Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

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4thman
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Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

Post by 4thman »

Getting this m/b to build a box for the kids,it will have a k6-2 266 when I get it.I will get a faster chip for it.Pcb and bios rev are unknown.I've heard it's difficult to get an agp card to run on this board.What vid card will run ok on it?I 've had conflicting advice.I'm hoping a user here(glad I found this forum) has some experience with this.Thanks <p></p><i></i>
georgep1
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Re: Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

Post by georgep1 »

Super7 boards are somewhat fickle when it comes to AGP cards. Whatever you do, you should probably make sure you do the following:<br><br>1. Get the latest BIOS for the 503+ at <br><br>ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/bios/motherboards/ ... br><br>and flash it using the procedures found here<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.fic.com.tw/techsupport/bios/ ... <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>2. Get the latest Via 4in1 drivers from www.viaarena.com and install them.<br><br>3. Install DirectX 8.1 from www.microsoft.com/directx<br><br>FIC's FAQ on the 503+ is at<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.fic.com.tw/techsupport/faq/f ... <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>An unofficial 503+ support page is at<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.caprok.net/dave/">www.caprok ... <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>If you want pure compatibility and decent performance, get a Voodoo3 or 4 or 5. Problem is, no more official drivers since 3dfx is dead.<br><br>nvidia cards have plenty of support, and a GF2 MX400 draws very little current, performs well on these systems, and has been compatible with a wide range of Super7 motherboards. However, the best drivers for most games for Via MVP3 chipset motherboards are in the 7.58 > 12.90 range. Later versions hamper performance in a lot of games.<br><br>An ATI Radeon 7200 should work okay, but the best performance on Super7 systems with these cards is with Win2K/WinXP.<br><br>As you can see, there are some limitations with these old mobos. If you get an nvidia or ATI card, and you get lockups in games, you may need to reinstall the Via AGP driver in Standard/Normal mode, instead of Turbo. <p> Epox MVP3G5, K6-3+450@618, 256MB SDRAM, CL GF2 GTS, IBM 60GXP 20GB, Fortissimo II Sound<BR>ASUS TX97-XE, K6-3+450@500, 256MB SDRAM, Voodoo4 4500 PCI, WD 40GB, SB AWE64 Sound </p><i></i>
E-Machines T6000 (AMD64 3200+) (Don't laugh! It absolutely rocks!)
GigaByte K7N400 Pro2, 3200+, 1 GB DDR, 80 GB WD SE
Epox MVPG5, K6-III+@550, 384 SDRAM, 80 GB WD SE
TX97-XE, K6-III+@400, 256 SDRAM, 40 GB WD HD
4thman
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Re: Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

Post by 4thman »

Thanks georgep1,thats the kind of help I was looking for.Would it matter if the voodoo3/4/5 was pci or agp?I've d/loaded a modded bios that disables acpi(je4333).Some prob. occurred with shutdown in Win 98 with At power supplys.Not sure if I need it.Thanks for the procedure. <p></p><i></i>
mulvihill
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Re: Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

Post by mulvihill »

The JE4333 bios enables the use of the K6-2+ and K6-III+ chips and also supports hard drives up to 128 GB. I had not heard of it disabling acpi. As a matter of fact, I have just flashed a VA-503+ with the JE4333 bios and am presently dealing with a mess that appears to have been created by acpi. According to Jonwest01, in a recent post, bios PNP support must be disabled in BIOS if you don't want shut down problems. I assume this means saying NO to "PnP Management by APM". Perhaps one of the many illustrious VA-503+ owners in this forum could clear this up.<br>I have paired the 503 with a Radeon VE, used the old chipset patch and miniport router from the original mobo disc and the AGP driver from the ATI disc and the system seems stable except for that annoying shutdown problem.<br>Is 98SE, by default, going to do a better job of assigning resources than acpi? <p></p><i></i>
georgep1
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Re: 503+

Post by georgep1 »

With Voodoos, PCI is as good as AGP. PCI was actually better on my Epox G5. <p></p><i></i>
E-Machines T6000 (AMD64 3200+) (Don't laugh! It absolutely rocks!)
GigaByte K7N400 Pro2, 3200+, 1 GB DDR, 80 GB WD SE
Epox MVPG5, K6-III+@550, 384 SDRAM, 80 GB WD SE
TX97-XE, K6-III+@400, 256 SDRAM, 40 GB WD HD
760MPX
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Re: Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

Post by 760MPX »

The AGP slot on the VA-503+ shares an IRQ with its adjacent PCI slot (the 3rd one from the left, i.e., the 1st one from the right). My VA-503+ used to have a MX200 and a Promise ATA card next to the MX200. It gave me occasional lockups even during normal usage. I don't know whether the lockups were caused by IRQ sharing or not. but both the MX200 and Promise ATA card do require an IRQ. The lockups ceased once I replaced the MX200 with a Diamond Stealth III S540, which doesn't require an IRQ. My VA-503+ is now used mainly as a server, so the crappy performance of the Stealth III doesn't matter at all.<br> <p></p><i></i>
4thman
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Re: Fic 503+,whats a decent vid card this m/b?

Post by 4thman »

mulvihill,I downloaded the modded je4333 bios at a posting I made at Anandtech in the motherboard forum.Search for Fic 503+,the user who modded it is "tcsenter". <p></p><i></i>
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jsc1973
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Post by jsc1973 »

I wish I could help, having been a user of the 503+ for about four years now, but I've never had these kinds of problems. The system has been on the same components for two and a half years now:

* 503+, K6-III+ 450@550, JE4333 BIOS
* Win 2000 Pro, SP2 at installation, later upgraded to SP3
* GF2 MX200 video
* TB Montego II sound

I clean-installed Win2K with an old ISA video card installed and nothing else, then SP2 and DX 8.
After that came the MX200 and the soundcard, and later a NIC for Internet access. Just installed them one by one, along with the drivers.

It's using ACPI, on an AT power supply, and Win2K assigned all the resources automatically. Never had a problem with it.

Back when it had 98 on it, I had to manually assign an IRQ to the soundcard, but that was a little different hardware configuration.
mulvihill
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Post by mulvihill »

To get rid of those shutdown problems with a VA-503+ on an AT power supply with a 4333 BIOS, reinstall Win 98SE without ACPI. This is done by using the /p i switch.
ie setup /p i
With XP you could try going into Device Manager and reinstalling the ACPI driver. Choose "Show all hardware of this device class" and choose "Standard PC".
A better way to do it may be to do a "repair install" of XP. Near the beginning of the installation when it suggests that you press F7 to install SCSI or RAID drivers, Press F5 instead. This will yield a menu of Hardware Abstraction Layer types. Choose "Standard PC". This installs without ACPI.
ACPI is quite good at managing IRQs and other resources but is not able to manage power in some of these early "ACPI compliant" BIOSes. APM is the Standard PC power manager and does a reasonable job of assigning resources. At least it will give you the option of making some changes to resource assignments, whereas ACPI will not. :wink:
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