EPoX 8K7A+ question...

[Jon]

I'm an AMD virigin as this is my first system from them and have a relatively AMDumb question.

Does this board take the entire Via 4-in-1 driver set or just the BusMaster driver? I haven't really found the answer in the manual and the disk seems to only have the Miniport and BusMaster drivers available for Win2K.

Thanks...

 

[Wa11y]

I have another AMD board, the Gigabyte GA-7ZX. I have no idea what the VIA 4-in-1 drivers do. My guess would be if those are the only ones available for 2K, just use those. But be careful what load you use. I used 4.23 and I hosed my system. Then I tried again loading 4.32 while in safe mode, installing them one at a time then rebooting, and it seemed to work. So just be careful.

 

[Richard]

Just use the AMD specific drivers on the CDROM. Win2k, supports the 686b southbridge swimmingly. There are no performance differences that I could ascertain.

Jon (Jul 28, 2001 10:13 p.m.):
I'm an AMD virigin as this is my first system from them and have a relatively AMDumb question.

Does this board take the entire Via 4-in-1 driver set or just the BusMaster driver? I haven't really found the answer in the manual and the disk seems to only have the Miniport and BusMaster drivers available for Win2K.

Thanks...

 

[Jon]

How do you get 4X AGP enabled on this thing? I've tried everything I can think of. It's enabled in the BIOS but it's at 1X in Win2K. I've tried using PowerStrip and RivaTuner but neither of them stick.

I had 3D2K1 marks of over 5800 on my VP6 and I just squeaked by a 2416 a few minutes ago. This is not good.

 

[Bobby Manus]

You can enable 4x agp with a software program like powerstrip??? I never even knew this. Try seting it in the bios and if that does not work try a jumper.

 

[Richard]

Give this a shot.

Make sure SBA is disabled in bios.
Disable fast writes (if it's optional.)
Set AGP to 4x.

Increase DDR voltage to 2.7v

If the problems with poor AGP performance persist. Remove your vid card drivers. (Reset to VGA video card w/ 256 colors @ 640 * 480)

Reinstall the AMD AGP miniport for Win2k.

Reboot.

Reinstall the vid card drivers.

Hopefully, that will cure your poor AGP performance.

Jon (Jul 29, 2001 02:09 a.m.):
How do you get 4X AGP enabled on this thing? I've tried everything I can think of. It's enabled in the BIOS but it's at 1X in Win2K. I've tried using PowerStrip and RivaTuner but neither of them stick.

I had 3D2K1 marks of over 5800 on my VP6 and I just squeaked by a 2416 a few minutes ago. This is not good.

 

[Jon]

Haha...apparently I never even had the miniport drivers installed. Man, this is all so different. My other 5 PCs are all Intel and I can reinstall and get them all up and done in the time it's taken me to get the video to work correctly on this one.

I'm happy with it so far. 10x 150 for 1.5 GHz at 1.92v. I'm hoping it can get close to 166 so I can hit that 1/5 divisor. My temps under load seem to be kind've high though, about 53C. I've got a Millenium Glaciator on it with 4 80mm case fans in an Antec SoHo Fileserver case. Maybe after a couple days of burning in I'll lower the voltage and see if that helps any.

Thanks for the help, though. Much appreciated and I'm sure I'll need to know more soon.

 

[FRANK]

>My temps under load seem to be kind've high though, about 53C. I've got a Millenium Glaciator on it with 4 80mm case fans in an Antec SoHo Fileserver case. Maybe after a couple days of burning in I'll lower the voltage and see if that helps any.<

First off, Welcome to the AMD side!

I'm sure you've done your homework, but just a reminder. The AMD chips run a lot hotter than their Intel counterparts. This combined with inaccurate monitoring programs, ASUS Probe being one of the worst offenders, I've learned to rely more on consistency in the reported temps (watching for unexplained increases) after I've overclocked my systems to a stable speed. This method as well as watching stability seems to have served me well.

Good Luck!

 

[Jon]

I did know they run quite a bit hotter than Intel, just wasn't completely sure as to what was considered TOO high. I suppose 53C is within a safe range for load temps...this is with two instances of SETI running.

This particular chip runs at a default core of 1.89V as well, so I'd say I can knock it back down to that after a couple more days, hopefully. That should lower it around 50C-51C which, I guess, is ok. Certainly better.

 

[FRANK]

My temps are regularly in the mid 50C's, sometimes pushing the upper 50's. AMD says that the chip is good to 90C. In my experience you'll run into other problems long before hitting temps that high. Like I said in my previous reply, I use a "seat of the pants" method of monitoring the temps. I'll probably hear a lot of discussion on that method but it's worked for me to this point.

I've tried the MBM5 and don't really see where it's any more reliable than the onboard programs. Keep in mind that with these other programs, you still have to allow for the inaccurate readings of the resident program meaning that there's still a question of accuracy. The next logical step would be installing an additional thermistor along with the logistical problems associated with that solution, such as placing the probe between the processor and heat sink or drilling the heat sink to accept it. This has to be done in such a way not to increase the risk of damaging the fragile core of processors that already have a propensity to crack or chip.

I guess there are different thoughts on the expected results of our endeavors. Mine is to have a very fast and "reliable" system of which this is a goal that I've been able to achieve with several very stable systems up and running SETI 24 / 7 as well as anything else that I want to throw at them.

Just my thoughts.

 

[AZZKICKER]

here is aprogram that will let you change itftp://ftp.zdnet.com/threedee/tweakfiles/video/ZTAGPTool.zip

make sure your agp is set to 4X in the bios

defalt on most boards is 2X