AGP problem in XP

Hi all, for about 6 months ive been having a problem of my 5600xt 256mb 8x agp running slower than it should, i found out (shown in attactched picture) that all though the card is set to run in 8x my OS (XPsp2) is only letting it run at 2x ive tried updating my drivers, motherboard drivers and now im out of ideas any body got any ideas?

 

What motherboard brand and model do you have?
What is saying it is running at 2x?

 

Epox 4pda3I motherboard 8x Agp

and the OS in the pic which is my winxp sp2 says its only running at 2x

 

Oops,that line all ran together, and I didn't see it.

Hmmm...

What does it say in Safe Mode?

--It may not run, but I'd be curious.

 

You have it set to 8x in Bios.
Maybe check mobo manufacture for Bios update or even graphic's card for bios/firmware update.

 

i have set it to 8x in the bios the only thing that isnt recognising it as 8x is windows ive tried reinstalling it, updating to sp2 and it still wont run it faster then 2x and dont say use linux

 

theres gotta be a simple soloution to this like a hidden option or a patch or something! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPP!

 

is it possible there is a windows update for it?

 

No. Windows uses what the bios sets.

Only drivers and 3rd party utilities change that.

 

got a name or a weblink to any of these third party drivers/progs?

 

http://majorgeeks.com/downloads22.html

Look through these.

 

My system is:

Power Supply = ANTEC 430watt ATX12V
Motherboard = MSI KT4Ultra-SR K7 Mainboard (Model MS-6590)
Processor = AMD Athlon XP 2100+
FrontSide Bus = 266Mhz (133Mhz)
Chipset = VIA KT400
BIOS Version/Date = American Megatrends Inc. Version 07.00T, 4/2/2001
RAM = PC2700/DDR 333Mhz 512Mb (2) Slot 1 & 2
Video Card = BFG Technologies Nvidia Geforce FX 5600 (256 Mb, 8X AGP)
LAN Card = 3Com EtherLink XL 10/100 PCI For Complete PC Management NIC

I'm having the same problem and in doing some investigation have found that getting XP to recognize 8x AGP is extremely common. Furthermore, it doesn't appear to be limited to types of processors, chipsets, or video cards. I have installed various chipset and video card drivers in varying orders under clean installs of XP, even have flashed backwards in BIOS. Using various benchmarking and other utilities, it's clear that XP is bottlenecking the AGP causing it to run at 2x. As shown in ACE1138's initial post, the GPU and Chipset are correctly set at 8x. It's the OS (XP) that's having a problem. I am current'y running down possible registry edits that may solve this very frustrating problem.

While correctly setting up the BIOS and installing the proper drivers is critical, this problem goes beyond these issues. Hopefully someone can post additional info on why XP doesn't always see the 8x AGP provide by the BIOS, Chipset, and Video Card drivers.

 

This may be one of the reason why this problem is so prevalent:

www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/agp/UAGP.mspx

Microsoft readly admits that the AGP standards have been poorly defined leading vendors to create drivers that simply don't work.

"Although the AGP specification has always defined a standard programming model, the model has not been complete enough to allow the use of a standard AGP driver. As a result, individual chipset vendors have defined different page table entry (PTE) formats for the GART, choosing radically different register layouts for their AGP target (motherboard) devices, as well as writing their own AGP drivers."

Furthermore...

"The AGP interface specification can be open to interpretation in particular instances. Driver developers can misinterpret the AGP specification during their implementation without realizing it."

What this means is that user's with certain older combinations of BIOS's, chipsets, and video cards may never be able to get their AGP to work optimally. A sad state of affairs for those that purchase expensive hardware expecting high-end graphics performance. While I'm going to continue my efforts to find a solution, I'm not wholly optimist that one exists.