Carlos,
I did do the test. Fastwrites off vs Fastwrites on.
The difference is negligible. If I recall, only a few 3d mark points of a difference. Hardly nothing at all. It would do me no good to post the exact numbers unless (to compare your system to mine) we had the exact same configuations.
I made a post earlier in this thread about getting what we pay for and got "jumped on" by various individuals who totally missed my point. Perhaps that was my fault in not making my point more clear. I tried to make an anology about a car, and got blasted. (like I was trying to compare a car to a computer...yeah right)
I simply went thru hell with the P4G8X and Radeon 9500pro and feel that the average consumer should not have to deal with incompatibility issues. Not from ANY manufacturer. In this case, ATI should have done extensive testing and published the results somewhere....anywhere...BEFORE a person buys the card.
I read the box...I read the manual... Nowhere did it say that I was going to have to call tech support and get on the internet to do my own investigation as to why the card wont work "as advertised"
I plugged the card into the AGP slot like all you people have done...installed the latest drivers.... and fired it up. Wham! Crash! Bang! By default, the Catalyst drivers enables the fastwrites. So is it my place to have to figure a way to make the card run? Isnt that the job of ATI?
That, in a nutshell, is my point. Getting what you paid for.
I RMA'd both the p4g8x and 9500 and got the p4c800 and 9800pro. Fired it up and have not looked back since. Works great...right out of the box...AS ADVERTISED, and without me having to do a dang thing except power it on.

Hello Deech Eridoe,

Why no Intel Accelerator? Is it buggy for our board?

My PC is running smoothly - apart from a few software lockups (buggy software)

P4G8X Delux
ATI Radeon 9700
Fastwrites Off -- On causes lockups
Write Combine On
AGP 8x -- Dont notice any difference between 4x & 8x
AGP Voltage 1.6v --Slightly more stable than 1.5 or 1.7
Catalyst 3.2

Does anybody have a resume from standby problem when using P4G8X (latest bios 1.05) and a Radeon 9800 Pro Cat3.4? Whenever I go into standby in WinXP SP1 (the PC case power LED blinks stating that it is in standby mode), but when I move the mouse, the LED stops blinking as it is about to startup the PC, but then nothing happens (CPU fan keeps spinning, but screen remains black)

Before I used the Radeon 9800 Pro, everything worked fine, so that makes me think it is the video card causing this.

Thanks
HST

sorry, what I meant with moving the mouse, is whenever I wanted to resume from standby by moving the mouse...

thx

Thanks Mike, good to see Fastwrites make next to no difference and I agree 100% we shouldn't have to be wasting our time working out why our video cards don't run smoothly with this motherboard or any other motherboard.

Only thing is mate, when you buy parts for a PC you accept responsibility for getting it to work, same as in your anology with a car. An engineer has spent time testing a whole range of parts for the car to make sure certain parts will work together. With a PC you are the engineer. How can you expect a video card manufacturer to build the whole PC for you in every conceavable combination to test that their part works!!!!
You are lucky the new combination worked straight up, good buy, would like to have got that combination too but it cost too much extra.

The average person shouldnt be installing motherboards and video card themselves if they have no idea how to change settings in the bios etc. They should get an experienced computer tech to put it together and make the necessary changes, let the tech have all the headaches! Lucky we have the net and forum like this one to help.

Now we have Deech that has a stable system as well, but with FastWrites enabled - by using the 1005 bios.
I'm gonna upgrade to 1005 as well.
Thanks Deech

HST ang

Sound like it needs more POWER to start may be adjust AGP volts up a fraction. What are your settings in the bios at the moment?

Ok after Deech setup in bios I did the same... so only option i've changed was a AGP Voltage from 1.7 to 1.5 and agp appreature to 64 from 256... And for now my pc is a very stable for 24+ hours with FastWrite ON...
I hope it's stable now... We'll see after a couple of days I'll report to u guys... Good Luck

P4-2666 533fsb
1gb DDR 2100 Dual
Aopen 300W Case
Connect 3D Radeon 9500 PRO
(AGP Voltage - 1.5v, Delay Transaction, DDR 2.5v,Memory Turbo - Auto and BIOS 1005 Final)

Thanks Dmitri, I'll update my Bios and post how it goes too.

Heloo Dmitri,

Theres no specific reason why you shouldn't use intel app. accelerator.
But I didn't install it.

To all: I think turning off vertical sync. will help you with the 3Dmark and
other games lock ups.

! My system is still very stable. !
and fast...

Greetz,

Deech

Hi all,

I just have to say it.

3Dmark is a nice benchmarking system.
But it's also a program that's easy to manipulate by drivers.
Something Ati en Nvidia recently took advantage off.
It's fun to keep scores but you should have a variety of programs
to honestly stress test your system.

Database programs, heavy games, Rendering, Encoding, Compressing.

Of course your system should be able to run 3Dmark without luckups.
But a system lockup is always caused by 2 or more operations that conflict with each other. Therefore 3Dmark could also be an issue.

I just test the most heavy programs I use at the same time.
for instance: Newspro (http://www.usenetopia.com) while watching Divx while playing Winamp while extracting some big file.
Also c&c generals is a good test and you can easily notice the performance increase because the characters suddenly move allot faster.
It should run fluently without any hiccups but only does recently on my comp.

So don’t give up, keep on tweaking until you have what you paid for.
But also consider just testing with the applications you are actually going to use.

Greetz,

Deech

Hi Carlos, thanks for replying to my resume from standby problem.
I experienced the problem when using a slightly overclocked 135MHZ FSB, and a 1.5V for AGP. I just tried 1.6V and 1.7V but same problem persists. I also tried using default 133MHZ FSB with different AGP voltages, but same problem. I wonder if anybody has the same problem as I do. Thx

System spec:
P4 2.66 on P4G8X Deluxe bios v1.05
Hercules Prophet 9800 Pro driver cat 3.4
Antec 480W
2x512MB Corsair 2-2-2-5
SB Audigy 2
2x120GB Maxtor SATA raid 0
AGP 4x
USCW
FW on
AGP aperture 64MB
other things default.

About the resume-from-standby problem, I think I have found it. It relates to the fact that I had set AGP to 4X. If I turn AGP back to 8X and do the same trick, I can do a resume from standby without problems. I don't know if this problem occurs only with Radeon 9800Pro or also other models.

Now trying to keep my system stable, I have also set AGP Aperture to 64MB and a 1.5v AGP, just as you guys suggested, and will test of couple of more benchmarks and games to check...

Thanks again for all the input.

HST

Ok, P4G8X and Radeon 9800 with 8x AGP is not a feasible option, no matter if FW is on or off, does not make any difference. Whenever AGP is 8x every 3D game/operation crashes the system, sometimes immediately, sometimes after minutes of running. I think ASUS latest bios may be fixing a lot of problems for the 9700, but for 9800 it does not work. I must mention that running 2D (Windows, Internet etc.) with AGP 8X, FW on does not have any problems. I have tested both catalyst 3.2 and 3.4.

I have same damn problem..I tried 8x , 4x , old version bios, new 1005 version bios , fast write on / off..catalyst drivers 3.1/3.2/3.4 ..USWC, etc..even I test this with a disabled ACPI comp... .none of them solve my problem..I'll change my mainboard but I don't know which board can work without problem wit radeon.

P4 2533 Mhz
Asus P4G8X Deluxe E7205
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro
512 Twinmos ram
Seagate Serial Ata 120 GB HD
Creative Audigy SE
Sony CDRW 52X
Sony DVD 52X
USR v92 External 56K
Aopen H600B
Sony Multiscan G200
OS: winxp sp1
Direct X 9.0

Levent,

Have you ever try'd turning off vertical sync in the ati driver properties?
Also you should use intel chipset updater and after that reinstall Catalyst 3.4 drivers. Also set your AGP voltage to 1.5 V. and DDR voltage to 2.5.
Your memory is tricky if the timings are what I think they are 2-2-2-5T.

I have 2-3-3-6 memory, that gives me some breathing room.

Greetz,

Deech

I think its over for me anymore .. the only changing what I did to go intel's website and get E7205 chipset driver and intel application accerelator...and one little changing in BIOS decrease from AGP 1.6v to 1.5v..

My BIOS :

ver 1005
AGP Voltage: 1.5 V
DDR Voltage: 2,5
AGP 8X
Video Cache USWC
Graphics aperture size: 128 MB
Delay transaction :enable

ATI control panel:

Fastwrite: enable
AGP : 8x
Anti aliasin, ..etc : 6X and 16 X
Texture quality: high
Mipmap:high
vertical sync: on
Trueform:application ref.


I'm getting 1136 point with 3Dmark2003 ..

Too all of those with problems with the Motherboard and Video card,
Recomendations:
1. Check for new drivers for Motherboard and BIOS update, Drivers for Sound Card, Drivers For Video Card.
2. Try Different RAM(DONT MIX DIFFERENT MHzs like 333 with 266)
3.Try Different PSU
4. CALL TECH SUPPORT!
5. Upgrade to Direct X9.a
6. Change the AGP Mode from 8X to 4x in BIOS, and then in SMARTGART Under Windows
7. Try Different Motherboard(Newer Ones are said having full stability)

Oh By the Way i was having Same Problem as of lock ups and restarts but it was with a ASUS P4S8X, it was occuring in any version of Windows, but what i had done was Change the AGP Mode from 8X to 4X in BIOS and under WINDOWS in SMARTGART and boom no lock ups.
IT doesnt matter what Mobo Manufacturer u have, if it locks up try the AGP mode Change.

I am happy to report with latest bios 1005g and catalyst 3.4 driver I have stable system with both AGP set at 8x (in bios and SmartGuard) and FastWrites on!

Theres no way I'm spending AU$500 for the new version of this board when I have a rock solid P4G8X system now.

My Bios settings are as follows:
version 1005g
AGP clock setting
Manual
AGP/PCI clock 68.46/34.23MHz
agp voltage 1.6 (1.5 was not enough - as its overclocked)
AGP 8x
Video cache - USWC
Aperature - 256MB
Delay transaction enable

Memory
2
2
2
5
16T
Turbo enable

ATI Control 'SmartGuard' settings:
AGP 8x
FastWrite ON



I've played every game I have and turned the setting to optimal performance (in ATI control panel) and to the other end of the scale to optimal quality and had no crashes at all over the last couple of days.

Levent,

try to turn FW off.