How to make ATI Radeon 9700 Pro work with ASUS PXG8X

Preface:
========
I wrote this article for my future reference as I am too lazy to
remember things. Yet I believe it may help most of the unlucky
people who run ATI Radeon 9700 Pro on ASUS P4G8X [Deluxe].

Problem:
========
* spontaneous reboots when running 3D applications
* random system hangs when running 3D applications
* random crashes in ati2dvag when running 2D applications, e.g.
BugCheck EA - THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER - GRAPHICS_DRIVER_FAULT
in ati2dvag.dll

Frequency:
==========
* varies from several times an hour to several times a week

Solution:
=========
Please note that the order of the steps is important:

1) Update ASUS BIOS to the latest release.
I used: ASUS P4G8X ACPI BIOS Revision 1005 05/09/2003
2) Reboot, update DirectX to the latest release.
I used: DirectX 9.0a 4.09.0000.0901
3) Reboot, update ATI Video Driver to the latest release.
I used: CATALYST 3.5 6.14.10.6360 06/02/2003
4) Reboot, update ATI Control Panel to the latest release.
I used: ATI Control Panel 6.14.10.5014 06/05/2003
5) Reboot, configure BIOS in the following way:

Advanced:
---------
-- AGP/PCI Frequency Setting: Manual
-- AGP/PCI Frequency (MHz): 66.66/33.33
-- AGP Voltage: 1.7V

Advanced--Chip Configuration:
------------------------------
-- Memory Turbo: Enabled
-- AGP Capability: 4x Mode
-- Video Memory Cache: USWC

6) Boot up, configure Display Properties in the following way:

Control Panel--Display--Settings--Advanced--SMARTGART(tm):
-------------------------------------------------------------
-- Set AGP Speed: 4X
-- Fast Write: Off

7) Reboot. The system should be stable now. Enjoy.

Note:
=====
The above mentioned changes have small to none impact on the
performance of the system.

About Author:
=============
Author has six month experience with P4G8X and Radeon 9700. Low level
kernel UNIX/Windows debugging has been his daily bread for quite some
time. He enjoyed dealing with this problem, especially e-mailing with
ATI "Support" :-) Damn you, useless guys!

by
--PaShu

Lots of work to do, hmmm.....

All I had to do was disable 'fast writes'.

That was months ago and system been 100% stable

No updating the BIOS
Bog standard 300w ps
no graphic changes to BIOS
running AGP 8x
Great performance

do de dum doh

Glad to hear that. Unfortunately mere disabling Fast Write did not help in
my case. That was the first thing I did and it helped only partially - most
applications got stable (even 2D started to behave), but some (Half-Life:
Day of Defeat, Line of Sight: Vietnam) kept on crashing regardless. I think
in my particular case the most important steps we

* install the latest DirectX
* THEN reinstall the ATI Video Driver
* THEN disable Fast Write and set AGP to 4x - both in SMARTGART

Regards,

PaShu

"Alan Coates" wrote in message
...
Lots of work to do, hmmm.....

All I had to do was disable 'fast writes'.

That was months ago and system been 100% stable

No updating the BIOS
Bog standard 300w ps
no graphic changes to BIOS
running AGP 8x
Great performance

do de dum doh

"PaShu" wrote in message
.rogers.com...
Glad to hear that. Unfortunately mere disabling Fast Write did not help in
my case. That was the first thing I did and it helped only partially -
most
applications got stable (even 2D started to behave), but some (Half-Life:
Day of Defeat, Line of Sight: Vietnam) kept on crashing regardless. I
think
in my particular case the most important steps we

* install the latest DirectX
* THEN reinstall the ATI Video Driver
* THEN disable Fast Write and set AGP to 4x - both in SMARTGART

Doesn´t it work with 1,5V AGP-signalling? Is 1,7V a requirement?