• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Just got a P4C800E...

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Butters

Registered
Joined
Jan 13, 2003
...and I am having a few problems. First off my Radeon 9700 pro is apparently too early a revision for stable operation.
"If installing the ATI 9500 or 9700 Pro Series VGA cards, use only the card version PN xxx-xxxxx-30 or later, for optimum performance and overclocking stability"
My 9700 is a xxx-xxxxx-11, how come these early ones are supported?

The specific problems I am having is that on the occasional reboot I can't get past POST, the monitor just sits there without displaying anything. This also happens when I enable Performance mode for the RAM or if I change the memory speeds to anything other than SPD. I updated to the latest BIOS and that did not fix anything.
Also sometimes during POST I get an error saying CPU overclock failure but I am not overclocking. Other times I get a checksum error and I have to restore the BIOS(which is not the newest one) and then redo all my settings, which can send me back into the monitor not loading anything.

My second problem is this: "Don't forget to connect the CPU fan connector! Hardware monitoring errors may occur if you fail to plug this connecter."
I have watercooling in my computer therefore no CPU fan to plug in. It also says somewhere in the manual about not being able to just use a jumper cap to block it. Is there anywhere to disable this or will I have to plug a casefan in?

I can also replace my 9700 but I only want to do that if absolutely necessary.

So any suggestions?
 
I have been given some workarounds for the same problem with the Asus P4G8X board, but I thought that it was a problem with the 7205 chipset and AGP 3.0

I have not heard of the problem with the P4C800-E (and hope that it is not widespread, cause that's the board that I'm getting under RMA to replace the P4G8X)

I can send you the Asus workarounds if you like
 
I have found the same trouble but only when not using the auto mode for performance in the bios (no turbo or standard mode) however my mobo is different than yours.
I think it may be ram related but not sure at this point.
Essentially the no post is bios related with respect to settings related to the hardware in use. Nothing wrong with trying though, good luck
With reference to the hardware monitor it should be easy to turn this off, I would think by highlighting the fan speed in the bios and then hit "enter" for the option.
Steve
 
Yo BUTTERS..... those workarounds I sent help at all??

I am still having a dickens of a time with my P4G8X-9700Pro mix, despite the fact that my 9700Pro ends in "30"

Cheers
 
Fritzman,

Could Ya possibly post those workarounds?

Theres a few more people having that same problem with the P4C and I'm one. I have 2 of these boards and they are both Rev. 1.03 and one does no post thing and the other works great.

The store I bought mine from has had 3 returned with the same problem. They are all 1.03's.

Would help out a lot of people to see those workarounds :)

Thanks
 
Here goes....

"from ASUS Vincent"


It is the potential problem between some particular versions of ATI9700 series card with Intel E7205 chipset. P4G8X works fine with other AGP 3.0 VGA cards.

There are three ways to have this fixed:
1. Send the card back to ATI for replacement of other versions.
(The version number is the last two digits of the PN number printed on the top left hand side of the card, we currently notice three different versions, being
10, 11, and 30, but so far ATI has refused to tell us what is the difference between them.)
One of our other customer has all their ATI cards replaced a few months ago due to this issue, and everything is fixed since that replacement.

2. Disable "AGP FastWrite" under windows. Though we have the switch in BIOS to allow users to disable this function, ATI driver will overwrite the setting,
and force to enable it again after you install their driver. To fix this issue, please follow the following steps:
1) Have Win XP SP1 system (SP1 necessary) and all appropriate chipset-drivers correctly installed.
2) Download and install the latest drivers (Catalyst 3.1 or later)
3) Install the ATI control panel
4) Disable "Enable write combining" in Display Properties/Advanced/Troubleshooting
5) Disable "Fast Writes" in Display Properties/Advanced/SmartGART
If "Smart gart" isn't installed or just buggy please try powerstrip
instead: ( http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm )
Note: You have to install the Catalyst drivers via the setup program (not the "have disk" way) to get access to the "Smartgart" control tab.
PS: You may experience some performance drop if you have decided to use alternative 2 as disabling AGP FastWrite will make AGP8X no longer fully AGP8X.

3. Please ensure your ATI driver has driver version 6.14.10.6334 for both ati2dvag.dll and ati2mtag.sys to fix the issue which has to be fixed by disabling Fast Write in the past.
(cards with PN ends with "-30" is still highly recommended.)
You should also update your P4G8X BIOS to the latest 1006 release to prevent other issues from using this combination.

Best Regards!

Vincent Liu

Technical Support Dept.
ASUStek Computer Inc.
 
I have the P4C800-E and still have the P4C800 Dlx awaiting a new CPu. I have a 9700pro with the "11". I have used the VidCard on both MotherBoards with success. I have used BIOS 1005/6/8/11 all without a hiccup. When i first read in my MB manual that you may encounter problems with any version other then "30" i was very worried. I would first try with fritzman recommended then go from there. Hope all goes well. Keep us posted.
 
Back