MSI KT4V (KT400) and ATI Radeon video cards HELL

[Eugen T]

Hi all,
Hopefully someone knows the solution to this one...

I had Diamond Viper V770 Ultra installed in this (KT4V) motherboard for a
while. Then I upgraded to ATI Radeon 8500LE and the hell began. The display
will disappear (XP SP1) and it will be just vertical lines of different
colors. I found that if I lower resolution to 800x600 at 16-bit color, then
everything worked... I tried latest Hyperion drivers, latest
Catalyst/Microsoft/Omega drivers - nothing helped.
I took another card - FIC Radeon 8500 - from my 2nd system (MSI K7N2 -
NForce2 chipset). Inserted that card and... as soon as WinXP loaded video
driver the whole display went black - there was no signal to monitor
(everything still worked fine in Safe Mode).

I really don't know why this KT4V or its KT400 chipset does not work with
ATI video cards .
I disabled 'fast-write' in bios. Also, this motherboard will only support 4X
AGP, but I wouldn't care about that if it supported the video cards without
problems.
The only option that I haven't tried is flashing the bios with the latest
revision, but I don't think that it'd help 'cause the bios in this
motherboard is still one of the latest releases .

Heeelp!

 

[J. Clarke]

Hi all,
Hopefully someone knows the solution to this one...

I had Diamond Viper V770 Ultra installed in this (KT4V) motherboard for a
while. Then I upgraded to ATI Radeon 8500LE and the hell began. The
display will disappear (XP SP1) and it will be just vertical lines of
different colors. I found that if I lower resolution to 800x600 at 16-bit
color, then everything worked... I tried latest Hyperion drivers, latest
Catalyst/Microsoft/Omega drivers - nothing helped.
I took another card - FIC Radeon 8500 - from my 2nd system (MSI K7N2 -
NForce2 chipset). Inserted that card and... as soon as WinXP loaded video
driver the whole display went black - there was no signal to monitor
(everything still worked fine in Safe Mode).

I really don't know why this KT4V or its KT400 chipset does not work with
ATI video cards .
I disabled 'fast-write' in bios. Also, this motherboard will only support
4X AGP,

If it won't support 2X there's your problem. The 8500 doesn't support 4X.

 

[Lee Waun]

If it won't support 2X there's your problem. The 8500 doesn't support 4X.

was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Wrong the 8500 does surport 4x AGP.

 

[J. Clarke]

was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Wrong the 8500 does surport 4x AGP.

<http://www.ati.com/products/radeon8500/radeon8500128/specs.html>
"Pentium® 4/III/II/Celeron?, AMD® K6/Athlon® or compatible with AGP 2X or
AGP 2X/4X universal slot"

<http://www.ati.com/products/radeon8500/radeon8500le/specs.html>
"Pentium® 4/III/II/Celeron?, AMD® K6/Athlon® or compatible with AGP 2X or
AGP 2X/4X universal slot"

And so on. So what model of 8500 does ATI claim will work in an AGP 4X
slot?

A universal slot provides both 1.5v and 3.3v signalling, a 4x-only slot
provides 1.5, an AGP 2X board needs 3.3, so it won't run.

 

[Eugen T]

Well, you said it - all of them. It can work in 2X or 4X AGP slots - if it
will be in 2X slot it will work at 2X AGP, in 4X slot it will work at 4X.
Yes, I was wrong regarding 8X.

 

[J. Clarke]

Well, you said it - all of them. It can work in 2X or 4X AGP slots - if it
will be in 2X slot it will work at 2X AGP, in 4X slot it will work at 4X.
Yes, I was wrong regarding 8X.

A "2X/4X universal slot" is not the same as a "4X slot". The "universal"
means that it can provide both 1.5v and 3.3v signalling. In a 2X/4X
universal slot an 8500 may run at 4X speed, but that doesn't mean that it
will run at all in a 4X slot that is not a "2X/4X universal slot".

 

[neopolaris]

If it won't support 2X there's your problem. The 8500 doesn't
support 4X.

The 8500 DOES do 4X. The OP probably just needs to reload XP -or-
completely remove the old drivers from his system.

 

[neopolaris]

My 8500 runs @4X in XP on a KT3 Ultra ARU.

done

A "2X/4X universal slot" is not the same as a "4X slot". The
"universal" means that it can provide both 1.5v and 3.3v signalling.
In a 2X/4X universal slot an 8500 may run at 4X speed, but that
doesn't mean that it will run at all in a 4X slot that is not a
"2X/4X universal slot".

 

[Eugen T]

The 8500 DOES do 4X. The OP probably just needs to reload XP -or-
completely remove the old drivers from his system.

I completely removed drivers during reinstalls.. Anyway, I solved the
problem by buying MSI GF4 Ti4200 8X AGP 128MB... system is rock-stable...
ATI cards are in other systems now and are also rock-stable... go figure

 

[J. Clarke]

My 8500 runs @4X in XP on a KT3 Ultra ARU.

From the manual for the KT3 Ultra ARU:

"The AGP slot allows you to insert the AGP graphics card. AGP is an
interface specification designed for the throughput demands of 3D graphics.
It introduces a 66MHz, 32-bit channel for the graphics controller to
directly access main memory and provides three levels of throughputs: 1x
(266Mbps), 2x (533Mbps) and 4x (1.07Gbps)."

In other words it is a universal slot, not a 4X slot, and so provides signal
voltage compatible with the 8500. That has no relevance to what will
happen in a 4X-only board that does not provide that signal voltage.

 

[neopolaris]

I completely removed drivers during reinstalls.. Anyway, I solved the
problem by buying MSI GF4 Ti4200 8X AGP 128MB... system is
rock-stable... ATI cards are in other systems now and are also
rock-stable... go figure

I'm not surprised at all actually. The MSI was a good choice for that
chipset too.

 

[Robert Akins]

Um, excuse me, but the Radeon 8500 is 2X/4X compatible. At least my
PowerMagic Radeon 8500LE, in my KT3 Ultra2, is. Just not 8X, but my
motherboard wouldn't support it anyway. He may have to uninstall all his
video drivers (including purging the registry of all traces of them,
including the TNT2) and go to the XP VGA driver before installing the new
ATI drivers.
Robert