Anyone have a Radeon 9000 in their junk pile?

[Grinder]

My niece's computer is based on a PCChips M920LR motherboard. It has an
AGP 2.0 4x slot that is currently occupied by a Riva TNT2 Model 64.
I've been trying to bump the card up to something that fully supports
DirectX 8.1. Unfortunately, this board will not work with any AGP 3.0
4x/8x cards. (It does work with a Radeon 7000 I have around.)

The overlap of AGP 2.0 4x cards with those that conform to DirectX 8.1
is pretty narrow. For ATI, it looks like the Radeon 8500, 9000 and 9100
cards are it in the desktop range. For nVidia, the 4x version of the
Ti4200 would probably work, but I can't quite get the exact specs. (I
have a Ti4200-8X, but that's a no go.)

I've been trying to pick one up on eBay, but it burns my butt that I
have to pay more than $15 when that's the going rate for an 8x with 2 or
4 times the memory, plus DVI. And now, there's even a dearth of
/auctions/ for those cards, leaving only the Buy Nows that total to over
$40. (I can get a new card for less than that, albeit from a
questionable manufacturer.)

I'm hoping that someone I recognize has one of these turkeys lying
around, and would be willing to make a swap. I'll pay the postage.

- - - - - -

Tangent: If gas wasn't so expensive I would have driven into Chicago to
pick up a moldy Dell, advertised on craigslist, that included a Radeon 9000.

 

[Grinder]

Why not? AGP 3.0 means 0.8v for 8x video cards. That doesn't alter
that AGP 2.0 meant 1.5v for 4x video cards. The AGP 3.0 8x video card
will work in an AGP 2.0 4x slot provided the video card supports both 4x
and 8x modes.

Empirically, this is not the case. I've tried several 4x/8x cards in
this PC and none of them work. The three cards that I've tried that top
out at 4x do work.

So why not pickup an 8X card with more money at the same price you're
claiming it would cost for a 4x with less memory? Run the 8X card at 4X
which is probably the max setting in your BIOS.

Don't get an 8x video card. Get a 4x/8x video card.

See above.

You can get a Radeon 9600 Pro for $33 from newegg.com. It's a 4x/8x
video card.

I've tried that very card. It does not work.

Oh yeah, like that's gonna happen. Sure, everyone wants to swap better
hardware for crappier hardware.

That's not what I'm suggesting.

 

[Grinder]

Why not? AGP 3.0 means 0.8v for 8x video cards. That doesn't alter
that AGP 2.0 meant 1.5v for 4x video cards. The AGP 3.0 8x video card
will work in an AGP 2.0 4x slot provided the video card supports both 4x
and 8x modes.

That's counter to what I've found experimentally, and what's detailed on
this page:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

According to the cited page, when you combine an "AGP 1.5V Motherboard"
with an "AGP 3.0 Card," your result will be: "Fits in slot but won't
work." Terms defined as follows:

AGP 3.0 Card: Supports only 0.8V signaling. Available speeds 4x, 8x.

AGP 1.5V Motherboard: Supports only 1.5V signaling. Available
speeds 1x, 2x, 4x.

It's worth mentioning that the 4x/8x cards (AGP 3.0) that do not work in
the PCChips mother all work in two other 1.5V motherboards, both
manufactured by Intel. The manuals for those boards do not explicitly
say they support *only* 1.5V signaling, but it is the only voltage
mentioned.

Why those cards do not work is of interest to me, but at this point I'm
*more* interested in getting a Direct 8.1+ card that does work.

 

[~misfit~]

Somewhere on teh intarweb "Grinder" typed:

That's counter to what I've found experimentally, and what's detailed
on this page:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

According to the cited page, when you combine an "AGP 1.5V
Motherboard" with an "AGP 3.0 Card," your result will be: "Fits in
slot but won't work." Terms defined as follows:

AGP 3.0 Card: Supports only 0.8V signaling. Available speeds 4x, 8x.

AGP 1.5V Motherboard: Supports only 1.5V signaling. Available
speeds 1x, 2x, 4x.

It's worth mentioning that the 4x/8x cards (AGP 3.0) that do not work
in the PCChips mother all work in two other 1.5V motherboards, both
manufactured by Intel. The manuals for those boards do not explicitly
say they support *only* 1.5V signaling, but it is the only voltage
mentioned.

Why those cards do not work is of interest to me, but at this point
I'm *more* interested in getting a Direct 8.1+ card that does work.

You said it right when you said "PCChips mother", you just left the last
word off.

Get a decent second-hand motherboard, it'll probably cost you less than
trying to get a decent graphics card for that POS. Chance are the mobo will
die next week anyway.
--
Shaun.

DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me
offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it.
If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to
me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate... ;-)

 

[Grinder]

Man, I haven't hit a mobo like that but then I've never even considered
getting anything from PCChips. If you're trying to up the video card to
better support some 3D games, just the video card probably won't help
much. You can put rollerskates on an old hag but it won't really be
able to pull a bigger load in the cart.

At http://pcchipsusa.com/support-pcchips-bios.asp#M921, there are
several M920*R models. Can't tell which one you have. Did you check if
there was a BIOS update that might help in your situation? There may
even be a BIOS setting that you will have to change, like setting the
AGP voltage.

I can't find any sign of the specific board at the pcchips site. I've
found some various files that purport to be BIOS updates elsewhere, but
the versions numbers don't really compare to what's currently reported
on my system. At any rate, I don't think I'll be applying a BIOS update
from an unknown site that does not even purport to remedy my situation.

In the current BIOS, there is an AGP Comp. Driving field. If you switch
from Auto to Manual, you can set a 2-digit hex number. The only
discussion I've been able to find about these values are speculative, or
reports of having messed up their system by kejiggering it.

 

[Grinder]

In the current BIOS, there is an AGP Comp. Driving field. If you switch

from Auto to Manual, you can set a 2-digit hex number. The only
discussion I've been able to find about these values are speculative, or
reports of having messed up their system by kejiggering it.

I found a little more on AGP Comp[ensation] Driving:

[AGP Driving Value] is slaved to AGP Driving Control. If you set the AGP
Driving Control to Auto, then the value you set here won't have any
effect. In order for this function to have any effect, you need to set
the AGP Driving Control to Manual.

This function determines the overall drive strength of the AGP bus. The
drive strength is represented by Hex values from 00 to FF (0 to 255 in
decimal). The default AGP drive strength differs from motherboard to
motherboard. But the higher the drive strength, the greater the
compensation for the motherboard's impedance on the AGP bus. On the
reference motherboard, the default drive strength was C5 (197).

In conjunction with AGP Driving Control, this function is used to bypass
AGP dynamic compensation in cases where the auto-compensation circuitry
cannot provide adequate compensation. This is mainly seen when the AGP
graphics card was not designed according to the AGP 4X impedance and
routing guidelines. If you are using an AGP card built around the NVIDIA
GeForce 2 line of GPUs, then it is recommended that you put AGP Driving
Control into Manual mode and set AGP Driving Value to EA (234). For
other cards, please check with the manufacturer if your card requires
the AGP driving strength to be manually set.

Due to the nature of this BIOS function, it is possible to use it as an
aid in overclocking the AGP bus. The AGP bus is sensitive to
overclocking, especially in AGP 4X mode, with sideband and Fast Write
support enabled. A higher AGP drive strength may just be what you need
to overclock the AGP bus higher than is normally possible. By raising
the drive strength of the AGP bus, you can improve its stability at
overclocked speeds.

Please be very, very circumspect when you increase the AGP drive
strength on an overclocked AGP bus as your AGP card may be irreversibly
damaged in the process! Also, contrary to popular opinion, increasing
the AGP drive strength will not improve the performance of the AGP bus.
It is not a performance enhancing feature so you shouldn't increase the
AGP drive strength unless you need to.

 

[Grinder]

My niece's computer is based on a PCChips M920LR motherboard. It has an
AGP 2.0 4x slot that is currently occupied by a Riva TNT2 Model 64. I've
been trying to bump the card up to something that fully supports DirectX
8.1. Unfortunately, this board will not work with any AGP 3.0 4x/8x
cards. (It does work with a Radeon 7000 I have around.)

The overlap of AGP 2.0 4x cards with those that conform to DirectX 8.1
is pretty narrow. For ATI, it looks like the Radeon 8500, 9000 and 9100
cards are it in the desktop range. For nVidia, the 4x version of the
Ti4200 would probably work, but I can't quite get the exact specs. (I
have a Ti4200-8X, but that's a no go.)

I've been trying to pick one up on eBay, but it burns my butt that I
have to pay more than $15 when that's the going rate for an 8x with 2 or
4 times the memory, plus DVI. And now, there's even a dearth of
/auctions/ for those cards, leaving only the Buy Nows that total to over
$40. (I can get a new card for less than that, albeit from a
questionable manufacturer.)

I'm hoping that someone I recognize has one of these turkeys lying
around, and would be willing to make a swap. I'll pay the postage.

- - - - - -

Tangent: If gas wasn't so expensive I would have driven into Chicago to
pick up a moldy Dell, advertised on craigslist, that included a Radeon
9000.

Just a quick addenda:

I managed to get a 128MB Radeon 9100 for a very reasonable $17
(delivered.) It works great on the games I'm trying to support, so my
niece is happy.