Graphics card using PCI instead of AGP!

[deadnight]

I knew their was something weird with my new computer.. Benchmarking scores a little low and all the diagnostic utilities I've ran have said I'm using AGP 0X..
My motherboard supports AGP 8x and so does my video card.. (the card IS in the AGP slot)

The motherboard is a P4C800 deluxe
Video card-> geforce fx5900 ultra

I had a look in the device manager and noticed that it said my video card is in PCI mode. I can't  figure out how to change it for the life of me.

Anybody know?

[Ivan]

BIOS update, MOBO drivers update

[congo]

OMG Ivan!

Updating the BIOS risks destroying your motherboard, so don't do it unless you have a good reason to and know what you are doing. ASUS usually have a fairly simple program to do the BIOS update on the mainboard disk supplied.

To fix your problem, deadnight, enter the existing Bios and change the primary display bus to AGP, 8x mode, then set the graphics aperature or window to 1/4 of your total system ram at least........ or at least the size of your video card's ram.

ie. 512mb total ram = 128mb graphics aperature

To enter the BIOS settings: When the computer boots up, hit the delete key while the ram is counting up, you have to be quick to catch it.

Don't forget to save the settings on exit, don't alter anything you aren't sure of in there. Before you start, read your M/Board manual, and become familiar with the process and where to find the setting required

[Ivan]

What's wrong with BIOS updates...

my mobo needed a 3 in-a-row to work like it does now.
And using the latest mobo drivers for the os never hurts (especially with VIA chipsets...)

[congo]

Nothing wrong with BIOS updates........

Just that if the power goes off or you get a surge or a corrupt BIOS file, your computer may never, ever boot again, that's all. And the newest mainboard drivers are always a good idea............

Actually, I forgot I was replying to deadnight, who obviously has some experience in overclocking etc, from what I've read in the posts.

[deadnight]

Hey, thanks for the replies. I'm pretty stuck here.

I've looked all around my bios.. the only settings I have found the effect the graphic card are...

A setting to tell the computer what to look for the graphics card in first.. pci or AGP.. I have it set to (AGP/PCI) so it looks in AGP first..

I have the arpeture size set to 128 even though I probably could set it to 256.. I don't feel the need to be tweaking anything right now.

Their is nothing about AGP speeds in the bios.. I'm guessing if the computer had originally detected the video card as AGP in the first place their might be though. Their is also nothing about changing AGP speeds in the video driver settings either.

I just checked out thePNY  website who is the company that made my video card.. In their FAQ it says if this happens that means my video card is stuck in PCI mode and I should update my bios.  The strange thing about that though is that I did recently update to the latest version of my bios.. I didn't know their was a problem with my video card before that though.. but if their was I would asume that flashing the bios then would have fixed the problem.. But it didn't. Or I wouldn't be having a problem.

I uninstalled and re-installed the video card probably 3 times now trying to get it to set up as agp. I have the latest drivers. I'm not sure what to do now.. I might put my old video card in and see if that detects as agp.. I know their was nothing wrong with that card.. If it does, then when I put the new one back in the computer again if it isn't set to agp then it might be a problem with the card itself I'm thinking.

Actually I'm going to do that now and see what happens.

Thanks for your replies.

[deadnight]

Ok, I've done a couple things now.. First I put my old geforce ti4600 in the computer.. That was running at AGP 0x also.. So I went ahead and put the new one back in..

I found a way to change AGP settings from the video properties->advanced tab.. I had to do some registry hacking to make it so the agp window would show. But, it won't let me change the AGP rate.. it says this...
-------------------------------------------------------------
Capabilities: unknown AGP 0.0 (max request queue depth: 1

Nvidia GPU: AGP 3.0 (8x, 4x, 2x, 1x)
SBA, FW, Max request queue depth: 32

Actual: Max request queue depth: 1

AGP rate (-----------------------------) <--- A slider set at 0.
AGP disabled
--------------------------------------------------------------

The slider is greyed out and wont let me move it to change agp rate.. Their are also a few other settings that I didn't mention that it wont let me touch.

Since My last post I have uninstalled and reinstalled the video card 2 or 3 times, flashed my bios, updated drivers, and banged my head on my desk 50 times.

I don't know what to do..

[deadnight]

Nevermind.. problem solved. I had to install an updated version of the intel chipset installer. Got 8x agp now.  :D

Thanks

[Iroquois]

I was going to say that in your BIOS settings, there's a thing that allows  you to set your AGP rate as well as turn AGP on and off.

Another thing. There are mobos now with dual BIOS chips. One is the main one and another is used for backup.

[deadnight]

Yeah, I believe this motherboard has 2 bios chips like you said. Their are 3 different programs that I know of to update the bios.. It's kind of weird because one version of the bios says to use one program to update the bios while other versions say to use one of the other ones and some say to just not use 'this' one.

Now I don't think the coolbits program for the video card is working right.. I set the clock frequencies to 460/900 and then reboot.. 3dmark03 is showing that my clock frequiencies are at 300/900. I'm not entirely sure that the AA is actually turning on when I turn it on too.. I play a game with no aa, then turn aa on to 8X and i see no framerate change or visual change in the game. I'm not sure what to think of it.

[Tchkinjiu]

  dead,
         What computer do you have? And how much did it cost you? Even if you did upgrade it, all-in-all?

[deadnight]

Hey, my computer is in my signature below this message. I just built it myself about a week ago. Everything was new except soundcards and hard drives. Not including those it cost $1,906 exactly.
I just benchmarked the computer in 3dmark03 after making some changes and got a score of 6287 three times in a row. I'm happy with it but still disapointed at the same time.. I figured I could get like a solid 60 fps in games like morrowind and fs9..  At least I am able to turn settings all the way up to max now though. In morrowind on my old computer settings had to be all on low and still only averaged about 10 fps. Now with about 20 mods on morrowind I average about 30 fps with everything maxed.