How do you see AGP2X or AGP4X??

[RTR]

Hi,

I have an Iwill XA100Plus MB and an Geforce2MX GFX card.
The card is AGP4X and the manual of the borad says "Supports advanced 2XAGP up to 133Mhz"
I tried to find in the BIOS anothing that sayd if the AGPbus is on 2X or not. but there isn´t a thing. the only thing I found on AGP is GRAPHICS APERTURE SIZE. I put that on 128 (as on 256 my system starts to crash every 20 minutes)
I have 655 MB of memory.

Any ideas is welcome!

David

 

[CMRvet]

Hi,
First of all, the max AGP transfer rate depends on the motherboard and not the graphics card. If your mobo is AGP 2x capable, your graphics card will be running at 66 MHz (66 MHz x1) or 132 MHz (66 MHz x 2) even if it was 4x.
Anyway you can see the AGP transfer rate with programs such as sisoftsandra and wcpuid (to be sure that AGP transfer rate is at 2x and not at 1x).
Good luck

 

[RTR]

Thank you very much. I will try to find that software and see what it gives me.

David

 

[RTR]

Hi,

I have just installed Sisoft Sandra Standard 2000. And getting the information of the mainboard it says:

AGP Bus:
version : 1.00
Bus Speed : 74Mhz
Current data Transfer Rate : 1X(74Mhz)
Aperture Size : 128MB
Side Band Enabled : No
Side Band Support : yes
Fast-Writes Enabled : No


Although later it says:
AGP(8h) AGP-2X 32-bit 5V Fulllength Available (Aopen Inc. Geforce2 MX (NV11))


How can I put then the mobo so it runs on AGP2X?

Many thanks,

David

 

[CMRvet]

“Aperture Size: 128MB”
I think that’s too high. Also anandtech recommends 64 Mb for your mobo. <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=248&p=2" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=248&p=2</A>

“Current data Transfer Rate: 1X (74Mhz)”
Is your FSB at 115 MHz, isn’t it?
You said that didn’t find any setting in the BIOS. Does the graphics card have any software? Sometimes you can set AGP 2x from there. Also there is a program called “power strip” that is able to change AGP transfer rate.
Good luck

 

[Guest]

i am getting a Geforce 2 GTS 32 MB, so i have to change in order for my graphics card to make use of agp2x on my board?
is it neccessary to cahnge?

 

[CMRvet]

That depends on which settings you have. Do the same as RTR and use a program as sisoftsandra or wcpuid to know the transfer rate. Normally graphics cards and mobos have the max possible transfer rate as default.

 

[RTR]

Indeed they tell that 64MB is recommended, but then again, they only used 2 x64 MB of DIMMS. I have 2 of 256 and 1 of 128 MB DIMM (SDRAM). So I thought that it would be ok.
My FSB is running at 110 Mhz (x 4V)
MY CPU is and AMDK-6 III 400 Mhz
My GFX card is an AOPEN Geforce2MX (256A type). And I couldn´t find anything to change it from the software.
I will try to find that program "power strip" and check it out. I will come back to this later on, when I have some results,

Thx again

David

 

[Guest]

can you use BIOS to change it?

 

[RTR]

No,

I have just runned Powerstrip 3.10 and it gave me the next result:
System board
-------------
CPU speed - 440 MHz
Type - Acer Labs ALADDIN5-2A5KKI3AC-03
BIOS - Award Bios, 10/27/1999
AGP aperture - (n/a)
AGP transfer mechanism - DMA
AGP non-local memory - 26,5 MB
AGP revision - 1.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x
Current AGP transfer rate - 1x
Sideband addressing - hardware support, but currently disabled
Fast write protocol - (n/a)
AGP texturing - Enabled

Graphics card #1
----------------
Identity - AOpen PA256 MX
Memory clock - 171,02 MHz
Engine clock - 180,00 MHz
IRQ - 12, not shared
AGP revision - 2.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x, 2x, 4x
Current AGP transfer rate - 1x
Sideband addressing - (n/a)
Display driver - nvdisp.drv, v.4.12.01.0662
DirectX driver - nvdd32.dll, v.4.12.01.0662
Attached monitor - AOCA770 (Plug and Play Monitor)
Monitor caps (1) - 1912x1072, 67kHz, 85Hz


So I am starting to believe that I must upgrade the BIOS of my mobo. As it has version 1 and the GFXcard has version 2.0 for AGP

Could that be a reason?. Althought Powerstrip tells that the card supports AGP1x,2x,4x I can´t change the speed.

Oh yes, changing the AGP Aperture Size to 64MB didn´t change a thing

 

[RTR]

No,

I have just runned Powerstrip 3.10 and it gave me the next result:
System board
-------------
CPU speed - 440 MHz
Type - Acer Labs ALADDIN5-2A5KKI3AC-03
BIOS - Award Bios, 10/27/1999
AGP aperture - (n/a)
AGP transfer mechanism - DMA
AGP non-local memory - 26,5 MB
AGP revision - 1.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x
Current AGP transfer rate - 1x
Sideband addressing - hardware support, but currently disabled
Fast write protocol - (n/a)
AGP texturing - Enabled

Graphics card #1
----------------
Identity - AOpen PA256 MX
Memory clock - 171,02 MHz
Engine clock - 180,00 MHz
IRQ - 12, not shared
AGP revision - 2.00
AGP transfer rates supported - 1x, 2x, 4x
Current AGP transfer rate - 1x
Sideband addressing - (n/a)
Display driver - nvdisp.drv, v.4.12.01.0662
DirectX driver - nvdd32.dll, v.4.12.01.0662
Attached monitor - AOCA770 (Plug and Play Monitor)
Monitor caps (1) - 1912x1072, 67kHz, 85Hz


So I am starting to believe that I must upgrade the BIOS of my mobo. As it has version 1 and the GFXcard has version 2.0 for AGP

Could that be a reason?. Althought Powerstrip tells that the card supports AGP1x,2x,4x I can´t change the speed.

Oh yes, changing the AGP Aperture Size to 64MB didn´t change a thing

Where can you find such upgrades for BIOS. I went to Iwill.net, but can´t find it, althought they tell in the manual that they have a site for it (it´s an award bios)

 

[Guest]

go to acer official site and see whether there is any BIOS update to download

 

[RTR]

Hi,

I finally managed to get the mobo running at 2XAGP speed.
I went to the Iwill.net website and found a patch for all Iwill board. I installed it and Sisoft Sandra 2000 and Powerstrip3.10 tell me now that the card is running at 146Mhz(2X).

GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanna thank taikin and CMRvet for their help!
You guys gave me good ideas and support on this one.

Thank you again!

Bye!