ASUS / ATI incompatibility! HELP!

[suragati]

My system specs:
P4 3.06
ASUS P4G8X Deluxe MoBo
1GB of Kingston HyperX DDR370
ATI radeon 9700 Pro All In Wonder
2xMaxtor 120GB HD

Dual channel DDR is on
Hyper threading is on
All drivers and MoBo software are upgraded.

OK, I have tried everything to get that 9700 to work. I spent $133 talking to ATI in long distance phone calls, and they claim everything should be working OK. They claimed that there are no incompatibilities between ASUS MoBos and ATI hardware. Which, funny enough, is exactly the same thing ASUS said about their MoBo. However, it does not explain the fact that the performance with the 9700 is only slightly above my P3 500 with a TNT2 Ultra. How stupid is that? I dont thing that is quite right for top of the line hardware.

Now, the problem was repeated with my friends Radeon 8500 card. That is what I am using right now, because this card, unlike the 9700, does not make my computer crash every 5 minutes. Oh yeah, I forget to mention that too. The 9700 card is completely unusable because the system crashes almost immediately after bootup, and if not, than almost certainly right after I try to run ANY game. The 8500 still makes the machine hang up and crash, but at least it is semi usable, even if the card does not deserve to be in a mchine like this. All that happens, is that the games will crash every now and then, which is nothing a quick reboot will not fix.

I also used my brothers GeForce 3 card, and when that was in the machine, there were absolutely NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER!

So, whats the deal here peole? I know they tested the 9700 pro AIW cards in machines with my same MoBo, so maybe there is no hardware incompatibility between ASUS and ATI. However, that does not explain why it does not like the 8500 card very much either. So whats the deal? How is it that MY computer's MoBo does not like ATI cards but all the other P4G8X Deluxe MoBos out there have no problems with it whatsoever?

Please help! If you have any info whatsoever, I would be VERY happy to hear it! It has been 5 months since I built this rig, and hours of tech support phonecalls, and I still dont have a working computer! Please help!

Thanks in advance for any info.

Suragati

 

[Slammy1]

Well, I do have some lighter issues with my 9700 AIW and the P4P800, but nothing like that. I don't think I could give you any suggestions you haven't tried. You might want to make sure it not a different incompatability. Turn off HT, DCM (1 stick at a time, maybe even different slots but that's reaching). Have you tried Rage3D to see if upping or lowering your mem settings helps? I saw in a thread somewhere recently that ATI recommends raising the AGP voltage to 1.6, but it is second hand internet info, so treat it as suspect. Aside from trying a different PSU and making sure you're plugged in w/ the auxillary power cable to the 9700, I can't think of anything else to suggest that you haven't probably tried already. Sorry.

 

[suragati]

 

[suragati]

I tried everything but the rage3d. Everything is set up JUST AS ATI AND ASUS WANT ME TO SET IT UP. And yet, it crashes, repeatedly....

 

[DAPUNISHER]

What PSU are you using? Anyways, I had some odd behavior with ATI and NF2 boards that was resolved just by disabling 8x AGP support and enabling video shadowing in the bios. Also disable fast writes in both the bios and the SMARTGART tab in the ATI control panel if none of that straightens you out I'd say something is faulty/flakey.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
What PSU are you using? Anyways, I had some odd behavior with ATI and NF2 boards that was resolved just by disabling 8x AGP support and enabling video shadowing in the bios. Also disable fast writes in both the bios and the SMARTGART tab in the ATI control panel if none of that straightens you out I'd say something is faulty/flakey.

^what he said!

 

[suragati]

I dont have an NF2 MoBo. So I know thats not the problem. I searched on the official ASUS P4G8X MoBo forum, and it seems to be an absolute problem between the ATI cards and that particular ASUS MoBo. So, I guess its just the way it is. I just wanted to know if there was ANYTHING I could do to make it work....or at least something I have not tried yet...

Suragati

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You don't have a ATI control panel? You don't have those options in the bios? or you just aren't going to try any of those ideas? It may just work even though it's not the same chipset and at this point I thought you'd be more open to suggestions

 

[mechBgon]

Try DAPUNISHER's suggestions, they are not restricted just to nForce2 boards. I've followed enough P4G8X threads that those were the exact things I was going to suggest (if I could remember them all). Good job DAPUNISHER

 

[suragati]

Well, Ill give them a try. Right now, my friend has my 9700 and I have his 8500. THat was the only way I could have a working comp

Anyway, I'll see what I can do, but I think Ill just end up scrapping the system and starting over with a P4P800 based system.

After all, you can only work to get operational for so long, and after over 5 months and no progress, I can safely say that even if I get it working, I hate this system and want nothing more than to see is set on fire...

Thanks for the suggestions. Ill keep you posted on what I decide.

 

[SilentOption]

Disable fastwrite in your bios. I may have an A7N8X but i think there bios setup should be close such advance chipset setting for cpu and vga.

Also make sure in Peripheral your VGA should read AGP VGA not PCI VGA. Also the FSB of your AGP should be at least
66mhz.

q]Originally posted by: suragati
My system specs:
P4 3.06
ASUS P4G8X Deluxe MoBo
1GB of Kingston HyperX DDR370
ATI radeon 9700 Pro All In Wonder
2xMaxtor 120GB HD

Dual channel DDR is on
Hyper threading is on
All drivers and MoBo software are upgraded.

OK, I have tried everything to get that 9700 to work. I spent $133 talking to ATI in long distance phone calls, and they claim everything should be working OK. They claimed that there are no incompatibilities between ASUS MoBos and ATI hardware. Which, funny enough, is exactly the same thing ASUS said about their MoBo. However, it does not explain the fact that the performance with the 9700 is only slightly above my P3 500 with a TNT2 Ultra. How stupid is that? I dont thing that is quite right for top of the line hardware.

Now, the problem was repeated with my friends Radeon 8500 card. That is what I am using right now, because this card, unlike the 9700, does not make my computer crash every 5 minutes. Oh yeah, I forget to mention that too. The 9700 card is completely unusable because the system crashes almost immediately after bootup, and if not, than almost certainly right after I try to run ANY game. The 8500 still makes the machine hang up and crash, but at least it is semi usable, even if the card does not deserve to be in a mchine like this. All that happens, is that the games will crash every now and then, which is nothing a quick reboot will not fix.

I also used my brothers GeForce 3 card, and when that was in the machine, there were absolutely NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER!

So, whats the deal here peole? I know they tested the 9700 pro AIW cards in machines with my same MoBo, so maybe there is no hardware incompatibility between ASUS and ATI. However, that does not explain why it does not like the 8500 card very much either. So whats the deal? How is it that MY computer's MoBo does not like ATI cards but all the other P4G8X Deluxe MoBos out there have no problems with it whatsoever?

Please help! If you have any info whatsoever, I would be VERY happy to hear it! It has been 5 months since I built this rig, and hours of tech support phonecalls, and I still dont have a working computer! Please help!

Thanks in advance for any info.

Suragati[/quote]