With AGP set to 8x (in BIOS and SMARTGART) and with FastWrites disabled, I had zero problems: my system was perfectly stable.

But within a few hours of setting AGP to 4x (in BIOS and SMARTGART) and enabling FastWrites, I experienced a lock up followed by a drop to 640x480x4-bit. (Ironically, it happened while I was reading this thread.)

Needless to say, I've gone back to my previously stable configuration. (My other settings are listed higher up in this thread.)

In my experience, the difference in performance between 4x and 8x, and between having FastWrites on vs. off, is negligible.

By the way, I've never had any issues coming out of standby.

Can you please post benchmarks?
AGP 4X w/o fast writes
AGP 4X w/ fast writes
AGP 8X w/o fast writes
AGP 8X w/ fast writes

For fun see if you can run stable with also enabling write combining.

The ATI tech i spoke to told me performance can/may differ... up to 1000 points in 3dmark.

I don't have any benchmarking software. My observations on performance come from measuring frame rates in Morrowind (all I've got at the moment). It's arguably not the best way, but AGP speed and FastWrites don't seem to have any effect.

Some links on FastWrites:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/ecs/k7s5aguide/OVERCLOCKING.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,81965,pg,4,00.asp
http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/catalyst/SMARTGART-FAQ.pdf

Some links on AGP 4x vs. 8x:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/articles.hwz?cid=3&aid=473
http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/asus_v9280s/
http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/quadro_980/
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/gf4mx440/6.html

P.S. I've had write combinging enabled (in BIOS and in Display Properties->Settings->Advanced->Troubleshoot) for about two weeks now with zero problems.

sorry about previous empty post! - ..

My story about P4G8X and 9700 PRO AIW..

Spec's
P4 3.06
2GB mem
DVD writer
CD writer
80gb seagate

Got the Sapphire AIW 9700 Pro. Put it into the computer - and clearly the PSU (300w) was not enough to power the "beast". Rushed out and bought a 430 Antec PSU - and that did not have enough power either... Since it is easter - all shops are now closed - so I "butchered" my file-server's Thermaltake 430 watt PSU - and that works!..

So no more Antec - and as soon as the shops are open again I'll take the Antec back - and exchange it for another Thermaltake PSU, so my file-server can get its Thermaltake 430 back...

So now I'm on "equal" terms with the rest of you - and will battle to get the 9700 AIW to work with the P4G8X ;-)

best

Kasper

dave... setting agp at 4x also seems to be stable.. for now anyways (couple of days).

sorry to read that michael had the 4 bit color problem with this configuration.. i'll wait for it to happen to me though. if it does, back to the good ol' fast write disable. i'll have to read those links to the fast write info.

as for the benchmarks ricky, i got 4660 in 3dmark03 at 4x fast write on. i've tried fast write off and got very similar results at either 8x or 4x. i don't know if this bench uses it, but i doubt it would change the score much.

no standy or hibernation issues for the moment either.. knock on wood.

kasper.. i'm surprised your antec ps didn't do the job and that seems odd.. unless they're a bit like enermax's 350 watts that busted at 250w load.

the ati 9700 pro uses around 55w watts of power.. that's a lot but there are.. what... 115 million transistors on that board? hehe.. just calculate the total amount of wattage your peripherals use and add an extra 75-100 watts for comfort...

but that's just my two cents worth. always use an over-voltage and over-current protection ps though.. i don't know why i say this when we all have top notch equipment :o)

lew - yes - I was supprised as well. But power monitor on motherboard did show all values on the Antec below - and on the ThermalTake they are above..

+12v was 11.9 on Antec - and 12.1 on TT
+5v was 4.92 on Antec and 5.05 on TT

(I could get the antec to power up - if I removed ALL DVD/CD/HD's)

So clearly a below spec power supply - at least compared to ThermalTake.

The ThermalTake makes less noise as well..

Best

Kasper

I have just purchased a new super system, which includes p4g8x + p4 3.06gz, radeon 9800 pro, using winxp pro, cat3.2....

I have not experienced any problems as listed above.. this is probally due to me using a 9800 and not 9700..
but maybe this can help............
When i played Unreal 2 with all settings on max and AA on full and Trueform enabled, i always get/got an U2 gen.prot.fault...
i spent 1hour disabling and enabling everything, until i narrowed it down to the Trueform....
my system works flawlessly apart from PowerDVD XP/winDVD crashes all the time, also happens with 2 nvidia cards, Windvd platinum works though (not the one free with p4g8x gold), the error code i get stands for "cannot divide by zero".

3dmarks2003 has crashed 3times in the CPU airplane tests.

Just thought i'd add some info.

Three days and counting and no crashing due to graphics card. Heavy game playing, dvd burning, and no problems yet. Does anyone know what the patch for real player is? I saw it posted and now i can't find it. Use Real player and your box will crash in the next 10 seconds. I'm gonna consider my box stable, i don't care about real palyer anyway. Other notes, I thought AGP 8X cards used 0.8V signaling as opposed to AGP 4X's 1.5V? But in bios you only have the chose between 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 volts. Does this refer to something else?
Also is this a hardware problem we've been seeing? I would like to use AGP 8X and fast writes in the future, but if this is a hardware issue then it ain't gonna happen. And if THAT's the case, can our motherboards be returned/exchanged? When ASUS posts a new bios/driver fix i hope that we actually use AGP 8X, not a AGP 4X. You guys know what i mean.
The performance difference is small, but guys, we paid the money, we deserve it.

Im having the same prob with the 9700 pro and the P4G8x Del......fast write off and on 4x seems to work...although one of the reason i went with this chipset was cuz of 8x

William, have you tried fast writes off with AGP 8X? That seems to be working fine for me. Also, make sure your AGP Aperature is at least 128MB, this was a big factor in getting my problems ironed out. I haven't had any problems in a week now, and I've been playing a lot of UT2003 and Splinter Cell (which were both crashing 30 seconds to 30 minutes into play before).

My settings:

SMARTGART:
fast writes off
agp 8x

Troubleshooting:
write combining on
full acceleration

BIOS:
AGP 8X
1.5V AGP
Graphics Aperature 128MB
Caching mode: USWC

ok tried that mode seems to be working fine

spoke too soon....error when started WC3 using 8x....set to 4x works fine

In my previous post I stated that I was "infinite loop" free. Well I too spoke too soon. However over the past few days I have gotten in touch with Asus tech support. I told them of my problems and my attempts to fix it. They suggested the following.

1. Turn Fast Write OFF in ATI Control Panel
2. Set Video Cache Mode to USWC in BIOS
3. Increase AGP Freq to 67 Mhz in BIOS

Well, considering I had done the first 2 already, I went into the BIOS to set the AGP Freq. They were not very clear on what to set it to as I found the freq settings were actually 66.66/33.33, 67.26/33.66, 67.86/33.93, 68.46/34.23, 69.06/34.53, 69.66/34.83, 70.26/35.13, ... etc.. all the way up to 104.46/52.23 Mhz.

The first number is the AGP Freq and the second number is the PCI Bus Freq. They are linked together as the AGP Freq is 2X the PCI Freq.

Asus was saying that the system could become unstable running at default 66.66/33.33, so they wanted me to increase it slightly to offset it.

I set it to 67.86 and then ran 3dMark03. It didn't even make it through the first run.

I then tried raising my AGP Voltage to 1.7V and bumped up the CPU Core Voltage and the DDR Voltage up one notch each. Still failed soon afterward.

Putting all voltages back to default except for the AGP Voltage I set back to 1.6V. I thought I might try bumping the AGP/PCI freq up some more. I set it up to 68.46 Mhz. My system ran stable for 6 hours straight finally crashing one time. This was a significant improvement.

I thought .. maybe more is better... so I set it up to 70.26/35.13 and it is still set there now. I haven't had a lock up in 2 days and I have been pushing my PC hard running 3DMark03 in re-loop mode for hours at a time. Left it running last night and it ran until I got up the next morning. It was still running.

So.. just a suggestion if you are still having probs, try slowly increasing your AGP/PCI freq setting up in the BIOS until your system runs stable. Might work, might not, but it is worth a try. After all ASUS Tech Support suggested it... only I had to go a little higher. Caution though.. you will be overclocking your AGP and PCI bus speeds so don't go any higher than you have to.

Other settings to try:
Run in AGP 4X Mode... 8X doesn't increase performance any
Turn Fast Write OFF .. Fast Write on doesn't inc. performance
AGP Aperture - I have mine on 256MB, but I have 1GB of RAM too
You might try 128MB first if you have less than 1GB of RAM.
Set Video Cache Mode to USWC in BIOS.
Increase AGP Voltage to 1.6V

This may or may not help.. hope it does! I have really been pushing my PC hard and it hasn't failed in two days.. so maybe

Good Luck ALL

Hi Gentlemen,
I'm new here, this happens to be my first post. I'm running into similar problems that you all seem to be, and I've made some of the aforementioned tweaks. I was just wondering if anyone knows how to change the Vid Cache to USWC in the ASUS A7N8X Phoenix BIOS.

Thanks a lot, and I hope we can solve these aggravating problems soon.

~Thomas

GREAT!!! I am first time computer builder, and after countless hours of research and investigation I decided to go with:
Asus P4G8X mobo
Intel 2.66Ghz cpu
1GB corsair XMS pc2700 DDR
Antec 480W truepower
Lite-on DVD drive
Lite-on cd-rw drive...I hate combos
and ......what I thought would be the best..ATI Radeon 9700 pro VGA card

SO my question is....has anyone found out a definitive solution will all new drivers and BIOS, etc. A definitive combination where there is no performance loss and will be none for future applications that do fully use 8X, etc. I actually do not have the card and it is the only thing I am waiting on....it is backordered from ATI's website themselves. I am desperately trying to get them to cancel the order. If I do get them to cancel..is there another VGA card that will give me less trouble with my already purchased P4G8X mobo....or will the mobo have to go out the window? I do not want a NVidia card...but if it is the best choice let me know...Otherwise....HELP ME USE MY 9700 PRO...I know its the dopest..I have seen and read benchmarks...tomshardware..etc.....

Does anyone have a fool-proof plan for getting the two to get along...something easy for the first timer! THANK ALL..your previous posts have already given me some great ideas..but keep em coming..and keep calling all companies....we need a good resolution FAST!!!!

Foolproof? Just turn off fast writes, write combining and set AGP 4X in bios, and in the ATI Smartguard tab. That for sure will make your system stable. For best performance, there's plenty of posts here. I've tried them all but only the above has proven to be consistently stable for me. good luck.
I also have USWC enabled, with a 128 MB apeture, and my box has been stable for days now.
Word of warning, if you use real player your box may crash hard. There was a post somewhere about a fix, but i can't find it anymore. You get a "Intel optimizers blah..." then wham, hard crash.

Ricky...thanks for the reply....but I have one more question....do you think that itel, asus, and ati will sooner or later get out new bios, drivers, etc. that will totaly rid the combo of bugs? WIll we all beable to run at 8x with fast writes ON? Is it just a lost cause or can they write new add-its that will fix all the bugs someday?

just don't put high hopes on the fix using bios or drivers ..... from what i understand from the intel technical paper on this problem ...... it is a HARDWARE problem ..... so most probably there will be no fix using software (bios or driver) ..... the only solution is to rework the chipset it self .... (but intel doesnt plant to do so...it is up to the mobo manufacturer) ......

in other word .... if the HARDWARE department skrewed up .... dont expect the software department to become the clean-up crew......

So in otherwords.....your saying....I'm SCREWED?