Massive problem!

Granted, I get a new motherboard come Monday (with luck), but on my current system, here's the specifications followed by the problem:

Specifications:

Operating System: Tri-Boot (Windows XP Professional SP2 (Broken due to AGP driver update), Windows 2000 Professional SP4 (Current), Windows 98 Second Edition (Not in use by SecondLife))
Form Factor: ATX
Chipset: AMD-761 Northbridge/VIA 686B Southbridge
Processor: AMD Athlon Thunderbird (1.2GHz)
Memory: 1GB PC-266 DDR-SDRAM (2x512MB DIMMs, CLK 2-2-2-6)
Video Interface: AGP 4x
Video Card: nVidia GeForceFX 5700LE (256MB)
Audio Output: SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer, Yamaha SW1000XG (Not in use by SecondLife)
Storage: 240GB (1xWD Caviar (111GB, Page [PS]), 1xMaxtor (114GB, Boot [PM]), 1xWD Caviar (15GB, OS [SM])


The problem:

SecondLife complains about the lack of AMD AGP drivers and runs the card in PCI mode.. which works, but is incredibly slow. I tried the latest drivers from both AMD and ASUS, and both caused massive graphical corruption on-boot. Even Safe Mode was a pain to go into to fix the corruption, since AMDAGP(2K/XP).SYS loads at boot-time. Under all 3 operating systems, this new driver did NOT work. This is not SecondLife's fault, however, but I feel it should be mentioned anyways.

Upon locating the CD that came with the motherboard, I tried those drivers. SecondLife no longer complains (from what I can tell); however, all I see is a small blue box with what appears to be alot of corruption. I have since re-installed the nVidia drivers to ensure they were 100% up-to-date, but still get the same result. Now I'm just looking for more suggestions, 'cause I've tried just about everything this tinkering mind of mine can come up with.

It seems that anything using the AGP acceleration at this point is broken. I'm going to reboot and observe BIOS settings, then reboot several times to see if I can get it to function correctly in other modes of video card memory access and whether or not 2x and 4x have a difference. I'll post my findings here.

Well, I tried fiddling with all the settings I felt comfortable with changing (I left the AGP Drive Control at Auto, I have no idea what any of that stuff means and couldn't find an info online about it), and the only thing I noticed was what almost seemed like a lock-up when Windows went to initialize the graphics card.. but it freed up and continued booting. Unfortunately, there's no change in the behaviours otherwise.

You may wish to try http://www.drivercleaner.net/ as many have reported here that installing new video drivers sometimes leaves old, incompatible files still installed. I've not used it myself, but reports on these forums have sometimes been favorable.

Nope.. unfortunately, that didn't do a thing. I've got my main machine sitting in the BIOS right now, and I'm staring at the AGP Signal/Drive Strength and Data Strobe settings, preparing to start goofing with them. In all the other computers that had these options, the signal/drive strength was different than it is on this board, I now just have to figure out in what way. If I can correctly set this, well.. I may have it made. We'll see.

Thanks for the feedback, though.

It might help if you actually inserted a 8x AGP card into a 8x AGP motherboard instead of a 4x one.

Have you tried disabling AGP Fast Writes in your BIOS? Try that.

All AGP 8X-supporting motherboards should fall-back to 4X operation if the card does not support it, but I suppose forcing the board into 4X operation wouldn't hurt either. This option should also be in your BIOS settings.

8x is backward-compatible. All but two of the other motherboards I have tested this card in were 4x, and even a 2x used it without the issues I have now. No offence, but that comment sounded a little presumptuous and said without research. Also see the next quote.



Oops, missed the fast writes part of the quote.. but yes, disabled or enabled either way don't seem to make a difference with this motherboard. In some of the others it did, but this one doesn't seem to care either way. But I also see no performance change with it on or off, either one. Right now, it's off.

4x is set and in use and I've also tried it with 4x disabled. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is at this point except the motherboard's CPU-to-AGP controller being fragged, since it only seems to 'break' when the drivers are actually putting it to use.

I have a new motherboard on its way.. should be here either Tuesday or Wednesday one, so I'll have my 8x AGP slot and my P4 2.4GHz will be put back to use. That should solve the majority of my recent problems with this old POS.

Thanks for the input, though.

PS: The other motherboards used for testing were either not mine (my room mate's) or were old and don't support my 1.2GHz processor.

I've actually made a personal mistake of purchasing an 8x card (FX 5700) for a 4x motherboard before. What the graphics card says it will do, isn't what it ended up doing. So I replaced the motherboard with an 8x one. I think more likely, the drivers didn't recognise that my motherboard was old.

No idea. In personal experience with AGP, the only motherboard I ever had that an 8x card didn't work in was an MSI, and that was because the AGP voltage didn't match up to the requirments the 8x card had. The 5700LE that I have (Chaintech) seems to support just about any voltage necissary to work with most AGP slots, except maybe the older AGP Pro types.

As far as I can see, voltage isn't a problem with this board.. the MSI board would freak out and say there was no usable video interface (via BIOS beep codes) the moment I turned it on and refused to boot. This one (from what I've read) would do the same thing. I would test an older card on this board, but that would eliminate my purpose of even using it to play SecondLife, since the oldest "good" card I have available in AGP is a dual-head Matrox G4+ 16MB.