Gigabyte GA-5AX ATI Rage Pro AGP problem

[rcraig]

Hey everyone,

I recently aquired an older computer that has a Gigabyte GA-5AX mb that has the ALI Aladin V chipset. It came with a K6-2 450 and a pci video card. I put a K6-2 550 and an ATI Rage Pro AGP card in it and all seemed fine until I try and run some game benchmarks on it, then the video goes black, but the computer still seems to be working. The only way to get the video back is to reboot. I researched this and found on Gigabyte's site, it says to update the bios (done) and get the latest video drivers (done). This didn't help. On Tom's site I found if you disable the video turbo mode in the bios, it runs stable, but very slow (frame rates halved). Tom's said it was caused by the chipset not supplying enough power to the agp slot. Anyone have any other suggestions or a fix? I know this is an old board, but it would be good for a third gaming system when I have two friends visit. I will eventually upgrade the video card if this agp problem can be fixed.

Thanks,

RCraig

 

[Athlon4all]

I hear ya!!!!! I had a system with an ALi Aladdin V board with an ATi Rage Pro, and argh!!!! It gave me absolution nothing but trouble, especially in gaming. Id trade that vid card for a TNT or TNT2

 

[rcraig]

Was this problem fixed when using a tnt2 card? Or should I look for a pci card? I keep thinking instead of spending money on another old video card I should get a ECS K7S5A mb and a cheap duron. Then I'd have an upgrade path and can still use my old parts.

RCraig

 

[MrBumpy]

Many Super Socket 7 mainboards don't supply enough voltage to the AGP slot. This is mostly a problem with 3.3 volt AGP cards, if I'm not mistaken.

The newer GeForce 2 and 3 cards (to my knowledge) use 1.5 volts. I have tested both GeForce 2 and 3 with my computer (ALi Aladdin V) and they have no compatibility issues. Just make sure you do the following.

1) Get the latest AGP driver and utilityfrom the ALi website

2) Make sure that the GAT mode is set to 0 (default) or 1 (safe) using the utility. GAT mode 2 (turbo) will probably cause lockups.

3) If you go with TNT2, then you may need to set the AGP speed to 1X, but then it should run perfectly stable.

Hope this helps

 

[rcraig]

Has anyone tried to use a V5 5500 agp? I have one that I was thinking of moving to this system to see how it works since it has the additional power connector. If this doesn't work, I guess I'll be looking for a cheap GF2 card and selling my ATI. That should only cost me about $25 difference which would be worth it if it gives some life into this machine.

Thanks for the info MrBumpy. I was just playing with that agp utility but didn't know what settings to use. I did notice that Turbo caused lockups. Should I be able to run a GF2 card at agp speed at 2x?

RCraig

 

[rcraig]

I put my Voodoo 5 5500 in this board this morning and tried it since it gets its power from a separate connector from the power supply instead of the agp slot. So far so good. I ran Quake 2 demo's including the crusher without a single lockup or problem. I then ran the ALI AGP utility and set the settings to turbo. Another round of demos and still no problems. I think my V5 has found a new home. That means buying a better card for my main machine, moving my GF2 to machine #2 and keeping this one for the occasional older glide games and for when I need a third computer.

Thanks for your help.

RCraig