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HELP - AGP Voltage Problems

A

Artifice

Junior Member
I've been having problems while playing BF1942. After an hour or so, my performance has dregraded to the point where I cannot sustain 30 frames/sec at the most minimal graphics settings (eye candy off, 640x480x16). In an effort to look into the problem, I loaded my mobo (Soyo) hardware diag tool and found that my AGP voltage is way out of whack. At normal load, it stays right around 1.48 or 1.49 (AGP 2.0 is supposed to be 1.5, correct?), but anytime you have anything running, especially games, it jumps all the way up to 1.79 and plateaus there. I'm worried that I'm slowly frying my graphics card.

I'm not a novice user, but this one's over my head. I put an email into Soyo and I'll call them if they dont respond, but I'd love to understand what's going on and what the ramifications are (aside from absolutely crappy performance). And if anyone has an inkling how to fix this problem, I'd love to hear it.

Please, with all due respect, don't slam my mobo choice. I had a couple of solid MSI boards that burped when paired with my Crucial DIMMs, and I got a really excellent deal on my Soyo Dragon KT333 Ultra (black edition), so I picked one up. It isnt the performance king, but it's been solid up til now. This seems to be a recent development.

Rest of my relevant specs:

Antec SX630 3x80mm fans
Dynatron Microfin Copper bottom CPU HSF
Athlon XP 1700
Crucial 2x256 PC2100
Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra
MSI GF4 Ti4400 "Champion" edition (VO only)

Can't think of anything else that could be problematic. Thanks in advance for help.
 
If the Soyo meets your needs, why should anybody knock it? I think they make some solid boards. As for the problem, it sounds like the vid card is overheating. It will probably draw more current when very hot and the mobo may be jacking up the voltage as the electrical characteristics of the card change or the card may not be able to regulate the voltage as it heats up. Is the heatsink on the card still seated properly? Does the fan spin freely? Look for dust buildup on the fan blades and heatsink fins. Is there another card in the slot right next to the vid card? If so, try moving the adjacent card to another slot to improve airflow.
 
Thanks Jack. I will pull the case open & check that.

I just recently ditched my Thermalright SK6 w/ Delta screamer in favor of that quieter HS/F set. Any chance that could be somehow affecting heat xfer from my Vid card?

The new cpu HSF was a painless install - took it out of the boxm ripped off the plastic coating on bottom and snapped it right on. It has a Honeywell thermal "pad" (kinda gooey - more like a square of paste). I figured I'd try it before going through the effort of scraping it off so I can dose it with Artic Silver.
 
changing to a lower noise (also lower cfm) hsf on the cpu probably did change the airflow near the vid card somewhat, but I would have to think it wouldn't be enough to create the problem. Do you have a front or side intake case fan? Sometimes an 80mm fan on the side of the case can do a lot. Cut a 3" hole, drill 4 holes for the screws, $5 for the fan, $1 for a grill, easy and cheap.
 
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