with compatibilty in the game running ...the TV portion ran fine even with the older ISA sound card.[AMD K6-2 or III 450"+" @550mhz original Radeon 7500 video drivers / Direct X 9.0c ,full Win 98 updates / ALi AGP / IDE drivers were older ones << not that was key ]

Took everything out of the rev 5.2 unit and placed them in the rev. 4.2 GA-5AX motherboard and the Radeon A.I.W. 7500 worked as it did in the other setup :) ... that means the AGP port works and the game test was similiar ...since the rev 4.2 is only UDMA 33 there is some performance dip where that comes into play but otherwise much better than 1st attempt.

The person posting with the A.I.W. Radeon 8500 AGP unit should be able to run that card at 500-550 mhz in a clean setup with Win 98S/E in the GA-5AX rev 4.2 or 5.2 edition. (IMO) 8)
User avatar
swaaye
Junior K6'er
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:53 pm

Post by swaaye »

I'm sure you're aware of this, but the problem lies with the AGP implementation of the Super 7 boards. It sucks, to put it plainly. The best cards for Super 7 are 3dfx cards for two reasons: 1) cuz they are basically just using AGP as if it were PCI and 2) cuz they have Glide and that has lower CPU usage than D3D/OGL in games that use it (especially Unreal). 3dfx Voodoo3 on up also have wonderful 2D speed and quality.

Believe it or not I discovered an original Radeon will perform slower than a Voodoo5 in MVP3 systems. A Radeon 7500 is a turbocharged original Radeon (290 MHz GPU vs. 166 MHz). It doesn't have support for anything more though. 8500 might let u run more games with its DX8.1 support though, if it'll work.

It's amazing how much better most video cards will work in an old Intel 440BX-based motherboard compared to a Super7 system.

ATI, Matrox, S3, and NV all had big troubles with Super7 AGP. On VIA boards the newer AGP drivers actually disable most of AGP's features to make things work better. Still, a Matrox G200 will not run right at AGP 2X (u must set BIOS to disable 2X).

All of these cards work flawlessly in a 440BX board. Heck, the S3 Savage2000 will not even boot into Windows 98 in a MVP3 while the same card works ok in the 440BX. I tried one only last year. I have a MVP3 system and a 440BX system built at home.
Chips
Junior K6'er
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:01 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

Post by Chips »

Hi Guys,

Whilst I realise what I'm about to say is a little late in the conversation, both myself and my work colleague have had absolutely no end of problems trying to get various Radeon 9200 family cards to work in Ali chipsets to a point we have given up.

The problem is that we continually get "VPU recover" errors meaning the card stops talking to the mainboard and has to auto-reset. We suspect it's peak power loading on the AGP bus is too much. Shame really, because when it was running it was awesome.

As for the VIA MVP3 now thats a different story!! Not only does it work OK, but I even use the latest Cataylst drivers as well!! 8)
My XP home Collection...

Radeon 9200SE, AMD K6-III+ 550Mhz, PC PARTNER VIA MVP3
2 x Voodoo2 12Mb (SLI) + Geforce2 MX400, AMD K6-III+ 600Mhz, Jetway ALI 542C
Radeon 9250, Intel PIII 1Ghz, ABIT BE6
Voodoo2 8Mb + Nvidia FX5200, Intel PIII 1.133Ghz, MS-6315
Voodoo5 5500 MAC PCI SLI, Intel PII 333, Intel P6LX-A+
Geforce 7800, Pentium M 2.16Ghz Core Duo, Dell Inspiron 9400
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Sounds like something for KachiWachi to look into. Would it be possible, (excuse my ignorance if what I am asking is off the wall), to rig some sort of auxilliary power supply to the card so it doesn't have to draw all of its power through the AGP bus?
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
User avatar
JonP
Newbie K6'er
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:09 am

So whats the verdict about GA-5AX best GPU

Post by JonP »

Guys - sorry to ressurect this one .
So what is the verdict for best stable GFX card - GF3 Ti200 - GF3 Ti500 ATI 8500 ???
what about the GF4 MX 440 .

What is the AGP speed anyway 2x or 4x on this mobo.

I have to buy a cheap upgrade GFX card for my mate to play SIMS2 - i got a funny feeling it might work and its worth a shot for a cheap $50 GPU.
FSB is stable on this board at 110mhz so K6-2 500 now at 550 (5.5 x 110)
its got XP and a *) gig HD after BIOS flash long time ago

I read it needs a low power GFX because the AGP is under vlted for higher end cards.
That would explain why a 9200SE agp i bought 3 years ago never worked

all advice acceptyed
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

The AGP Slot on the GA-5AX motherboard is AGP 2X .

I cannot say which card is the best for Sims2 , but I would go for a PCI version GF 4 MX440 type card. It would be avoiding the AGP issue altogether.

The ATI Radeon 7200/7500/8500 AGP cards should run cooler than GF 3 AGP Ti200/500's series when both are cooled with HS/Fan methods.
I speak from first hand experience as I own both a 7200/7500 and GF 3 Ti500 AGP cards and PCI versions of 7200/GF 4 MX440 cards.
User avatar
JonP
Newbie K6'er
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:09 am

Post by JonP »

OK thanks - problem is very hard to come by any decent PCI cards on Ebay.
Funny thing is i have a ASUS TNT2 agp running on that board and didnt have a problems getting it to work stable - and some have said its the hardest card to run - it played HL easy so maybe im lucky with my AGP slot - but had big problems with the ATI 9200SE card. So im probably going to steer clear of another ATI card
Maybe i will go for the GF4mx 440 because they say its a rebadged GF2mx which will suit me as it would have lower power requirements in the AGP alot.
Is this right ??
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

Every owner of AGP systems and various AGP video cards that may go into those same systems need to be aware and recognize the AGP slot pattern compatibility issues and power limitations when trying to use a particular AGP video card in their own systems.

Same can be stated for the PCI special 2.2 standard video cards or other PCI type 2.2 cards present and coming in the near future being attempted to use in PCI 2.1 slot only systems.

I would take more time to research the video cards that may be available presently as to which ones have the latest pixel shaders (or any on the card at all). Try getting a combo m.b.(chipset)+ video card (PCI or AGP) that will work and give utilization of those latest video advancements.

I think cooling will be important to be kept right down for long term stability...the room your motherboard provides the video card while also inside your case is another needed area to look into. Do not assume you will have the length or width available for just any AGP or even PCI video card desired.
The employed or intended employment of CPU/chipset/voltage heatsink(s) girth or even their height when used to cool even say the m.b. chipset may spoil a certain card choice or a certain slot picked out to use even for other cards than the video card.

I believe the O.S. latest updates should installed first, then the drivers for the ALi or VIA MVP3 chipsets next are important to know how to best orderly install Before installing the video card's proper intended updated driver. Necessary marching order a must for certain combo's to work at all .....not to mention the possible needed updating of the Motherboard's BIOS ! :shock:

After all that try to get the latest video card you can in a series put out fine tune afterwards. Your ATI Radeon 9200SE may work with some registry hacks to get properly (fully)activated :)
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

The ATI Radeon 9200 All-in-Wonder video card has pixel shaders where many of the other 9200/9250 and lesser radeon video cards DO NOT .

These maybe a factor on getting some required setups fine tuning resolved as some games may need the video card to have Pixel Shaders and the proper drivers for the videocard and chipset impliemented oveall .

Then of course the O.S. may have other issues to be tweaked to get it all going nicely.
User avatar
JonP
Newbie K6'er
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:09 am

Post by JonP »

Thanks Dasman
The BIOS i flashed about 2 years ago was the latest for the GA-5AX board as it enabled me to install a 80gig HD on that machine.
I dont reallt have time to tweak and try to sort out how to get a 9200 running - so im looking at finding the top gen card of the era that mobo was made assuming it will be compatible.
Im not bothered about heat issues mainly voltage compatibility on that agp slot and drivers
so im looking at a ati8500 64mb card or a geforce ti500 - ati is buy it now on enay at about $50us the ti500 is bidding .
i womdering if someone else had easy installation of the 8500 ?? DX 8 would be fine
or how did your geforce ti 500 go - it seems to be abit of a monster in that era
DonPedro
K6'er Elite
Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

I used various models of geforce-cards on ali-5 chipset mainboards (ga 5ax rev 5.2, asus p5a 1.03, 1.04). I had never had any trouble with installing an nvidia card including gf-2-mx, gf3-ti200, gf4-4200, gf fx5200, gf 5900). If I were you I would go for a "plain" gf3 card (no ti-xxx). the reason is that the drivers for that card are k6-"optimized", beginning with 12.xx. drivers above 20.xx start to degrade regarding best performance on a k6-system.

on the other hand installing an ati 8500 was never that easy. most of the time the card denied any screen refresh higher than 60hz. the biggest installation problems I had with two ati 9100 cards.
User avatar
JonP
Newbie K6'er
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:09 am

Post by JonP »

yeah -but choice is limited - no GF3 on ebay - G4 more common .
Was the 60hz refresh rate the only real issue with the 8500- because 60hz would be fine for sims 2 as vsync for frame rate isnt an issue for that game
Post Reply