WinXP Home and GF4 4600 questions

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 5:34 am

Hey all,

Just did a fresh install of XP. What new drivers should I use for optimal performance, or should I say which ones work well... I am only using the ones supplied during the XP setup, have not upgraded anything as of yet, dont even have my Santa Cruz in there yet. I know the drivers supplied and installed with the XP setup are crappy for the NVIDIA and 4in1's.

Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated. My system is as follows:

Athlon XP1900+
SK6 Extreme
ABIT KG7 mobo
256MB OCZ PC3000
120GB WD 7200
160GB Max 5400
128MB A250 Ultra TD/GF4 4600
TB Santa Cruz
Logitech Z560's
32X TDK VeloCD
16X Pioneer DVD
Samsung SyncMaster 760Vtft LCD

Again, thanks in advance

Morphius

Blade, if this is in the wrong forum I apologize

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 7:44 am

Get the latest NVidia Det drivers here: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=drivers

Get the latest VIA 4-in-1 here: http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 8:38 am

FP,

thanks bro

Should I install the 4in1s first then the NVIDIAs, or does it matter?

Also, do I need to delete any of the stock XP 4in1s or NVIDIA drivers prior to installing?

thanks again for your ALWAYs helping hand

OBTW, do you know which version of DirectX is on XP? Do I need to update to 8.1?

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 9:53 am

Win XP all ready has directx 8.1 so no need to mess with that. I would install the 4 in1 's then the vid drivers. Nice system you got going there.

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 10:03 am

Dad,

Thanks for the info

I've just been waiting for someone to help me so I can see what the new video card can do.

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 4:26 pm

OK,

installed the newest 4in1's and NVIDIA 28.32.

Results:

MAJOR Crashes, not to the desktop either but total reboots whenever the videocard is stressed even a tad, like surfing the internet?

I removed the 28.32 drivers and system is stable again

I've gotten all the MS updates, no more to get.

Any other NVIDIA driver suggestions for the GF4 based cards?

thanks

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 5:30 pm

I am running a GF3 TI200 so I have no real personal expereince but I have read that a lot of people were having good luck with the 27.70 drivers. Personally I have never had a problem with drivers from the Nvidia website so I am not too sure what to tell ya other than Good Luck

Jim Z · Post by **Jim Z** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 5:49 pm

OK,

installed the newest 4in1's and NVIDIA 28.32.

Results:

MAJOR Crashes, not to the desktop either but total reboots whenever the videocard is stressed even a tad, like surfing the internet?

I removed the 28.32 drivers and system is stable again

I've gotten all the MS updates, no more to get.

Any other NVIDIA driver suggestions for the GF4 based cards?

First off, you're probably getting BSOD crashes, but XP is set by default to automatically reboot if it BSODs. You can disable that by right-clicking My Computer, then selecting Properties. In the box that comes up, look through the tabs for a button called "Startup and Recovery". In there you'll see a chack box for "Automatically Restart" in the event of a system failure. Uncheck it and next time it should BSOD and stay there.

If you get to a BSOD, look to see if it identifies a file as the culprit, I'll bet it's nv4_disp.dll. Seems some people have been having this problem with later versions of the Detonator 4s. I BSODed last night during AvP2, running a Ti4400 on my P4/845D board.

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 6:06 pm

Jim,

Did what you stated concerning the "startup and Recovery"

Will not get a chance to try it since I have to go to work in a bit, but will try once I get home. I'll let you know how it goes and report back here

thanks

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 6:49 pm

I haven't heard of any problems with the 28.32 Dets but I'm still running 23.11. They work fine, you can try those.

Some general suggestions:

- Remove any utilities for your old video card (Voodoo cards for instance install 3Dfx tools which MUST be removed via the Add/Remove icon in Control Panel). Also, you should ALWAYS change the video driver to "Standard VGA" first before swapping cards to purge the old driver. If you didn't do that before, do it now. Change it to "Standard VGA", reboot and it'll redetect the geforce and ask you for drivers.

- If you're overclocking (either the vid card or the cpu), don't and see if that helps.

- In the motherboard's BIOS menu, make sure that "Assign IRQ to VGA" is enabled and that both "Video BIOS Caching" and "Video Ram Shadow" are disabled. Set "AGP Aperature" to 64.

- I recommend you download a free utility called NVmax that allows you to tweak your Geforce card. Available here: http://www.tweakfiles.net/video/nvmax.html

Using NVmax, set AGP to 2x instead of 4x if it's defaulting to 4x (many motherboards don't properly support AGP 4x). I also recommend you disable AGP fastwrites and Side banding addressing (all these are located in the System->AGP Services menu). These can cause a lot of problems like you descibe, and disabling them causes only a very minor performance hit.

- The Geforce does NOT like to share an IRQ with other devices - make sure it's the only card using it's IRQ. If you can't change the IRQ for the conflicting card in Device Manager, then you must move the card to another slot. If you're running XP you probably don't have a choice on this since XP tried to put EVERYTHING on one IRQ, but it usually works okay.

- Go to the motherboard manufacturer's web site and see if there's an updated Flash BIOS for your mobo. It could be your AGP bus support isn't up to spec.

- It's possible that some other device is causing the problem. Best way to isolate it is to pull ALL your cards except the vid card (IMPORTANT: note what slot each card was installed in). Play the misbehaving game and see if it runs stable (yes, the game should run just fine without a sound card installed). If it behaves, install each card ONE BY ONE starting with the sound card until you isolate the bad boy. It's important to put the cards back in their original slots to avoid PCI IRQ Sharing problems (see next paragraph).

- You may have a card that has a PCI IRQ channel sharing problem (NOT the same as an IRQ conflict). The SBLive, NICs and SCSI controllers are very prone to this. Fix is essentially the same as mentioned in the previous paragraph except when you find the misbehaving card, you need to move it to another slot. More details on this problem here: http://soldcentralfl.com/quakecoop/glfaq5.htm#5_9

- You should also check out the Geforce FAQ at http://geforcefaq.com

Hope this helps...

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 6:52 pm

FP,

thanks for the informative post bro,

I just re-installed the latest 4in1's and NVIDIA 23.11 drivers.

Will advise on the 3D in a sec

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 7:09 pm

FP,

no hope using those either, this is what I get when I check under display properties

first off it does not list my card, just vga monitor (default I guess)

Undere the display tab, resources tab, and conflicts it lists:

Input/Output Range 03B0 - 03BB used by:
AMD-761 Processor to AGP Controller
Input/Output Range 03C0 - 03DF used by:
AMD-761 Processor to AGP Controller
Memory Range 000A0000 - 000BFFFF used by:
AMD-761 Processor to AGP Controller

What does this mean and is it the culprit, and how would I fix it?

thanks so much

Dave

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 11:07 pm

You have a resource conflict with the 3 i/o ports. Because you have a conflict with the video drivers, Windows can't run them and is defaulting to the safe Standard VGA mode.

Those I/O ports are exactly what the Geforce should be using (I just checked my GF3's resources and they're the same).

There has to be a reason why the mobo is trying to use them as well, and not taking some others but I have no clue.

I only found one reference in the newsgroups similar to yours, but there was no fix posted.

It's a mobo issue for sure - the Geforce is using the ports it's supposed to, and the mobo is trying to use them for itself.

I've heard of people having problems with cetain VIA drivers and they find they have better luck going back to an older version.

Also make sure you have the latest BIOS.

Maybe someone else here who's a VIA pro can be more helpful.

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 11:36 pm

DUDE that board is AMD 761/via 686b southbridge hybrid... DO NOT I REPREAT DO NOT install the via AGP driver or it won't work correctly!!!! I know i did it on accident with a Epox 8k7a. XP has the AMD 761 agp driver so just let it load by default... Or go to AMD and grab the driver there... When installing the 4 in 1's be sure the AGP driver isn't selected... I'm wondering if that isn't your problem... with the BSOD crashed....

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Mar 26, 2002 12:23 am

And you guys wonder why I don't want an Athlon board...