How to make ATI Radeon 9700 Pro work with ASUS PXG8X

[PaShu]

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

 

[Alan Coates]

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]

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 were:

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

Regards,

PaShu

 

[Egil Solberg]

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 were:

* 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?