Why cant I go 8x agp?

I have a radeon 9600xt 128mb ddr. The card says 4x/8x and my MSI motherboard says that it is 8x compatible. When I go to the bios and set agp to 8x and then change to 8x in the graphics properties the screen goes black and locks up. Then I have to reboot several times to get back to the properties screen to set the card back to 4x. It runs fine on this setting. What memory setting should I set the bios on 128 or 256? Someone please help this somewhat noob here. Thanks.

Maybe a chipset driver update or a BIOS update is needed?

AFAIK there's nothing special you have to do to get a card to run at 8X as long as they both support it.

Your bios probably has a setting for this that lets you select 4x or 8x, can't hurt to check.

in your bios see if fastwrite is on. if so turn it off and try setting the agp bus back to 8x and see if that helps


Neo

Set the memory at 128 or 64, i had the card and having too much memory will screw up your system, not perminent though.

I changed the setting in the bios to 8x, 128 mb and fast write off. Then I went in the display properties screen and changed smartgart to fast write off and agp to 8x and the system locked up in 15 sec. Had to reboot several times to get the bios and display properties back to 4x. I enabled fast write in the bios and smartgart while set in 4x agp and everything runs fine. Is this ok to leave it like this? Also I have the atitool and there are 2 different temps displayed. Which one should I watch when I try the mem and core overclock?

I have to run my 9600XT agp4X too. Fastwrites on gets better performance for me.

i have my 9600XT running fine at AGP8X, 256mb and fastwrite on. and the temps. displayed in the ATITool is ur GPU temp and the GPU environment temp. just watch ur GPU temp. mine's currently oc'ed at 550/330, and the temp doesnt go over 38c after a couple of hours of hl2. sounds like u have some kinda compatibility issue.