A7V + Geforce 256 + Win2k sp1 = STABLE!

[JediBaron 0]

Well boys and girls, after endless tinkering with my new A7V system, I've finally achieved 100% stability in all programs. I'm able to run all my games without any Geforce lockups. Just thought some people would like to know how to achieve this miraculous feat.

Well basically I used to have all kinds of probs with the video, so I tediously went through the Nvidia reference drivers until I got a stable one. ver 6.xx was fast with nice tweeks, but couldn't run stable in any game for very long. ver 5.xx had even less stability (the ver's that would let my computer boot that is). Finally rested on Nvidia Ver.3.81. I also have an ASUS v6600 SGRAM board and I flashed it with the sba enabled bios off their site. I then went into the BIOS and set AGP Fast Writes to off.

NOTE: I also set my performance setting to 'Normal'. I'm not really sure if this is necessary, but I figured: 'what the heck?' I suggest that you can try with it both on and off if you want - myself, I see no reason, everything's plenty fast right now.

 

After all that, went into my games, and BOOM! stability rocks.

 

The only game that suffered in performance was UT. In D3d it ran slow as all hell. I went into the OpenGl ini file and set the default settings to the Nvidia AGP settings and then switched the video mode over to OpenGl. Ran like a dream after that, and I turned up all the quality settings . It only has one small visible distortion - the smoke trail is dark when firing the rocket launcher with secondary fire. This effect only happens for a second and is completely liveable.

 

Here's my system:

Operating System: Windows 2000 Pro sp1 (running fully PNP w/ ACPI)

Processor: AMD K7 T-Bird 800 w/ 256 Megs PC133

Motherboard: Asus K7a (1004 BIOS) w/ the newest Via 4 in 1

Hard Drive: Seagate 15Gig UDMA66 7200rpm (formatted in NTFS 5)

Video: Asus 6600 SGRAM w/ Asus sba bios (AGP Geforce 256,32meg - Nvidia drivers v3.81)

Sound: SB 128 PCI (Win2k default drivers - damn Creative!)

Modem: USR 56K PCI

Network: NETGEAR FA310TX Fast Ethernet Adapter (PCI 10/100 card)

DVD Decoder: Creative DXR3 Dvd Decoder (w/Creative beta Win2k drivers - fixed by me )

SCSI: PCI Advansys SCSI Host Adapter

CD Burner: Smart&Friendly 4x SCSI

Printer: Epson Stylus 740 (USB)

Scanner: UMAX Astra 1220U (USB)

Misc: Creative PC-DVD 5X drive, USB Intellimouse Optical w/ intellipoint 3.2 (ver. 3.20.0.484), Gravis Xterminator gamepad with the new no-bsod driver that Gravis tech has me beta testing - thanks dude the drivers finally rock! )

DirectX: 8.0 (4.08.00.0146)

 

Games I'm currently running: (with no probs now)

Half-Life w/ Counter-Strike beta 7.0

Quake 2 and 3

Unreal Tournament

X-Wing Alliance

Earth 2150

C&C Red Alert & Tiberian Sun

[etexter 0]

Man, that is a lot of effort. I just returned my VIA chipset stuff and got a CUSL2 mobo and bam everything stable right out of the box with the latest drivers and no tweaking at all needed. Your way seemed really long and tedious

[STi Sev 0]

Quote:

posted by a member
: A7V + Geforce 256 + Win2k sp1 = STABLE!

Yep!! That's what people don't understand here!
It's all about tuning and tweaking!!

I'm running a K7 800mhz / Asus K7m/+ win2k Sp1 and my computer is VERY
Stable!!!!

It just takes time and expertise!

[JediBaron 0]

True, it was a lot of effort. But I'm not one to let Chipzilla win me over. It's not AMD's fault that Via & Nvidia don't get along (specially with Win2k). I fully expect that one of the 2 will fix the problem eventually.

 

In other words - "Keep the faith!"

[etexter 0]

Oh, I understand and have another system that I goof around with, but when I want to sit down and play some games I'll conform and use what works without any effort. I enjoy tweaking my systems and having fun, but there are times and places for that stuff.

[JediBaron 0]

Same here - now that I have it stable. My machine hasn't been rebooted in 5 days and counting. Even with all the gameplaying and stuff.

 

<I know, I know, I'm just too proud of my self - hehe>

[Duke 0]

Good for you.

I had a via chipset-based athlon system, but returned the mobo (abit ka7) and got a gigabyte (ga-7ixe) with an older irongate chipset, and all of a sudden the system was rock solid right from the start. i know the via chipset is slightly faster, but for me, stability comes first.

 

config:

athlon-750 on ga-7ixe

512 mb ram pc100

asus v6600 on nvidia detonator3 v6.18

adaptec 29160n ultra160 scsi

intel 82559 10/100 lan

hollywood+ dvd mpeg2 decoder (videologic)

soundblaster live

quantum atlas v 18gigs / u160 / 4mb cache

dvd drive pioneer 303s

cd rom drive plextor px-40tsi

cd toaster teac cd-r55s

os: win2k sp1

[STi Sev 0]

WHATEVER YOU DO DO NOT INSTALL IE5.5. TAKE MY ADVICE. STICK WITH 5.01 the MOST stable version. IE 5.5 is the pinnacle of the crashes on my comp

[JediBaron 0]

????

I've never heard of anyone having a prob with it . . .

 

I'm running it without any probs

[ThC 129 0]

ugh i had nothing but troubles with IE 5.5 it sucks.