P4B533X No 3D possible

[Geoff Bland]

I recently bought an Asus P4B533X motherboard with an Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz
processor.

The motherboard works fine with Windows XP Home in normal 2D applications.
It's very stable and fast. No problems whatsoever UNTIL I try to run any 3D
applications on my Radeon 8500LE 64MB AGP 4X video card, including any of
ATI's 3D demos. The video card, and 3D, ran fine last week on a PCChips
M925ALU motherboard.

This motherboard just will not let anything 3D run. The ATI nature demo, for
instance, will show it's loading files from the hard drive and when it's
finished loading presents a black screen with vertical coloured lines
running from the top to the bottom of the screen. Changing various settings
within the card's 3D settings properties will change the color and spacing
of those lines but 3D still won't run. And it locks the computer up tight,
the only option is the reset button.

I'm using the Catalyst 3.9 drivers at the moment but had tried the earlier
ones off the CD as well with the same results. Contacting Asus on-line
support resulted in an email suggesting a number of BIOS/video card settings
but nothing helped. I've tried every combination of BIOS I could,
repartitioned the hard drive and reinstalled Windows, etc.

Video wasn't the only issue with this motherboard. I could not use my
Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick with the onboard game port. It was
detected but always showed as "not connected". I finally gave up on the
onboard sound and game port, disabled them in the BIOS, and installed a
SoundBlaster 16 PCI I had in the parts box. Now the joystick works.

One thing I have noticed is that AsusProbe shows the +3.3V at a fairly
consistent +3.04V but occasionaly dropping to as low as +2.994. The 3.04 is
almost 10% out of spec and the 2.994 is certainly way too low. When the
motherboard was changed it was put in a new case, with a new 350 watt power
supply.

Since the AGP 4X video card runs on 1.5V does anybody know where it gets the
1.5V from? Is it stepped down from the 3.3V? If so, that MAY explain the 3D
problem as I imagine power consumption will go up in 3D mode. If the 1.5V is
also down it may not be able to supply enough current to the video card.

Thanks for any insight anyone can offer.

Geoff

 

[Robert Hancock]

The AGP card doesn't actually use 1.5V for power, that is for signalling
only. The actual power draw from the card is at 3.3V, and (on current cards)
is generally stepped down by a regulator on the card itself to whatever the
chip needs.

What kind of power supply is that? Cheap, no-name PSUs frequently cause
problems, and a low 3.3V could quite possibly cause this..

 

[Geoff Bland]

Right you are Robert.

I was suspicious of the 3.3 being so low so I just (5 minutes ago) put in a
new 420 watt power supply (Okia brand as was the original). Not a high end
PSU by any means but it's voltages are right on within 2%.

The 3D now works perfectly

How's Saskatoon these days??? I was born and raised there and moved out to
Vancouver Island in 1989. Miss the city and it's people but I definitely do
NOT miss the snow, the cold, and the wind. It's much nicer to look out the
window at the ocean in January.

Thanks again,
Geoff