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

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

@ DonPedro: Thanks a million!! This really is the info that I was looking for. I'll be searching for some GeForce 3 card then. By the way, I'm running on Win98SE...
Guest

Post by Guest »

Or an Ati Radeon 8500, I'm not yet sure about that...
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

I've bought a second-hand All-in-wonder Radeon 8500 with a passive heatsink :). It will be delivered this week... I'm really wondering how massive the increase in performance will be :). A GeForce 3 Ti200/Ti500 was hard to find and more expensive...
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

a_tewinkel I would like to know your scores on what ever programs /games you set-up your Super 7 system with.

You stated to have a GA-5AX rev 4.1 , my family member is being switched over to that exact board from a slightly lower Socket 7 system that did not have a AGP slot. Taking out the 4meg PCI video card to put in a 32 meg AGP ATI A.I.W. Rage 128 (non-pro).

The CPU is a AMD K6-2 450"+" / 256 megs SDRAM / 15 gig 7200 rpm 2mb cache H.D. /

Like to run @ 100 -110 fsb speed and 5 or 5.5 or 6x multiplier to get 550 to 605 speed. Important will be getting stable T.V. viewing in the end.

Before that I will run a A.I.W. ATI Radeon 7500 AGP card to a comparison between what will be placed in there.

I have a GA-5AX rev. 5.1 also ...both Giga-byte boards have been BIOS updated already.
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

Well, the first dissapointment is here. I've installed the card and drivers (older version of 2002), and I get an error when starting Aliens versus Predator and the game crashes :( . I'll try the newer drivers (2005) and hope that these will work...
Guest

a_tewinkel

Post by Guest »

Okay, the newer drivers don't solve anything. Now, I've tried GTA Vice City. This game cannot find enough video memory... :( . I'm getting the impression that the Ati drivers are really bad...
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

This seems to be a disaster :cry: . There isn't a single game that recognizes the Radeon 8500 as a 3D accellerator... What should I do now???
DonPedro
K6'er Elite
Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

a_tewinkel,

in order to get a working agp-graphic system on ali-5 boards, I usually install driver/software in the following order:

1. agp-driver (I use agp-driver 1.81)
2. graphics card driver
3. directx

so when you are now in a mess, try the following:

first, get the tool drivercleaner (version 1.5 is up2date), install it. read their help-files, on how it is supposed to work.
second, uninstall graphics driver (via controlpanel/software).
in order to completely get rid of all ati-dlls, start drivercleaner as directed in their help-file. this will include one or more reboots and if I remember corrrectly you will be directed to start windows in vga-mode to do the driver-cleaning.
back in normal windows, uninstall agp-driver: just run the agp-driver installation again, it will detect that agp-driver is installed and will ask you if you want to uninstall. do this with the SAME version you installed. reboot.
then install agp-driver again.
then install graphics driver: if feasible (sometimes it works, sometimes not, depends on driver version) try to install the graphics driver not by running the setup-programme, instead, try to dezip the driver into some directory and then go to hardware management, graphics card, and click the driver-button from there. you will be asked to point to the directory where the driver will be found. reboot.
last point is to install directx (again).

once you are finished with this procedure, click start, run, type in "dxdiag". there you can check whether agp-acceleration is activated and you can perform some tests.

let us know the results.
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

Yeah, on the 1st page I posted it would be better to leave the ATI Radeon card in standard video driver mode ..then install the ALi AGP driver/IDE driver and then possible all your Win 98 S/E updates before putting in the ATI proper video driver.

I have done this several times to kind of expect this is about standard procedure with Socket 7 motherboards for ATI or Nvidia AGP cards.

There are some registry hacks to help make sure some of the video card functions are accessable ...you can do that later though.

Patience , you will succeed :P
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

Okay, I've followed the procedure. Instead of removing drivers, I've just re-installed Windows after formatting... Now, when in dxdiag.exe, I see that AGP-acceleration is not available. I'll try to run Aliens Vs Predator again, but I'm not very hopeful...
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

The installer of AvP now freezes when I have to insert disc 2. I'm almost becoming paranoid of all the lockups I've had the past two days... I'll try some other games...
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

I've tried to install about 5 different games, but every time the installer crashes or the game itself :x... So I think there is reason to believe that it doesn't work :?
By the way, I've installed a Creative Soundblaster Live! 24 bit... My old sound card sounded very bad (extremely high distortion), it was probably dying.
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KGB
K6'er
Posts: 98
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2003 7:55 pm

Post by KGB »

Do you have any other system to test out this new video card on? If not, continue testing it, what I mean is, if 2D is working, maybe there is a problem with the card in 3D. Can you run tests? ie Prime95, then 3DMark 2001 to see if any game (simulated or not) can run on it. That could provide you some information. Also take out all PCI and isa cards, run the system bare (yeah no sound) and see if it still has issues.

I recall recommending you a card like the 8500, but I heavily stressed getting an Nvidia Geforce 2 or higher card, they have worked flawlessly for me. Better yet still, good luck with the card.
-K6-2 550 Gigagyte GA-5AX (5.2) 1x512MB GeForce 2 Ti500 64MB
-Pentium III 933 Asus P3C-L 2x128MB GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB DDR
-Pentium III 750 Asus P3B-F ATi Rage128 GL 32MB
-Celeron 1.2 Asus TUSI-M 2x128MB
-Pentium IV 1.5 DELL 2350 1x128MB
-Athlon 900 Asus K7M 1x256MB 2x128MB GeForce 3 64MB
-AthlonXP-M 2400+ Asus K7V880 2x512MB HIS Radeon HD3850 512MB DDR
DonPedro
K6'er Elite
Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

In case you overclocked somehow your system then reset it to default values (fsb, ram-timing). also set agp-speed to 1x.

and you should follow kgb's hint to test the card on another system. maybe your card is broken because the one who sold it to you OVERclocked it a bit too far.
a_tewinkel

Post by a_tewinkel »

I'll swap it with the Geforce 2 MX 400 of my parents on monday... I'll post the results when I'm done.
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