Decent hardware, horrible 3DMark2001 scores

[lyron]

Same old story as The Highlander and Pagangod.

Rig:
CPU: 1.4M Athlon T-bird
MoBo: Epox 8KHA Rev. 1.1
HD: IBM Maxtor 40GB 7200 RPM
RAM: Kingston 256MB DDR, 2100
VidCard: Jaton 3DForce2 MX200-32TV nVIDIA GeForce2 MX200 AGP2x/4x 32MB SDRAM W/TV
300 W ps in Enlight Case

From day 1, it runs really glitchy, some things are fast while others are very slow, the
communications are seriously bunged up, i.e. it won't stay online for more than about 1/2 hour. Quake either
crashes or I get flecks all over the screen in about 30 seconds.

- ran 3DMark2001, it scores 1200, and it sees no video memory (says 0 MB), but it's seen in the BIOS.

- loaded the most recent NVidia drivers (21.83), no improvement.

- found that I had the 5/23/01 BIOS, so I flashed a later BIOS (10/31/01), thinking that maybe
the 5/23 one wasn't capable of fully utilizing the DDR memory, and the result was still 1200
on 3DMark2001, but it crashes even MORE often than before (even when I'm looking through photos,
for example).

After some internal debate, I decided to take out all cards, wipe the HD, reinstall
Windows 98 SE, install the Via 4in1, and load the video driver 21.83. The idea was to get
things going correctly, and then stepwise insert cards until I found the problem.

Well, I can't anything to recognize the video memory (just like before). The 32M video
memory is seen upon startup (in the BIOS or the pre-BIOS), but 3DMark2001 sees 0 bytes
of memory. I therefore get scorching marks of 1200 from 3DM2001.

This is making me crazy. Does anybody know what is going on? Could the video card
somehow be incompatible with the mobo?

(note: I installed another card, a Voodoo 3/2000, and now 3DMark2001 sees 16MB of memory,
which is a good sign. The bad sign is that my 3DMark2001 score only increased from 1200 to 1900.)

Thanks -

-Bill S.

[Lord Sech]

Lyron

I honestly would have to say the only thing i could think of would be your video card is slipping. Installing a voodoo 3 and getting a higher score really tops that idea. Even though the MX is a "slow" card, it is still a good amount faster than the voodoo 3. You may want to look into buying a ge-force 2 pro or ge-force 3 ti200. They run between 120-150 and will show HUGE improvements.

-Lord Sech