[rjh1213]

Running A7V333, Athlon XP 1800, 1 GB PC2100, Radeon 9000 Pro, SoundBlaster Live 5.1, Win XP Pro

Had difficulty setting up video from the start. ATI software shows fast write disabled (have tried every combination of BIOS settings possible). Running all latest mobo/chipset drivers, video drivers, directx, etc. Played with Direct3D/OpenGL settings and now everything looks great and runs ok for the most part. But games sometimes crash unexpectedly with no explanation and recently have had the computer reboot in the middle of 2 different games with no warning.

Any thoughts?

 

[lonnyjones1]

Hi rjh1213

Have you tried this



Fix Problem with Athlon Hanging AGP Programs (Windows 2000/XP)
Note: This behavior is known to occur with Nvidia GeForce 256 and Matrox G400 video adapters on computers with AMD Athlon processors. This behavior is not specific to any particular video adapter type.

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/798/
Dont mess with registry unless you are familur,confident with it

Did this help?
Lon

 

[rjh1213]

Thanks!
Helped some issues immediately....will have to wait and see about long-term.

Starting to think part of the problem may be monitor & drivers. Ran same games on a different monitor with no problems. Latest monitor drivers (ViewSonic G75f) are 9/2001 even though site shows posting date of 12/2002. Had issues with this monitor some time ago using a Radeon 7000 that updated drivers fixed. Gave MS PnP Monitor driver a try and display quality was horrible.

Working on getting a new monitor hopefully end of the week. Will post results FYI.

 

[lonnyjones1]

Great Im glad it worked
Ive recomended it before but they were afraid to apply it.
Now I know it work's
Lon

 

[rjh1213]

Ok. I'll post this for anyone else that may have similar issuses.

The new monitor solved the smoothing and garbled display issues.

The registry fix (thanks Lon) solved glitches in a couple of games.

Now, the crashing problem. I feel really stupid for not finding this sooner. Anyone working with the A7V333 needs to read the manual....seriously. I flipped it open to check the jumper settings then put it down when I was building the system. I finally looked into the IRQ assignments. The manual says the table only applies to Win98/ME....well, it DOES make a difference in XP.

I found even though XP showed no conflicts, I had 3 devices sharing the same interrupt with the video card. Most importantly was the nic. I used the table in the manual to move the pci cards around to get the sound & video on unshared interrupts, and the nic sharing with the firewire (was a choice between firewire or one of the seemingly endless supply of usb controllers).

Haven't had a lockup or unscheduled restart since.