Is my AGP slot 4X or 2X?

[DaveF]

My motherboard ECS K7VZM bios shows AGP setting as 4X, but 3DMark2001SE lists it as 2X. I'm getting a score of 3215 (Radeon 32DDR overclocked to 212.8/198.0 w/tbird 950), which is in the range of values others are getting. Could 3DMark be wrong? Are their other benchmark programs which show AGP settings?

 

[DaveF]

bump for some help

 

[Mem]

That`s a VIA KT133 board ,so is AGP 4x,you can download WCPUID which will tell you what it`s running in.


WCPUID download site,if it says you`re in 2x AGP mode then try installing the VIA AGP driver in turbo mode( which`s in the VIA 4 in 1 driver pack) .

 

[DaveF]

Thanks Mem, I think you've got me on the right track, anyway. WCPUID says I'm in 2X mode.

I uninstalled/reinstalled via v4.38 and it never asked me about 'turbo mode'. I remember seeing that as an option when I installed drivers in other pc's. So, I uninstalled 4.38 and installed 4.36, and it didn't even ask if I wanted to install AGP drivers. Weird.

I then unistalled all via drivers from system hardware, and same result. I can install v4.38 AGP 4X/133 drivers, but WCPUID still shows AGP in 2X mode.

Any ideas?

I updated bios from 1.1g to 1.2e, so maybe I'll flash back and see if anything changes. I never checked if I was in 2X or 4X mode w/ 1.1.

 

[Mem]

Hmmm ,if you`ve AGP 4x enabled in bios and have the AGP driver installed in turbo mode then it should be running in 4x mode,you tried installing the VIA agp driver on its own ? VIA AGP driver .

 

[DaveF]

Thanks for your help and effort. No go on the direct agp driver install.

I have an older instance of XP on my D: drive, and it says 2X also. I think I'll play with the bios and see if I got a good flash.

The weird thing is that I'm getting reasonable (?) benchmark tests.

edit: Just found from ATI troubleshooting, "If the card is installed in a properly configured AGP 4x motherboard, then the ATI utilities should indicate the Bus Type to be "AGP 1x, AGP 2x, AGP 4x"." Sure enough, if I go into Radeon 7200 advanced adapter property settings it lists the AGP bus type as such. Maybe I'm fooling the bechmark programs some how. If not, I'd sure like to think I could double my vid rate.

 

[jt63]

I remember reading somewhere that if ATI drivers detect a VIA chipset, it will only run at AGP 2X, regardless of the bios setting. This dates back to the 686B headache.

 

[DaveF]

Must be what's going on. ATIinfo utility shows 1X,2X,4X as bus type even if I set bios to 2X. I also get the same 3dmark2001se benchmark score. Do you remember it there is a fix for ATI/Via686 problem?

 

[jt63]

I don't believe so, ATI cards would lock up PCs with the older VIA southbridge and the only workaround was to lower the AGP setting from 4X to 2 X. I guess they got tired of the Tech Support calls and encoded the setting change into the drivers.