GA-F2A75M-HD2 + AMD A10 A6700 & Windows XP

[William Gaatjes]

Today i have mixed feelings but overall i am very pleased. My system functions in combination with a 500GB WD Blue HDD. Loaded the AHCI drivers and installed windows XP SP2 and SP3 without any problem. Everything worked great. Except for one thing. I already expected some problem since it is all new hardware that might not be supported properly. I knew there was something new with the graphic system from windows vista and beyond when compared with windows xp. It seems there is no 2d hardware acceleration with the drivers i installed. Perhaps i have forgotten something but i do not know what.
There is in the hardware tab from windows an exclamation mark and a driver not installed for a video graphics controller. I have not yet found a way how to solve that issue. But anyway the hardware functions, to the best of my knowledge great although i have not changed the memory timings yet to let the memory run at 1833MHz.

Windows 7 premium i will be buying soon. Have to figure out now how to adjust and optimize (in my view) windows 7.


P.S.

My overall state of mind towards my new hardware is --> :wub:

 

[Insert_Nickname]

There is in the hardware tab from windows an exclamation mark and a driver not installed for a video graphics controller. I have not yet found a way how to solve that issue. But anyway the hardware functions, to the best of my knowledge great although i have not changed the memory timings yet to let the memory run at 1833MHz.

Sounds like you're running the default VGA driver. Have you downloaded and installed the AMD XP drivers from amd.com...?

 

[William Gaatjes]

Sounds like you're running the default VGA driver. Have you downloaded and installed the AMD XP drivers from amd.com...?

I have.
Everything is installed except for the graphics controller.
The drivers are called :

13-4_xp32_dd_ccc_whql.exe

I let windows search inside these folders :
\AMD\Support\13-4_xp32_dd_ccc_whql\Packages\Drivers
\AMD\Support\13-4_xp32_dd_ccc_whql\Packages\Drivers\Display\XP_INF

I let it search in this inf : CX154962.inf

But it will not install.

I do have to mention that i read on the internet that since the HD5000 series AMD no longer has any 2D hardware acceleration drivers . But it is a page from tomshardware i am still reading about. I have still not fully read it. I might be making a mistake.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/2d-windows-gdi,2539-8.html

But i will be switching towards windows 7 home premium soon.
I understand that i can run VMware with my old XP on windows 7 home premium.

 

[tcsenter]

You have the latest mobo BIOS (F4)? It added Richland (APU) support.

Also, try running the AMD Catalyst installer (requires NET Framework 2.0 or higher, and Visual C++ 2008 or 2010 Runtimes, which should be included with Catalyst package). You may also need the update for DirectX runtimes.

 

[William Gaatjes]

You have the latest mobo BIOS (F4)? It added Richland (APU) support.

Also, try running the AMD Catalyst installer (requires NET Framework 2.0 or higher, and Visual C++ 2008 or 2010 Runtimes, which should be included with Catalyst package). You may also need the update for DirectX runtimes.

According to this list i indeed need Bios version F4.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4650

I vagely remember seeing F3. :hmm:
I will check that when i have the time.
Thank you.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I do have to mention that i read on the internet that since the HD5000 series AMD no longer has any 2D hardware acceleration drivers . But it is a page from tomshardware i am still reading about. I have still not fully read it. I might be making a mistake.

I remember that, I think it got fixed eventually. Its related to a old driver for the 5000 series. So I don't think it should affect anything now.

According to this list i indeed need Bios version F4.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4650

I vagely remember seeing F3. :hmm:
I will check that when i have the time.
Thank you.

That could be the issue. I'd think a Richland chip would run with an older BIOS, but there are bound to be some issues here and there.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I updated the board(REV1.0) to F4. Unfortunately, it did not help.
But soon i will own a windows 7 home premium license (32bit).
I have seen it for 89 Euro.


I do am curious, does anybody know if old DX8 and DX9C games still function under W7 home premium 32 bit ?

I know i am not using the 2x4GB memory to full addressable range, but it works fine for now and it is more than what i had before.

 

[Sheep221]

Today i have mixed feelings but overall i am very pleased. My system functions in combination with a 500GB WD Blue HDD. Loaded the AHCI drivers and installed windows XP SP2 and SP3 without any problem. Everything worked great. Except for one thing. I already expected some problem since it is all new hardware that might not be supported properly. I knew there was something new with the graphic system from windows vista and beyond when compared with windows xp. It seems there is no 2d hardware acceleration with the drivers i installed. Perhaps i have forgotten something but i do not know what.
There is in the hardware tab from windows an exclamation mark and a driver not installed for a video graphics controller. I have not yet found a way how to solve that issue. But anyway the hardware functions, to the best of my knowledge great although i have not changed the memory timings yet to let the memory run at 1833MHz.

Windows 7 premium i will be buying soon. Have to figure out now how to adjust and optimize (in my view) windows 7.


P.S.

My overall state of mind towards my new hardware is --> :wub:

What you missing is WDDM driver, but they only work on Vista and newer.

I updated the board(REV1.0) to F4. Unfortunately, it did not help.
But soon i will own a windows 7 home premium license (32bit).
I have seen it for 89 Euro.


I do am curious, does anybody know if old DX8 and DX9C games still function under W7 home premium 32 bit ?

I know i am not using the 2x4GB memory to full addressable range, but it works fine for now and it is more than what i had before.

Yes, it will be same experience as you would run them on XP. In the case it wouldn't work properly, you can run program in compatibility mode for Windows XP or Vista.

 

[tcsenter]

I know i am not using the 2x4GB memory to full addressable range, but it works fine for now and it is more than what i had before.

Ah, I had not seen this before. It's possible that your motherboard BIOS has user-selectable memory remap option for systems greater than 4GB RAM. If so, this should be set to disable for XP 32-bit, otherwise it could be trying to assign address ranges for the graphics card where XP 32-bit is unable to see it, preventing the graphics driver from working or installing. Also, check for ACPI settings that XP 32-bit cannot support (e.g. ACPI 4.0), which can effect exposure of hardware to the OS.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

But soon i will own a windows 7 home premium license (32bit).
I have seen it for 89 Euro.

Unless you need 16bit support, which I very much doubt, I'd strongly advice getting a 64bit version to get the most out your hardware. It should cost the exact same as a 32bit version, and can run every 32bit program I have run across.

You can always run XP in a virtual machine if you need backward compatibility since you already have a licence for it.

I do am curious, does anybody know if old DX8 and DX9C games still function under W7 home premium 32 bit ?

Everything should work just fine on 32/64bit Win7. The only thing you can have problems with are very old games that use 16bit installers. Anything newer then 1998'ish should be fine.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Thank you for your reply.
When looking into the different Operating Systems from Microsoft, i see that windows 8 is also available and that with the new servicepack, the old startmenu will return. Also, "under the hood" there are improvements with respect to switching threads between cpu cores.
Hyper - V seems to be supported and windows 8 uses less memory resources.

I am going to ask a feq questions, but i will do that in the cpu section and os section of the forum and link the questions in a post here in this thread.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Yahooo. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
A few changes took place and...
I am now posting from windows7 64 bit home premium. My old psu produced for a while a smell that made me worry and a plastic shielding looked as if it got pretty hot. Thus i bought a new psu to be on the save side. The ANTEC Earth watts 380 after reading the Anandtech review seemed a decent one and is now running (I can smell the "newness" :awe:coming of it) :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3902/antec-earthwatts-ea-380d-green-380w.

When i measured on the primary side with my old PSU (230V Mains) the amount of power consumed is about 48 watts when idle. When i started a game, consumption is on average 80 ~ 100 watts with peaks around 130 to 140 watts. Will measure soon how much the consumption is while performing different tasks.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Well, i had completely forgotten to measure the power consumption and to post here. I came by this thread by accident and read that i promised something but i never did, so a bit late but here it is.

Specs of my system :

4 fans : 1 CPU fan, 1 PSU fan, 2 case fans.
PSU : Antec Earth watts 380W.
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
SSD : Crucial_CT256M550SSD1 : 256,0 GB
HDD : WDC WD5000AAKX-00ERMA0 : 500,1 GB.
DVD writer : Optiarc.
RAM : 8GB 1600MHz ddr3 dram.
MB : GA-F2A75M-HD2
APU : A10-6700.

All power is measured on the 230V inlet with a voltcraft Energy check 3000.
Idle power consumption is 34.4W @ 230V.
Having a firefox browser open with 1 open tab with anandtech forum is 36.1W. When opening explorer, power consumption jumps up to 41W for a second and then returns to idle.
Four threads, prime 95 is 127.6W @4,2GHz auto overclock from AMD.
When it starts throtteling the clock speed, powerconsumption is lowered to around 118W.