Author Topic: Too those who know Motherboards? (Read 496 times)

RGJ · « **on:** April 24, 2003, 03:31:01 AM »

I have got a ATI 9700pro, 2x512mb Corsair 3200 DDR mem, Asus P4G8X deluxe M/B, 2.8 intel cpu and things are not right, system hangs etc.

From what I have read the the E702 chipset and the 9700 do not get along.

Does anyone know of a intel cpu motherboard that will take the 9700 and dual channel memory and work?

Also if I was going down the AMD route which M/B chipset would work with the above?

Btw for info I put a Geforce 4 ti4600 on the system and it works no ploblems, but I would like to use the 9700.

RGJ

Scot · « **Reply #1 on:** April 24, 2003, 07:29:14 AM »

I have a similar system. There have been a ton suggestions and reasons for all the troubles. The fact is the 9700 8X AGP doesn't work well with some systems ( not just the Granite Bay CS). I was able get mine working by doing the following:

Unistall your old ATI drivers ( and make sure any Nvida is gone also), set APG voltage to 1.7v, turn off fast writes, and set AGP apteture memory to 128, and make sure your using Catalyst 3.2 .

3.3s should be out April 29th... don't get the early version out now they are OEM targeted for the Dells with the 9800s.

If all else fails, drop down your AGP to 4X with fast writes off.

I know, it sux to run at 4X with a new system that's supposed to go to 8X. But alot of folks run stable with 4X .

Good Luck!

Reschke · « **Reply #2 on:** April 24, 2003, 07:34:35 AM »

If you want to go down the AMD road the Nforce2 chipsets are really nice. When you check into one look for one with built in sound; those work well and the sound chips are nicely intergrated into the resources. The Via KT400 chipsets are better than past Via chipsets but still not as good as the Nforce2 chipsets; but hey I just go on how they work once I build 'em. Pluse I have had some bad experiences with the Via chipsets in recent months.

Vermillion · « **Reply #3 on:** April 24, 2003, 12:49:04 PM »

RGJ I had the exact same setup you had, and could NEVER get it to work reliabley. Not even close. And I tried a thousand little "tweaks" on all the websites claiming to fix the problem. The Granite Bay Chipset, totally hates 9700 Pro's.

I ended up returning the Asus motherboard, and purchased a SiS 655 chipset motherboard. All the same features as the GraniteBay, but made by SiS. http://www.anandtech.com has some good reviews of these motherboards. I personally got the MSI Max 655, but Asus and Gigabyte also makes a very nice MB with this chipset.

It works like a charm.

Just my solution to the nightmare.

Maverick · « **Reply #4 on:** April 24, 2003, 01:08:25 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Reschke
If you want to go down the AMD road the Nforce2 chipsets are really nice. When you check into one look for one with built in sound; those work well and the sound chips are nicely intergrated into the resources. The Via KT400 chipsets are better than past Via chipsets but still not as good as the Nforce2 chipsets; but hey I just go on how they work once I build 'em. Pluse I have had some bad experiences with the Via chipsets in recent months.

What bad experiances did you get???? Did any involve "losing" the HD on boot up?

Reschke · « **Reply #5 on:** April 24, 2003, 01:54:51 PM »

Built 4 systems for people since December. All four were either KT333 or KT400 chipsets. 2 were Iwill boards and 1 ASUS, 1 Abit on all four instances the boards had issues with RAM not working at all. There was one of the Iwill boards that lost a hard drive repeatedly but I am still not sure it wasn't the drive itself since we RMA'd it also. Another issue was a temperature problem where the board dropped back the speed of the CPU automatically with no warning on reboot. That happened on the Abit AT7 frequently. But as I said the overriding issue was the fact that all the boards had at least one faulty DIMM slot.

All of the boards were replaced after 2 tries at getting new boards to go but they still had issues. I ended up rebuilding one went the Intel route with an ASUS P4PE board and the guy has not looked back. The others went with different motherboards entirely. The ASUS board I started out using was an A7V8X and it is now as A78NX Deluxe as is the Abit AT7. The Iwill boards well one ended up as an Intel and the other guy went with MSI's newest Nforce2 chipset board.

bloom25 · « **Reply #6 on:** April 24, 2003, 06:46:06 PM »

The Granite Bay chipset has an AGP 3.0 bug (it's on Intel's errata sheet for this chipset). It's unlikely you will ever be able to get the system 100% stable with an AGP 8x card. (Supposedly the problem can be fixed with a motherboard redesign, but that doesn't do existing board owners any good.)

If you want to stay Intel, the i845PE chipset (which is a little out of date now) does not have this issue. You might also want to look at the new i875 (Canterwood) or i865 (Springdale) chipsets which have 800 MHz FSB support and a lot of other new features. I've never used that SiS chipset, so I don't have any recommendations regarding it. (I don't believe it has 800 MHz FSB support though...)

If you want to switch to AMD, the nForce 2 chipset is definately the way to go. The VIA KT400 chipset is ok, but the nForce 2 is much better in terms of speed and stability. (The Soundstorm audio on the Deluxe nForce 2 boards is top notch as well.) VIA chipsets have improved recently, but I still don't feel they are at the same level as the nForce 2.

spiffykraits · « **Reply #7 on:** April 25, 2003, 04:42:52 AM »

I have an MSI MB with SiS chipset - no problems at all - and these MBs are extrememly competitive on price. Works well with my ATI 9700 Pro 128 video card.

Staga · « **Reply #8 on:** April 25, 2003, 07:01:50 AM »

Most likely you're not going to notice any difference with your framerates if you change from AGP8x to 4x.

Scot · « **Reply #9 on:** April 25, 2003, 07:20:32 AM »

RGJ,

I don't know how telling you to go AMD is going to help you with your situation. Looks like you've been hijacked by the "AMD is the greatest " choir. Don't be disappointed with the system you have now. I do have mine running ( agree with Staga ) and I'm EXTREMELY happy with the systems performance.

And just remember, even if you have to run you 2.8 GIG INTEL / ASUS GRANITE BAY mobo / 2x512mb Corsair 3200 DDR mem at 4X AGP you're still blowing away any AMD board out there

!

< grabs a beer, checks the bobber one last time and waits...

>

beet1e · « **Reply #10 on:** April 25, 2003, 10:22:40 AM »

I use an Asus mobo (A7V133) with VIA chipset. Never had an ounce of trouble. Even Aces High runs without incident on my WMe system. Frame rate around 60 in flight (max 75) or around 30 in those Tank Town GV battles. Hard to know how nForce can be better than VIA. I find that the Asus/KT133/VIA combo is perfect.

RGJ · « **Reply #11 on:** April 25, 2003, 11:14:03 AM »

Thanks for all your replies it has been an interesting read:).

RGJ

Reschke · « **Reply #12 on:** April 25, 2003, 03:13:39 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Scot
RGJ,

I don't know how telling you to go AMD is going to help you with your situation. Looks like you've been hijacked by the "AMD is the greatest " choir. Don't be disappointed with the system you have now. I do have mine running ( agree with Staga ) and I'm EXTREMELY happy with the systems performance.

And just remember, even if you have to run you 2.8 GIG INTEL / ASUS GRANITE BAY mobo / 2x512mb Corsair 3200 DDR mem at 4X AGP you're still blowing away any AMD board out there !

< grabs a beer, checks the bobber one last time and waits... >

I find they (Intel) run great when I get to build them for people. Sometimes I wish I could afford to buy one myself but I generally don't charge anything other than a good bottle for Glenlivet for building a system for people. Makes the soul feel better. I have tried to get many people who want them to buy Intel but they have one problem....$$$$$$$$$ for Intel versus $$$$$ for an AMD system that is amazingly close in everyday applications including games and benchmarks.