Well John, DX9 pretty much integrates itself into the whole system, so the only failsafe way of going back is a re-load of your OS and all the attendant fun that involves. I guess if you have had any other OS related problems, it might be worth it, but otherwise, if the card is working, I think I would leave it.

hiya john m8
i would leave it m8.....if its doing what its ment to do....just leave it......aparently 8x is no different from 4x...and if it is its only a slight difference so myself i would just leave it....ive just recieved mt radeon 9800 pro.....i switched the board to 8x.....and everything is working fine....if it didnt work fine on 8x then i would happy to use it on 4x....as long as i can still play moh and vietcong lol
take care matey
les

Thanks for your reples guys.

I will just leave it for now, but should I re-install at some point I will only put DX8.1 on. That's assuming I remember !!

It's my day off work today so I think I'll have to test it again, lol.

Something needs shooting !

See ya.
John.

OMFG, i just bought a second hand mobo over ebay...And with 26 pages of haed aches i might have to default and take the penalty!!!

My 815EP, p3 933 was working perfectly....

i hope i havent bought the gigabyte from one of you bastards

funny thing is this board has won a lot of awards

Also have you flash your bios??? its up to F13 now to support the barton core....

******BE CAREFUL WHEN FLASHING YOU DONT FRY YA MOBO

Hi,
I'd like to know how can I speed up my booting process and would like to know if any1 knows how to skip the part where the motherboard seems to be detecting something, don't really know what it is. I believe it has something to do with Sata, but I probably wrong. Anyways if any1 have an idea of what I am taking about, please let me know. Any comments will be appreciate it. For those who are having trouble with this motherboard, this is my first PC I built and so far so good. It has never given any trouble from the first time I turned it on.

Current System:
GA-7VAXP
Athlon XP 2500+ Oc'd to 2.09Ghz
Volcano 9 Heatsink and Fan
Crucial (2) x 512MB PC2700 DDR
Maxtor 80Gb 7200 RPM 8Mb Cache
PNY Verto GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB
Antec True 480 Watt Power Supply
Antec SX835II Case wth 4 Cooling Fans
Lite-On 52X24X52 CD-RW
Win XP

I will assume that you are not running RAID with two hard drives. From what you describe, you are seeing the RAID array detection process in the boot cycle. To disable this (which you don't need if you don't have RAID), enter into your bios and then go into the 'Integrated Peripherals' section. Around half way down the list you will see a line that says 'Onboard H/W ATA/RAID. Disable this function and then save the setting. You will now have a significant speed-up in your boot process.

Thanks Al. That absolutely worked. I do have another question. I don't see improvement on performance when I upgraded to 1 Gb of RAM. I started with one Crucial 512mb of PC2700 then I bought another one and installed it. Is there something I am forgetting to do? I ran some test with Sandra 2003 Benchmank software and it suggested me to change something that has to do with "Buffered" and "Unbuffered" to increase performance. Anyways if any1 have any comments or suggestions on how I could increase the performance of my PC, please share them with me. Again this is my current system:

GA-7VAXP (bios F13)
Athlon XP 2500+ Oc'd to 2.09Ghz (XP2800)
Volcano 9 Heatsink and Fan
Crucial (2) x 512MB PC2700 DDR
Maxtor 80Gb 7200 RPM 8Mb Cache
PNY Verto GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB
Antec True 480 Watt Power Supply
Antec SX835II Case wth 4 Cooling Fans
Lite-On 52X24X52 CD-RW
Win XP

Well, seeing as how we already have you prowling the bios Edward, I wonder if you wouldn't mind doing the 'Ctrl F1' thing and listing all your memory settings? As well, if you have the info, could you post the manufacturers specs of your memory sticks? This would be a help. By the way, nice system.

hi all ...again lol
i have been having problems with my pc over heating....ive now got it down to 41c.....is this low enough....................................
also when i boot my pc up it takes ages to boot........i get a black screen with writing it says..........................
all whats in my pc.....memory.... cpu etc....then it says something about pci listing ...and...verifying dmi data pool.....plus others but thi takes ages to boot up...is there anyway i can stop my pc showing this
cheers
les

Al,
Here's the link to view my RAM mem specs:
http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpecs.asp?imodule=CT6464Z335&cat=RAM
As for the settings on BIOS, this is what I have:
*Fast Command: [FAST]
*DRAM Timming: [MANUAL]
*DRAM CAS Latency: [2.5]
*Bank Interleave: [4 Bank]
*Precharge to Active(TRP): [3T]
*TRAS NON DDR400/RRR400: [7T/10T]
*Active to CMD(TRCD): [3T]
*DRAM Burst Length: [4]
*DRAM Queue Drpth: [4 Level]
*DRAM Cpmmand Rate: [2T Command]
*Write Recovery Time: [3T]
*DRAM tWTR: [3T]
*AGP Aperture Size: [128M]
*AGP Fast Write: [Enabled]
*PCI Delay Translation: [Enabled]
Hope I got the info you needed. f you need anything, let me know. Again if any1 have suggestions on how I can increase performance on my PC, share them with me.
Thanks,
Ed

@ Les - I assume that you read my earlier post to Edward about the RAID settings. So, first check in the bios under 'Advanced BIOS Features' and set your First Boot Device to [HDD-0], Second Boot Device to [CDROM], and the Third Boot Device to [Floppy]. While you are there, check to make sure that the Boot Up Floppy Seek is [Disabled]. Next, go to the Integrated Peripherals section of the bios and disable any item you are not using, such as H/W 1394 (Firewire), Serial ports 1 & 2, the old Parallel Port (printer), Game Port address (if you don't use the game port) and the Midi Port address. This will free up resources and speed up the boot.

There is third party software that allows you to 'tweak' the system settings and 'nuke' the post display, but I advise you leave it as it can be a useful diagnostic at times. For further little speed-up tweaks, check out -http://www.xptuneup.com/

@ Ed - Actually, your memory configuration looks pretty good. You could try setting the Dram Command rate to 1T for a bit of a boost, otherwise I would refer you to the link above for some Windows tweaks. It is always possible to 'push the envelope' and OC your memory beyond what you have, but you risk possible HD corruption and a possible re-load of your OS. Crucial is an excellent memory and it will handle a substancial OC, but there are always risks.

When adding memory, you sometimes won't notice any speed increase until you start using memory intensive applications such as gaming.

thank you for your help matey.......ive done what you advised me to do but it still boots up slow...nothing has changed m8..........i cant find dram command at all in the bios to change to 1t
again thanks m8
les

THX AL FOR ALL HELP.

@ Ed - You are very welcome.

@ Les - Oops, I forgot to mention that to reach the more advanced settings, just hit 'Ctrl F1' when you are in the first bios screen. If you post your system configuration (ie. processor, FSB, multiplier and memory type and timings), I would be happy to suggest any improvements possible.

cheers ed m8
my system consists of
running windows m.e
2600xp cpu
80 gig 8 cache hd
radeon 9800 pro vga card
512 ddr 333 memory
550 wat psu
miria 10x12x32 scsi writer
54x cd rom
if theres anything else you want to know please just ask
thanks ed m8

Hi Les, just a bit more info if you will. Can you tell me from your bios (using Ctrl F1) what the memory settings are and who manufactured your memory? Also, the FSB and multiplier settings as shown by Easy Tune 4 would help. Thanks.

Ok I have had a GA-7VAXP for about 6 months now and I really liked it. I was running an Athlon 2000+ on it. A couple weeks ago something happened to the AGP slot so I bought a new board. I decided to get a new CPU as well. So now I have a new GA-7VAXP running a Athlon 2600+ 333. I also got a new power supply because the old one was fried from what happened to the old board. Anyway, now I got it all back together and one problem.... the damn thing keeps randomly shutting off!!!! p**sing me off something fierce. I have checked and it is not overheating. The CPU is staying around 45C. Has anyone heard of this? I am thinking it is the power supply. (Powmax 8800C @ 350W). I would just swap out power supplies but I don't have another and I am going to have to order one or drive for 3 hours to get one. Any help would be appreciated!!

Sam

Gigabyte GA-7VAXP
Athlon XP 2600+ 333
Kingston PC2700 512MB x2
Chaintech Geforce4 Ti4800se
Windows XP Pro SP1

again thabks a lot for your help ED
i forgot to tell you im using bios version 1.1....ive not changed it yet not sure how and dont want to mess my mother board up lol
now by pressing ctrl f1....this does not give me my memory settings m8
the make of my memory is NDC 512 ddr 333(thats whats wrote on it)
now acording to easy tune 4 my
cpu multiplier setting is 12.5....and my
cystem bus setting is 16.7
i hope this helps matey
sorry about the memory settings i looked everywhere m8
i just cant find them
cheers again ED
take care
les