Slow benchmarks, and freaky 9800

[Bob The Great]

I just put together a new system about a month ago and I've been fighting with it constantly to make it work as fast as it should. First off here are the specs.

AMD AthlonXP 2500+
EPOX 8RDA+ (latest bios updated about 7/12)
512mbs PC-2700
Powercolor ATI Radeon 9800 (tried all dets with similiar results but 3.5's are the current)
16x Sony DVD
52x24x52x MSI Dragon Burner
2x 40GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200 RPM HD's
ANTEC Sonata w/380watt PSU
Windows XP PRO

Ok now to start the list of probs.

Fixed: 1.) My Radeon is adentified by windows as a Radeon 9800 PRO???
2.) I used to only get 208fps while much slower cards got 215 like the 9600 with the exact setup as me!
Fixed: 3.) now I get 137fps after messing with the bios (I reset it in the bios but I think a complete bios reset via the jumper might fix this)
4.)CPU preforms worse then a 2400+ in sandra. It might be because of more cache less speed = slower sandra but better real world.

I've used RadeonTweaker to tweak the card and got a few extra FPS. I have no oc'ing whatsover, and all my drivers are uptodate. I have Norton IS 2003 (legal) which has no virus's detected, I scan regularly with Adaware 6 (latest update), and I have XP PRO (legal) though it hasn't been updated (stupid update thing doesn't seem to want to come on)

Any ideas on how to get higher scores??? I'm about to return this 9800 and pick up a 9700PRO AIW cause I'm so annoyed (and just got payed).

edit: BTW here are some benchmarks pre "bios tweaks"

3dMark2001se: 14,021
First OC: 14,646

3dMark2003: 4874
First OC 4912

Sandra 2003

Arithmetic: 6468/2717
Mulitmedia: 10115/10694
File System Benchmark
Average Access Time: 8ms

[SimonTemplar]

Just a few guesses here. First, uninstall the drivers, and install the latest version of DX9 which i think is 9.0b. Then reinstall the drivers from scratch. Your scores are completely out of wack. I could get 7500 - 8000 in 3dmark 2001 using my old Geforce 3 245/550 on an slightly overclocked athlon 1.33tbird. Your filesystem bench is fine. Are you sure you have the correct settings in the bios? Your cpu is running at speeds closer to an athlon 2000+. Set the cpu speed to manual and set it yourself to the correct multiplier and fsb. Out of curiosity, what temp is the cpu at? and the system temp. LMK Best Regards, Simon

[Bob The Great]

Dude, really sorry I just realized those are my other systems marks. I have them in files right next to each other. That is fixed, but I may have something that could shed some light on this situation.

I reset my bios and got 199fps in quake3, but then I set the radeon tweaker to optimize it, but that set me back to 135, so I'm getting rid of radeon tweaker right after I reset the reg. Anyway, could this be due to a faulty powersupply? The 9800 needs extra power, so if it didn't get enough would it slow down or would it just fail?

Sorry again Simon, your post still has some good ideas.

[SimonTemplar]

Strange, I've always had good luck with Antec power sups. The Radeon tweaker sounds like its screwing something up. Maybe it's using AA and AF by default? A performance hit like that is usually caused by enabling AA. The radeon can handle it well, but like any card the fps drop substantially. Try oc'ing and tweaking with something else. Try dropping in at guru3d.com forums and ask there as well. You can get another oc'ing utility from the main page too. Good Luck!!!

[Bob The Great]

I'll check out Guru3d. Maybe there forums will know whats wrong.

I've messed with the AA and AF but to no eval. I'm thinking maybe it has to do with windows thinking its a 9800PRO and usuing its drivers. How can I get it to run 9800 drivers?

The PSU was a wild guess, but the most solid I had.

[SimonTemplar]

I don't think it has anything to do with the ps. Also, I would not really worry about xp showing your card as a 9800 pro. You did not flash the card bios did you? Even if you did, your 9800 should be able to handle pro speeds. I pretty much use Nvidia cards, but I think that the ATI Catalyst driver is unified now, so it should detect which card you have and the driver for the pro and non- pro is the same. Make sure the card is really jammed in the AGP slot well, and that you have AGP set to 8X in the mb bios. Also, this might help. Shut off fast writes and side band addressing in the bios. They can cause some instability. Don't use beta drivers, and if all else fails, RMA the thing and get a different brand. I don't think you really need to oc that card anyhow. 200 fps in quake is great.

Crap, I forgot. Maybe try this too. Uninstall the driver, restart windows and let xp install the driver that comes with xp. Then unpack the catalyst driver exe file in a new directory using winrar or winzip. Go to windows device manager and update the driver and install it manually directing it to the directory you unpacked the drivers to. Sometimes this works better than just double clicking the drivers and having them self install.

Best Regards,
Simon

[Bob The Great]

Ok, I reinstalled drivers usuing the method you described, and forced it to use the Radeon 9800 drivers. Its working better now, by about 2fps oi...

I do have fast write enabled, could that be the problem? I'll shut it off when I get home, I thought it was just older cards that had issues with it. Any way, I might very well RMA it if it doesn't work.

Like you said I am getting amazing FPS in quake3, but the 9600 beats my card there, and I can't have that! I paid good money to have just about the FASTEST card out, and to have it preform like this just sucks!

Thanks a lot for the input

[cbuddha42]

hum my 9800 non pro wont run at 8x on my nf7-s and when i tried to set it up thre its just crashed graphics when windows loaded video drivr so i did last know good wich screwed my mobo drivers and the crappy abit utility wouldn't re-install them so i manually installed them and figured i would sort out the vid card when i needed to run it at 8x. anyway point is the ati driver auto set me to 4x so make sure your set to 8x and the latest driver is crap but feal lucky becuase there isnt even an 9800 driver for linux - working or non

[Bob The Great]

Stability isn't an issue. I just left it on for a week at 10 hours with no errors cept on in vice city but I think that was the game. I only rebooted because a program wanted to. Its by far the most stable system I've had! I was really hitting it hard that week with games and photo editing, and surfing and music and LAN! Everything without an error!

The card is set to 8x, and like I siad I've tried all of ATI's drivers.

[Optimus Prime]

In my personal view, i would smell a re-format coming on.

If you couldn't solve the problem, start again and see if it happens, if it does, look at sending it back.