How do I lower my AGP video card from 4x to 3x?

[Xu]

My screen freezes up every now and again. There are no errors showing in
Microsoft's Event Viewer when it happens. I am wondering if I should have
gotten a standard 4x agp card instead of one that is 4x and 8x? Is there any
way I can bring the 4x down to 3x to see if this has anyting to do with my
stability problems? My bios doesn't seem to allow me to do it.

EVGA GeForce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X

 

[DaveW]

There is no such transfer rate as 3X. The card will correctly only run at
4X. That is not your problem.

 

[DaveW]

That card will not work in a 2X AGP motherboard.

 

[Xu]

Oh no, I have a computer that has the 4x slot in it. But I thought I read
somewhere that agp cards could be "turned down" or did not have to run at 4x
if I did not want them to.

 

[Sleepy]

Oh no, I have a computer that has the 4x slot in it. But I thought I read
somewhere that agp cards could be "turned down" or did not have to run at
4x if I did not want them to.

in older systems a 4x card could be run at 2x or 1x (you only halved the
speed so 3x was never an option but ALL current boards should be stable at
4x. some boards have trouble at 8x and may require a bios update - Ive
noticed mobo's with SIS chipset to have this problem. make sure fast-writes
are off and 4x AGP should be rock steady.

make sure your case has decent ventilation so the cards temperatures are
okay and you need a decent 350w or higher PSU.

 

[Sleepy]

in older systems a 4x card could be run at 2x or 1x (you only halved the
speed so 3x was never an option but ALL current boards should be stable at
4x. some boards have trouble at 8x and may require a bios update - Ive
noticed mobo's with SIS chipset to have this problem. make sure
fast-writes are off and 4x AGP should be rock steady.

make sure your case has decent ventilation so the cards temperatures are
okay and you need a decent 350w or higher PSU.

just checked back a bit and youre the guy with the M810LMR mobo - did you
not see that article and the ruddy great list of cards that dont work well
with that board?
one minute youre thinking of a radeon 7000 then you splash out on 6600?

 

[Xu]

Your follow up is irrelevant and wrong, but I will play along. What does
"ruddy" mean and what do you mean by "splash out"? Is this slang?

And the list I saw was for cards that worked well with the board, not those
that "dont work well." And where do you think I came up with the 6600
anyway?

On another note, I have the fast write turned on. I am going to turn that
off to see what effect that has.

 

[Paul]

Your follow up is irrelevant and wrong, but I will play along. What does
"ruddy" mean and what do you mean by "splash out"? Is this slang?

And the list I saw was for cards that worked well with the board, not those
that "dont work well." And where do you think I came up with the 6600
anyway?

On another note, I have the fast write turned on. I am going to turn that
off to see what effect that has.

One alternative, is to look for a copy of "agputil.exe" that
might have been in the AGP installer directory. If you don't have one,
consider uninstalling the SIS AGP driver you are currently using,
and try one like this. This driver is for an Asus A7S-VM, a
SIS730S based board (Oct 2003).

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/vga/sisagp/1.17/AGP_1170.zip

When you unzip the driver, first use a text editor to look
at the "setup.ini" file at the top level. There is a line
that says "AGPUtil=0" and I suspect you should change it to
"AGPUtil=1" to get the four files in the "AGPutil" directory
installed. When you save out the setup.ini file, your text
editor will likely change the file name to setup.ini.txt and
you might have to change the file name back to setup.ini .

The AGPUtil seems to work in a similar way to a util I used
on a crappy ALI based motherboard a couple years ago. It
creates an entry in the registry, and the SIS AGP driver is
probably reading that registry entry when it loads. I can
see the following text string inside the AGPUtil.exe
executable.

System\CurrentControlSet\Services\sisagp\parameters

My experience with the ALI equivalent of this scheme, was
that while the registry had a number of entries in it,
the driver actually only consulted one of the entries.
In other words, the ALI version was a sham. I hope the
SIS one pans out a bit better for you.

Note that, if you had a stability problem while the board
was POSTing, this method would not have helped you. The
video card will still be running at 4X until Windows boots,
at which time the SIS AGP driver should crank back the
interface to whatever you set with the AGPUtil.

An alternative method, would be to get a copy of the current
BIOS file you are running on the board, use a BIOS editing
utility to "unhide" the adjustment for the AGP speed setting
(1X/2X/4X), save, then flash upgrade the BIOS with the updated
file. The safest way to do this, is get someone else to test
it first It may take a lot of searching to find a hacked
BIOS, but it would give you a slight bit more control than
you have now. I would only consider this option if you
are a "rocket-scientist-in-training".

As long as the video card will behave until Windows loads,
the AGPUtil hack should be good enough.

HTH,
Paul

 

[kony]

My screen freezes up every now and again. There are no errors showing in
Microsoft's Event Viewer when it happens. I am wondering if I should have
gotten a standard 4x agp card instead of one that is 4x and 8x? Is there any
way I can bring the 4x down to 3x to see if this has anyting to do with my
stability problems? My bios doesn't seem to allow me to do it.

EVGA GeForce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X

What makes you feel that reducing the AGP rate from 4X, to
lower, should help?

What is the rest of your system like? A random thought is
that the motherboard is flaky (try a bios update or replace
the board) OR possibly you have a generic power supply that
can't handle the load?

Other possible issues are the common ones, system too hot or
fail failure, cables or cards disturbed when card was
installed and make intermittent contact only revealed when
system gets warmer.

 

[spodosaurus]

What makes you feel that reducing the AGP rate from 4X, to
lower, should help?

Dropping from 8x to 4x often helps when graphic cards and motherboards
don't play nicely together. This helped me with my GeCube 9600XT card,
where it would freeze every so often. When I lowered it to 4x no more
issues. However, I have not heard of lowering a card below 4x helping,
but that just means I haven't looked hard enough most likely.

What is the rest of your system like? A random thought is
that the motherboard is flaky (try a bios update or replace
the board) OR possibly you have a generic power supply that
can't handle the load?

Or video drivers. Nvidia used to have some real driver problems back in
the day, but they've been really good in recent years. Has the OP
downloaded the latest drivers?

Other possible issues are the common ones, system too hot or
fail failure, cables or cards disturbed when card was
installed and make intermittent contact only revealed when
system gets warmer.

--
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transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Sleepy]

Your follow up is irrelevant and wrong, but I will play along. What does
"ruddy" mean and what do you mean by "splash out"? Is this slang?

And the list I saw was for cards that worked well with the board, not
those that "dont work well." And where do you think I came up with the
6600 anyway?

On another note, I have the fast write turned on. I am going to turn that
off to see what effect that has.

Sorry about my obvious frustration showing but I did try to help you and you
didnt seem to take much notice. That article showed that a lot of older
cards had stability problems with that board and had to be run at 1xAGP.
That 6600GT needs to be paired with a 3ghz CPU to see its full potential and
you paid .. what ... £105-£110 to put it with a 1.3ghz CPU and maybe you'll
have to cribble the AGP bus to 1x?!
Ah - I see your cunning plan - now you have to tell the wifey you need a new
Motherboard and CPU too. Youre probably using SDRAM atm? So you'll need DDR
too and the PSU is even more relevant now you have a 6600GT. Shit - just get
a new PC.

 

[kony]

Dropping from 8x to 4x often helps when graphic cards and motherboards
don't play nicely together. This helped me with my GeCube 9600XT card,
where it would freeze every so often. When I lowered it to 4x no more
issues. However, I have not heard of lowering a card below 4x helping,
but that just means I haven't looked hard enough most likely.

Maybe, but dropping from 8X to 4X is a lot more common than
4X to 2X. Frankly I think the board and video card are a
bit mismatched though, a bit like putting leather seats in a
Chevy Cavalier.

Or video drivers. Nvidia used to have some real driver problems back in
the day, but they've been really good in recent years. Has the OP
downloaded the latest drivers?

Good point, though every now and then it also helps to try
various versions, not just the newest. Some report better
luck with the Detonator 7x.xx, particularly 77.7x series
than the 8x.xx series. Some of them also have an AGP slider
for rate control, though I don't recall the particulars of
what elements need to be in place for that rate control
slider to show up... Might be there in Detonator 7x.xx
series, might need 8x.xx series, or might need "Coolbits 2"
(Google will find it) added before the setting shows up.

 

[Xu]

Thank you for all your help Paul. I am afraid I have some bad news though.
When I booted up this morning, I got a memory problem that actually stopped
the computer from booting past the bios screen. Please see my other post
with the following subject:

On bootup, get "SDRAM Dimm 1" and then computer stops

I am not following this thread anymore.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

One alternative, is to look for a copy of "agputil.exe" that
might have been in the AGP installer directory. If you don't have one,
consider uninstalling the SIS AGP driver you are currently using,
and try one like this. This driver is for an Asus A7S-VM, a
SIS730S based board (Oct 2003).

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/vga/sisagp/1.17/AGP_1170.zip

Thanks, Paul, for a very useful post.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

Sorry about my obvious frustration showing but I did try to help you and you
didnt seem to take much notice. That article showed that a lot of older
cards had stability problems with that board and had to be run at 1xAGP.
That 6600GT needs to be paired with a 3ghz CPU to see its full potential and
you paid .. what ... £105-£110 to put it with a 1.3ghz CPU and maybe you'll
have to cribble the AGP bus to 1x?!
Ah - I see your cunning plan - now you have to tell the wifey you need a new
Motherboard and CPU too. Youre probably using SDRAM atm? So you'll need DDR
too and the PSU is even more relevant now you have a 6600GT. Shit - just get
a new PC.

He has a point, there.

 

[GT]

My screen freezes up every now and again. There are no errors showing in
Microsoft's Event Viewer when it happens. I am wondering if I should have
gotten a standard 4x agp card instead of one that is 4x and 8x? Is there
any way I can bring the 4x down to 3x to see if this has anyting to do
with my stability problems? My bios doesn't seem to allow me to do it.

EVGA GeForce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X

That's a fairly recent, powerful graphics card - perhaps things are just
getting too hot inside your case - try to find a game or something that you
know would normally crash (freeze) the system, the try it with the side off
the case and see if everything stays more stable. If its getting too hot in
there, then you can just add a case fan or two.

Could be that the power supply is being strained by the extra power from the
graphics card, but before you get into replacing components and PSUs, try
the heat test first.