AGP Speed not Right!

[Paulhgti]

Hi all. I was running some benchmark stuff, and it said my AGP slot was running at 1x. Thats all. i have an asus a7v, and a rage fury maxx w 64 megs memory.. do i need to change it in the bios? i have it set to auto, wouldn't that get the fastest speed.
Help

[Rat]

I'm not familiar with your vid card, but someone here likely is. As far as what speed your AGP slot should be set at, Auto is not necessarily the best setting, especially if your'e looking for the best performance. Of course 2x and 4x perform faster, but your vid card will dictate what the fastest speed can be. Your owners manual should tell you what it should be set at.

Rat...

[Paulhgti]

My bios only lets me set to drive strengths, which i can not find any help with! like ranges from 0 to e or so. i whish it were as simple as 1x/2x/4x. i guess to logical.

[Paulhgti]

Found and solved the problem.. I needed to update to the latest agp driver from via. worked like a charm!

[otheos]

The A7V sets the AGP to 2x or 4x from the NORMAL/OPTIMAL switch in BIOS.

However this also changes some memory settings.

The Fury MAXX is AGP2x so you will have to compromise with the slower NORMAL setting in BIOS. However, later (1005a/b/c) BIOSes set this to OPTIMAL for FSB's up to 103 and to NORMAL from 104 and up. You cannot apparently change that since it apparently resets to what it wants as soon as you do something else. However, if you change it to whatever you want and press F10 and save and exit it keeps the setting.

Now, with AGP2x for your card, you can either run it at 2x (NORMAL) and lose perfromance due to the low mem timings, or to AGP4x (OPTIMAL) and have your memory timings set aggressively. The difference in mem performance is VERY BIG (almost 40%) so it's worth going for the OPTIMAL.
Your card though will cause you instabilities in AGP4x (if it runs at all). So you should install the VIA 4in1 in Standard instead of TURBO. This will only give you AGP1x (no matter what the BIOS is set to). Now the difference between AGP1x and 2x in real life is negligible.

So I suggest:

OPTIMAL in BIOS
Via 4in1 standard (AGP1x)

The ATI RAGE 128PRO chip that your (and my) card is using is known to be INCOMPATIBLE with the KT133 chipset and even at AGP2x your card will cause you instabilities. If you check with ATI for the MAXX and KT133 board manufacturers you will see they all suggest running these cards at 1x for stability.

Next thing to do: get rid of the ATI and never buy again (at least that's what I'll do).

Good luck.