ACPI is one of the few things that actually shares IRQs very nicely with
other devices, in particular it's the one device that nVidia card-makers say
it's okay to share with the AGP video card. I personally don't recommend
disabling the ACPI IRQ. All of the Ultra cards use the 4-pin Molex
connector, at least all of the Ultra cards I have seen as well as all FX
5800 and FX 5900 cards, and from what I understand you DO need it connected
for the card to work properly. The only FX 5600 and 5200 Ultra cards from
Gainward have the words "Golden Sample" in their product name(s). The Ultra
760 and Ultra 780 are NOT FX 5600 Ultra cards unless they have the "Golden
Sample" in the product name. Look at the specs, go to Gainward and look for
yourself (
www.gainward.com/c-2.html) and you will see that the only FX 5X00
Ultra cards have the words "Golden Sample" in their product name.
Personally I think it's a monstrous marketing mistake by Gainward and it's
more than a little misleading to consumers, but when has honesty and
integrity been a priority for marketing computer hardware/software recently?
Ron
"missmuffy33" wrote in message
t...
thanks for the info Stephen
i do have my vid card on its own irq, in fact the only irq sharing is with
my 2 nics (both on irq 11)... otherwise everything is on its own
i haven't disabled acpi yet so i'm looking into that
any advice with that?
seems like i have to do it in my bios...
- kevin
"Stephen" wrote in message
m...
Terry, thanks for your suggestion. I'm fairly certain that the last
time I installed the card it was on it's own power supply, but I will
certainly keep that in mind in the future.
Kevin, my video card (all Gainward FXs?) does actually need a separate
power supply - like hard drives! I've never seen one like it before.
As for your problem - I had the same motherboard and Athlon 900 as
you. When I installed my old Geforce 2 on it I had similar problems to
you. I solved them by moving my sound and network cards around until
neither were sharing IRQs (especially with the video card) and I also
disabled ACPI - I was (and still am) running Windows 98SE. I guess
you've already tried those things. I didn't have the flickering effect
though.
Mario, I'm sure you're absolutely correct, but in my BIOS, the only
option was to raise the voltage - so that was what I tried!
Thanks for all your suggestions.
Mario Kadastik wrote in message
...
wrote:
On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 21:31:22 GMT, "missmuffy33"
wrote:
sorry to be a dope terry, but i'm not sure what you mean when you
say
"try
giving the card its own power supply"
the card plugs right into the mobo and draws power that way... not
by
sharing a 4-pin connector like what plugs into a hard drive
i must be missing something
this is of interest to me since i am having the EXACT same problem
but
with
different specs (see the thread subject "geforce fx 5200 on athlon
900"):
PNY Verto GeForce FX 5200 128meg (non-ultra)
Abit KT7 (latest bios and latest VIA 4-in-1)
Athlon Thunderstruck 900
512 PC133
2 NICS (realtek & netgear)
SB PCI 512
Antec 300 W PSU
Windows XP Pro, SP1
i also play different games...
Check you suplly votages and some Bios setups let you adj the 3.3 V,
so set
this for 3.4V or 3.5v as I have had similar problems
Low Votages will cause problems with 3D cards as they draw lots of
AMP's
Sorry, if it's a stupid question, but isn't normally lowering voltage
a
way to get more AMPS? As far as I know
W=U*I
where W is power (measured in Watts), U is voltage (in volts) and I is
current (measured in ampers).
Using AC current there is also a sqrt(2) in this formula, but as the
internal power should be DC, then this formula should do.
This wouldn't be correct if the power supply is designed to give more
amps with more voltage (W would be a a higher order function of U and
hence increase in voltage would cause a bigger increase in W and
therefore giving you more amps).
Someone knowing the design of power supplys should comment on this
(not
that it might help the user having crashes 
but I'd like to know).
Mario