A HARD NUT TO CRACK

[trinanjan]

Dear all,
Read my thread at http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33799018

And tell me what you make of it! The more is the number of people, who come to know of this, the better will it be!

 

[Zepper]

If those voltages were actually measured with a digital meter, then the 5V is low and the 3.3 is marginal. If they are by software, then get a meter and report back the correct voltages (software almost always reports the voltages as lower than actual meter readings).
As others suggested, use the nV driver cleanup utility and uninstall/reinstall the ATI drivers (use the latest ones from ATI unless you have a known issue with the later versions). And install the latest Via Hyperion drivers from viaarena.com. Update your mobo to the latest BIOS as well - I guess you already have as 1017 is the latest.
. If none of this works and you can find nothing that helps in the ATI or Asus FAQ pages, I would suggest upgrading your mobo. The KT333/8233 wasn't one of the bright spots in Via chipset history (it was a stopgap while they were working on the KT400) - your northbridge 4 or 5 generations old and your southbridge is at least four generations old. The KT600 and KT880 and the 8237 are far better than any previous generation. One can get a KT600 based mobo (or even a KT880 - see Asrock) with a later southbridge (8235 or 8237) for a song (check the refurb section on newegg - oops, you're in India so you'll need to check your own sources) I got some asus A7V600-X mobos for $30. and an A7V600 (top model in that series) for a few bucks more shipped from Newegg. Excellent mobos! A mobo with the P4-12V power socket would be an even better choice for your situation Abit, MSI, some Asrock, some Soyo etc.. All would run better for you with the P4-12V - if your PSU has no P4-12V connector (4-pin square), you can get an adapter cable pretty cheaply to run it off a molex connector. Maybe you could have a diplomat smuggle one back to you in his "diplomatic pouch" - happens all the time according to the movies ...

.bh.

Here, have a :beer: !

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I hate to say it, but if you don't have a mobo BIOS update with mention of a fix for R9600 cards, you're probably SOL. Sorry.

I've had similar issues with my MSI KT4V-L mobo (KT400/8235) and FIC R9200 AGP 8x card. The KT400 was really the "KT333A", for the most part, re-named for marketing reasons. In fact, I've heard tell that Via later on sold KT400 chips as KT333As, they were a KT400 core, but AGP 8x was disabled in hardware. The fix for some people, has been to place a piece of transparent tape over a couple of pins to disable automatic AGP 3.0 (and thus AGP 8x) detection, causing the card to fall back to AGP 2.0 / 4x mode detection in the BIOS.

There was a BIOS update (1.9 or 1.A, I believe) for my mobo, with a specific mention of a fix for R9600 cards. I used to get "VPU recover" or "XP infinite loop in display driver" errors nearly weekly when using BIOS versions prior to that, but using that BIOS version or later seems to fix or work around whatever issue there is. Unfortunately, it also severely messes up my BIOS-accessable disk drives, so I can no longer access anything but the primary master HD on my Promise IDE controller in DOS mode. Which means no ability to use Ghost 2003 to backup my other HDs.

I tend to agree with a couple of the posts in that linked thread as to the cause.

A number of A7V333 and RADEON 9600XT users face these issues. Just visit the forums at viaarena. Nobody has a solution. This is a serious issue and needs to be fixed. ASUS, ATI and VIA, please solve this! A number of VIA chipsets screw things up when RADEON cards are used!

ugh. you may actually be in one of those sol areas with via and ati. i was in one of those with my 8500dv and a km400 motherboard.

my guess is that the hardware connecting the two devices just doesn't seem to get along. if i remember correctly older via chipsets did weird things with the agp driving strength and agp gart

I can only guess that the later BIOS versions for my board, did some tweaks to the memory-controller registers, or the AGP driving strength values, which are not normally user-accessable options in the BIOS for my board.

 

[trinanjan]

Thanks for your help! I have to shell out quite a bit of money to fix this mess. It is strange that Nvidia cards run without a hitch on the kt333 and other via chipsets. I tried my geforce 4mx on this board and found out that my system was rock stable. I looped game tests for hpurs at an end and yet my system did not crash. However, as soon as I plug in my 9600xt, the drama begins! My natural question is:
What makes RADEON cards unstable on VIA boards?
And if VIA chipsets are at fault, how do Nvidia cards run fine on these boards?
I measured my voltages vis asus probe.
My psu is new and therefore this is not a psu issue.

 

[sandorski]

I agree with the posters in that thread, sounds like a chipset and/or motherboard issue in regards to the AGP port and power supplied to the AGP port. Unfortunetly it doesn't seem like you have many options without a hardware upgrade. You could try the various BIOS versions for that motherboard, maybe you'll luck out and find one that works with the video card, but I think the chances of that are rather slim.

 

[Zepper]

I have a Radeon 7000 and it works just fine on all my Via boards back to the KT266/KM266 and forward to the KT880.. You just have a fairly modern and high-end video card that needs support that your mobo apparently can't supply as it is relatively long in the tooth. Do you have the latest release of Direct X installed? That video card may need that too.
. What does the "system requirements" statement for that video card have to say. Just reading and understanding that might have saved you some headaches. I'd say it's more an issue with the video card than the mobo.

.bh.

Here, have another :beer: !