Soyo VIA Motherboard help!!

[jpnev]

I just bought the new Soyo motherboard with the VIA Chipset, a IBM ULTRA 66 Hard Drive, and an Elsa Eraser III (TNT2) AGP video card. Windows runs fine , I can brose the web but I try to play a game such as Heroes of might and magic III, It locks up, and you have to restart, the title screen shows and it just locks up, I have installed the new 4 in one pack, the new drivers from Elsa, even tried the refernce generic drivers from Nvidia for the tnt2, patches for the game, still the same thing. I Have the harddrive as the master on the first chanel and the ide cd rom drive as the master on the second channel. I have tried disabling the ultra 66, no availe. I am wondering if it is my video card or my motherbaord. I ran everything fine with my old FCI BX mothe board and voodoo 3 agp card and a Maxtor hard drive. Any help? thanks alot

[dawgtuff]

Go over to Soyo's website.They've got new drivers to help with AGP and bus problems.

[Susan]

Which motherboard is it? You mean the ETEQ chipset?

[jpnev]

I have the new VBA motherboard, I have installed all the new patches from Soyo and still no luck, I am wondering if it is my video card drivers or my motherboard, all the features in the world do not matter to me if I can not run a simple game

[AuraEdge]

See if theres any driver/BIOS updates for the 6VBA
Another thing that may be the problem is did U install the board drivers off the Soyo CD?

[jpnev]

yes i installed the drivers first off the cd why?

[AuraEdge]

I was thinking maybe the communication between the AGP port and the board wasnt right because the software driver wasnt install but that inst the case

[magpie]

The new Soyo boards do have branded Via chips on them but I don't think that is your problem. I have had similar lock-ups with TNT2 cards which have disappeared when I have put in a voodoo card. It always pointed to the fact that TNT2 cards are not always compatible with particular games. Make sure you have the latest Direct X drivers and have loaded any patches for each individual game from the publishers support site. Good luck!

[RobRich]

First, goto VIA's website ( www.viatech.com (http://www.viatech.com) ) and download the latest drivers for your m/b's chipset. This solve most compatiblity issues. Install them, then reinstall your video drivers.

What tnt-2 drivers are you using? I've found that the reference 2.08 driver set is the best place to start if your having 3d acceleration problems. Leave the 3.5x drivers alone due to AGP problems. Also, apply these setting in your bios:

disable video caching
disable video shawdowing
disable video pallete snooping
enable assign video IRQ

If all fails, after installing the reference drivers, try adding this option to your registry by following these steps:

run regedit (start, run, regedit)
goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\NVIDIA Corporation\Riva TNT\System\
Create a DWORD Value (right click)
Name it Super7Compat (spell exactly like this with right capitalization)
Change its value to 1, then reboot.

This may sound odd to add super7 compatiblity statements to an intel compatible board, but the chipset on this board uses a similar AGP chipset thats found on VIA's super7 chipsets.

[This message has been edited by RobRich (edited 11-22-1999).]