Celeron 2 & 440LX : Serious help needed

[ringoffire]

I know, the 440LX isn't worth upgrading. Thing is, I have 256MB 66Mhz RAM, and a Dell box where you can't upgrade the m'board without doing the case, power supply, etc............I'm trying to hold off for serious graphics machine next year.

So, I put in a 666 Celeron (that's how it posts) via an IWill Slocket. It is getting 1.8v instead of spec 1.65v but runs very cool with a Gorb fan. It will render flawlessly for hours on end in After Effects @100% CPU usage with no instability or heat issues, and is surprisingly fast at this chore.

One problem: The system freezes whenever an application is opened when using hardware acceleration of my Diamond V770 TNT2 32MB video card. After Effects, Premiere, Lightwave, even Media player and the DirectX diagnostic utility freeze while loading unless the 'hardware acceleration' slider of the V770 in control panel is set way down.

I don't know if this is a driver, bios, CPU, motherboard, power supply, memory, IRQ or some other problem.

Any ideas?

 

[AndyHui]

What drivers are you running with your Viper 770? Try the Detonator 2 rather than the Detonator 3 drivers, since the Detonator 2s will be faster for your TNT2.

Do you have an SBLive and LiveWare 3? That could also be causing a problem unless you have the latest drivers....since LiveWare 3 is incompatible with Coppermine CPUs.

 

[rigor]

sometimes (believe it or not!) you need to reinstall the os (like win98) for it to handle the MMX/sse correctly when upgrading. I've seen it happen once for me, strange, i just upgraded to ME.

said my celeron2 was some other chip and was acting strange.

 

[ringoffire]

thanks for the suggestions.

I'm using Detonator 2, D-3 drivers were awful with my card. Don't have SBLive or LiveWare. Will try a reinstall of Win98SE soon as I find time......

 

[AndyHui]

Have you only recently put that Viper 770 in? I suddenly remembered that most LX boards are unable to supply the AGP power requirements to TNT(2) cards since they eat up so much power. Most probably that is what is causing your problem. When most LX boards where manufactured, there were no cards that used up as much power as the TNT 1 and TNT2 cards that came later.

 

[Vrangel]

Yeah this problem is quite old .
TNT2 doesnt get enough voltage to AGP port on 440LX and freezes.

Had it myself on my Dell D266. Here is what I did.

Bought Tyan Trinity 400 mobo ($80) and 300w PSU ($30).

No need for a new case.That ribbon connector from Dell case
fits perfectly on TT400 and pinout is the same
(leave out 2 right pins on mobo, purple wire on a ribbon should be on the left side when you plug it in).

Dell memory is CAS2 P66, works perfectly @100 as CAS3.

You can go that way or get nonNvidia videocard.TNT2 or GeForce will not work on 440LX.

 

[ringoffire]

I've had my tnt2 a couple of months, and was leary about getting it because of the power issue. But some people were having good luck with them so I got one. When first installed it worked, but not very well, couldn't reach maximum screen resolution, no full screen video playback. A friend suggested upgrading from win95 to win98SE, so I did. Voilá, the card worked perfectly-full screen video playback etc. I flashed the BIOS (P14) to prepare for the Celeron, everything still OK. The card degraded only after I installed the Celeron. Now I wonder if it was the win 98SE upgrade or just re-installation of the OS that did the trick.

That Trinity mobo idea sounds good as a last resort. But are you talking about overclocking? I'd like to, but I have a Pinnacle DC30plus capture card that probably wouldn't stand the strain......

 

[Vrangel]

Overclocking is ok on TT400.
I have c366@550 on Iwill Slocket2 right now.
I also tried c533@800 on it, no problem.

Best of all I didnt have to move anything from that nice looking Dell case.
Install mobo, PSU and you're all set.
(Well, I recommend to reformat HD before that and then make clean OS install)

PS. Dont waste your time trying to make TNT2 work on 440LX.
I wasted a month or two awhile ago. Just forget it.

 

[ringoffire]

Well, my V770 was working properly, so far as I could tell. I could play back fullscreen, 1280x1024, 32 bit, 4MB/s .avi's at 29.97 fps, no problem. And the Open GL implementation in Lightwave was impressive, often playing scenes faster than realtime. I do not play games on this machine, however, and perhaps they would reveal problems I didn't experience. If I could get back to the level of performance I had before the Celeron installation, I'd be satisfied. Thanks for the mobo recommendation, it may come down to that yet...

 

[Vrangel]

No relation to your problem but
this link might be of some interest to you:

http://go18.163.com/~xtennis/G-Quadro/Quadro1-2.htm

 

[ringoffire]

re: http://go18.163.com/~xtennis/G-Quadro/Quadro1-2.htm

very interesting.

 

[GL]

Vrangel,

The problem with the voltage is not the fault of the chipset, but the motherboard. I have a later revision Asus P2L97 that fixes the problem of insufficient power to the AGP slot and it works with my overclocked TNT just fine - and I am told with even GeForces.

-GL

 

[ringoffire]

GL-

Thanks for the info. I wondered why so many people, here and elsewhere, stated flatly that tnt2 would not work on 440LX boards when it was working so well on mine.

 

[Vrangel]

OK, let me elaborate.
I had my V770 freezing in Q3A on AL440LX Intel OEM mobo
in Dell Dimension XPS D266.

Exactly the same hardware ringoffire has.
I think new CPU pushed it overboard.

And I researched the subject at the time.

One fix involves underclocking the card using Powerstrip.
Didnt work for me.

Another fix is to cut some power leads on mobo and feed AGP port from PSU directly.
I had links to places where they give detailed instructions.
Cant find them right now.I chose to upgrade mobo.

BTW that memory you have is 10ns. Take module out and take a look.
Its labeled as PC66(CAS2) but it works within its specs as PC100(CAS3).
On TT400 you can run CPU @66fsb and memory @100 (Via ApolloPro A chipset).

EDIT
I keep remembering it piece by piece.
For a temporary fix go to program files/directx and disable AGP.
No more freezes but performance is pathetic of course.