VIA chipset & Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 problems?

Does anyone have a thought on what could be causing general system
lock ups (requiring a reboot)? Here is the lowdown on what I am
running

-Abit VP6 MB (using VIA "apollo pro 133a" chipset)
-1 gb of crucial pc133 memory (purchased at same time)
-HPT 370 ATA/RAID controller (bios version 2.34) (runs as ATA 100
controller only)
-one 40 gb maxtor ATA 133 hdd
-one 120 gb western digital ATA 100 hdd
-SB Live! sound card
-general 1394 pci card
-3com 905X NIC
-two P3 933 cpus (purchased retail at same time)

-and lastly, MadDog Multimedia Nvidia GeForce FX5200 video card.

The problem is it just randomy locks up, more often when I start doing
graphics editing, or games. That nvidia chip supposedly only will run
at 4X or 8X bus speed, but because of some VIA/Nvidia problems (or so
I've read) it only runs at 2X. An attempt using a registry hack to
make it go 4X didn't help stability at all. Am currently running the
certified 53.03 drivers.

Bought this cheap card as a poor graduate student to replace an ATI
radeon 7200 VIVO (64mb ddr) that for some bloody reason, I could not
get to work with any drivers...wondering if I should have just plugged
away on that. Until this summer, when I had problems with the PC just
shutting down (which resulted in a changed of powersupply to a
450watt) this ran fine. Soon after, I couldn't get this to run more
than 15 secs and it would freeze. Sent back to ATI and got
replacement card...doesn't lock up, just isn't stable. Otherwise, in
all reality, this card worked find for my purposes.

I don't think its the AGP slot, as I was running an older tnt2 ultra
card in it and it was rock stable (but needless to say, for the
limited gaming and digital video editing I do, that card doesn't cut
it).

I recently went into the registry, into some settings under "video"
(which I don't recall at this time) and cleaned out everything except
that for the current driver set. This has dramatically improved the
stability. I also changed the AGP aperature size to 256mb and turned
AGP fast writes off. Still, it occasionally locks up. I am giving
this about 3 days before I just take it back to compusa citing
incompatabilities with the VIA chipset, but if I can get this to work,
it would be fine (or the ATI 7200, would also be fine). I am running
the most recent bios for the MB also.

I hope I gave enough info. Any suggestions?

Try this to improve stability:

Go into BIOS and set memory to 100MHz - ie PC100.

On many KX133 chipsets I've observed stability problems when running
memory at PC133, especially when going into graphics. Myold Aopen AK72
is a classic example.

GoldyGopher wrote:

Does anyone have a thought on what could be causing general system
lock ups (requiring a reboot)? Here is the lowdown on what I am
running

-Abit VP6 MB (using VIA "apollo pro 133a" chipset)
-1 gb of crucial pc133 memory (purchased at same time)
-HPT 370 ATA/RAID controller (bios version 2.34) (runs as ATA 100
controller only)
-one 40 gb maxtor ATA 133 hdd
-one 120 gb western digital ATA 100 hdd
-SB Live! sound card
-general 1394 pci card
-3com 905X NIC
-two P3 933 cpus (purchased retail at same time)

-and lastly, MadDog Multimedia Nvidia GeForce FX5200 video card.

The problem is it just randomy locks up, more often when I start doing
graphics editing, or games. That nvidia chip supposedly only will run
at 4X or 8X bus speed, but because of some VIA/Nvidia problems (or so
I've read) it only runs at 2X. An attempt using a registry hack to
make it go 4X didn't help stability at all. Am currently running the
certified 53.03 drivers.

Bought this cheap card as a poor graduate student to replace an ATI
radeon 7200 VIVO (64mb ddr) that for some bloody reason, I could not
get to work with any drivers...wondering if I should have just plugged
away on that. Until this summer, when I had problems with the PC just
shutting down (which resulted in a changed of powersupply to a
450watt) this ran fine. Soon after, I couldn't get this to run more
than 15 secs and it would freeze. Sent back to ATI and got
replacement card...doesn't lock up, just isn't stable. Otherwise, in
all reality, this card worked find for my purposes.

I don't think its the AGP slot, as I was running an older tnt2 ultra
card in it and it was rock stable (but needless to say, for the
limited gaming and digital video editing I do, that card doesn't cut
it).

I recently went into the registry, into some settings under "video"
(which I don't recall at this time) and cleaned out everything except
that for the current driver set. This has dramatically improved the
stability. I also changed the AGP aperature size to 256mb and turned
AGP fast writes off. Still, it occasionally locks up. I am giving
this about 3 days before I just take it back to compusa citing
incompatabilities with the VIA chipset, but if I can get this to work,
it would be fine (or the ATI 7200, would also be fine). I am running
the most recent bios for the MB also.

I hope I gave enough info. Any suggestions?

I went in and didn't see anywhere to change the memory speed. I attempted to
change the CPU speed which multiplies by either 100 or 133, from 933 mhz to
900 mhz, but that setting didn't "stick" and it just kicked it down to 700
mhz. I tried going to 1000 mhz, but no luck either.

Not sure I am doing this correctly...

"Beowulf" wrote in message
...
Try this to improve stability:

Go into BIOS and set memory to 100MHz - ie PC100.

On many KX133 chipsets I've observed stability problems when running
memory at PC133, especially when going into graphics. Myold Aopen AK72
is a classic example.

GoldyGopher wrote:

Does anyone have a thought on what could be causing general system
lock ups (requiring a reboot)? Here is the lowdown on what I am
running

-Abit VP6 MB (using VIA "apollo pro 133a" chipset)
-1 gb of crucial pc133 memory (purchased at same time)
-HPT 370 ATA/RAID controller (bios version 2.34) (runs as ATA 100
controller only)
-one 40 gb maxtor ATA 133 hdd
-one 120 gb western digital ATA 100 hdd
-SB Live! sound card
-general 1394 pci card
-3com 905X NIC
-two P3 933 cpus (purchased retail at same time)

-and lastly, MadDog Multimedia Nvidia GeForce FX5200 video card.

The problem is it just randomy locks up, more often when I start doing
graphics editing, or games. That nvidia chip supposedly only will run
at 4X or 8X bus speed, but because of some VIA/Nvidia problems (or so
I've read) it only runs at 2X. An attempt using a registry hack to
make it go 4X didn't help stability at all. Am currently running the
certified 53.03 drivers.

Bought this cheap card as a poor graduate student to replace an ATI
radeon 7200 VIVO (64mb ddr) that for some bloody reason, I could not
get to work with any drivers...wondering if I should have just plugged
away on that. Until this summer, when I had problems with the PC just
shutting down (which resulted in a changed of powersupply to a
450watt) this ran fine. Soon after, I couldn't get this to run more
than 15 secs and it would freeze. Sent back to ATI and got
replacement card...doesn't lock up, just isn't stable. Otherwise, in
all reality, this card worked find for my purposes.

I don't think its the AGP slot, as I was running an older tnt2 ultra
card in it and it was rock stable (but needless to say, for the
limited gaming and digital video editing I do, that card doesn't cut
it).

I recently went into the registry, into some settings under "video"
(which I don't recall at this time) and cleaned out everything except
that for the current driver set. This has dramatically improved the
stability. I also changed the AGP aperature size to 256mb and turned
AGP fast writes off. Still, it occasionally locks up. I am giving
this about 3 days before I just take it back to compusa citing
incompatabilities with the VIA chipset, but if I can get this to work,
it would be fine (or the ATI 7200, would also be fine). I am running
the most recent bios for the MB also.

I hope I gave enough info. Any suggestions?

BTW: The system is stable in "safe mode".

"Beowulf" wrote in message
...
Try this to improve stability:

Go into BIOS and set memory to 100MHz - ie PC100.

On many KX133 chipsets I've observed stability problems when running
memory at PC133, especially when going into graphics. Myold Aopen AK72
is a classic example.

GoldyGopher wrote:

Does anyone have a thought on what could be causing general system
lock ups (requiring a reboot)? Here is the lowdown on what I am
running

-Abit VP6 MB (using VIA "apollo pro 133a" chipset)
-1 gb of crucial pc133 memory (purchased at same time)
-HPT 370 ATA/RAID controller (bios version 2.34) (runs as ATA 100
controller only)
-one 40 gb maxtor ATA 133 hdd
-one 120 gb western digital ATA 100 hdd
-SB Live! sound card
-general 1394 pci card
-3com 905X NIC
-two P3 933 cpus (purchased retail at same time)

-and lastly, MadDog Multimedia Nvidia GeForce FX5200 video card.

The problem is it just randomy locks up, more often when I start doing
graphics editing, or games. That nvidia chip supposedly only will run
at 4X or 8X bus speed, but because of some VIA/Nvidia problems (or so
I've read) it only runs at 2X. An attempt using a registry hack to
make it go 4X didn't help stability at all. Am currently running the
certified 53.03 drivers.

Bought this cheap card as a poor graduate student to replace an ATI
radeon 7200 VIVO (64mb ddr) that for some bloody reason, I could not
get to work with any drivers...wondering if I should have just plugged
away on that. Until this summer, when I had problems with the PC just
shutting down (which resulted in a changed of powersupply to a
450watt) this ran fine. Soon after, I couldn't get this to run more
than 15 secs and it would freeze. Sent back to ATI and got
replacement card...doesn't lock up, just isn't stable. Otherwise, in
all reality, this card worked find for my purposes.

I don't think its the AGP slot, as I was running an older tnt2 ultra
card in it and it was rock stable (but needless to say, for the
limited gaming and digital video editing I do, that card doesn't cut
it).

I recently went into the registry, into some settings under "video"
(which I don't recall at this time) and cleaned out everything except
that for the current driver set. This has dramatically improved the
stability. I also changed the AGP aperature size to 256mb and turned
AGP fast writes off. Still, it occasionally locks up. I am giving
this about 3 days before I just take it back to compusa citing
incompatabilities with the VIA chipset, but if I can get this to work,
it would be fine (or the ATI 7200, would also be fine). I am running
the most recent bios for the MB also.

I hope I gave enough info. Any suggestions?

Greetings...

On 13 Dec 2003 10:01:07 -0800, (GoldyGopher) wrote:

-Abit VP6 MB (using VIA "apollo pro 133a" chipset)

What Via4in1 are you using? I was running the 4.43 but they crashed - went back to the
4.35 and everything started working much smoother...

If you don't have it installed, Install it. When you reboot, go into bios - there is a
switch to have windows (PnP OS) reenumerate all devices, sorry I forget off the top of my
head what it is.... ESCI or EDSI or something like that... Just do it once, basically it
tells windows to reload the device list from bios. - I've noticed that when you install
the 4in1's windows sometimes doesn't get the complete list, or there are errors in the
list unless you tell it to get the list again. Then sit back and watch while windows
discovers all kinds of new hardware. If everything goes correctly, you should notice
about a 200% performance gain!

I didn't see what OS you were using...

You might check ram timings or ram drivings in bios and set your memory down to 100
instead of 133 - the setting may actually say something like 100 +33% or something like
that. Also, what is your CAS latency set at? If it's set to 2, set it to 3. Turn off
all video ram bios shadowing. There should also be a setting for how the MB detects the
ram, make sure it's set to auto detect. The video card manufacturers usually say to set
your AGP aperture to the same as the memory on the card. But you know, I set it to 128
meg some time ago, and never found it to have much effect on anything....

One thing you might try is in bios, tell it to load the default safe setup. Check it by
running your programs, then try the turbo setup. If that too runs stable, then you can
mess around with your timings one at a time. Make a NOTE (hand written, on paper!) of all
the changes you make and the effects... If you discover anything useful, post it on the
homebuilt.hardware group! Someone else might find it useful some day in a google
search...


ll
Kanda'

SPAM-KILLER- If you really want to contact me, then -
kandajeatbresnandotnet

You figure it out...

Greetings...

What Via4in1 are you using? I was running the 4.43 but they crashed - went back to the
4.35 and everything started working much smoother...

Update: I was tweaking with sandra 2004 just after I wrote this, and noticed that my
motherboard wasn't doing 4X transfer speed. None of the utilities would let me set it -
reviatuner, powerstrip, nothing.. Everything reported my MB as doing only 1X.

So I went to my MB manufacturer (Biostar) and checked their latest drivers - they set
the via4in1 version as 4.49 - So I got that installed it, and Viola! 4X ! my boot time
just went down from 21.5 seconds to 17 seconds, My AGP performance just skyrocketed!...

I was watching the Matrix on my monitor after writing the above, and noticed it was kind
of fuzzy compared to my old GF2, Now it looks real nice....

Apparently, the latest 4in1 enables agp 3.0 which the fx5200 is,

I'll test a couple of games next, and I bet I'll be pleasantly surprised...

So definitely visit you MB's site and see what they recommend.

You can also find the via4in1 Hyperion drivers at www.viaarena.com


ll
Kanda'

SPAM-KILLER- If you really want to contact me, then -
kandajeatbresnandotnet

You figure it out...

good advice, above. Also, for VIA based boards, if you haven't upated
the motherboard BIOS, do so. Greatly helps stablity and Nvidia
compatibility.

Kanda' Jalen Eirsie wrote:

Greetings...



What Via4in1 are you using? I was running the 4.43 but they crashed - went back to the
4.35 and everything started working much smoother...



Update: I was tweaking with sandra 2004 just after I wrote this, and noticed that my
motherboard wasn't doing 4X transfer speed. None of the utilities would let me set it -
reviatuner, powerstrip, nothing.. Everything reported my MB as doing only 1X.

So I went to my MB manufacturer (Biostar) and checked their latest drivers - they set
the via4in1 version as 4.49 - So I got that installed it, and Viola! 4X ! my boot time
just went down from 21.5 seconds to 17 seconds, My AGP performance just skyrocketed!...

I was watching the Matrix on my monitor after writing the above, and noticed it was kind
of fuzzy compared to my old GF2, Now it looks real nice....

Apparently, the latest 4in1 enables agp 3.0 which the fx5200 is,

I'll test a couple of games next, and I bet I'll be pleasantly surprised...

So definitely visit you MB's site and see what they recommend.

You can also find the via4in1 Hyperion drivers at www.viaarena.com


ll
Kanda'

SPAM-KILLER- If you really want to contact me, then -
kandajeatbresnandotnet

You figure it out...