9600 Agp issues

[Kara C]

I recentley had to reinstall my os due to a virus and now my video card will not run at 8x speed. I have cleaned the system up so virus is not the issue here. I have the Abit At7-Max2 and supposedly it supports 3.0 agp and does not require manual bios setting's to determine the agp setting. I am at a loss as to why I can't get my video card upto speed its not even running at 2x according to sandra its running at 0? I have the latest catalyst
drivers installed and DX9. Basicly where I was before the crash but obviously I am missing something....please can someone help?

Thanks

[eagle1]

Just because Sandra says that it doesn't mean the card is not configured to run at 8x.

Did you ran any other utilities to see if the information repeats?
Also, did you tried running any games or graphics benchmarks or utilities?

[Kara C]

Under properties in the catalyst info window for the Radeon 9600 it lists bus type 4x,8x then directly under that says bus setting 0.
Now the main reason I even noticed there was something amiss was because of DeusEx 2. I had been playing the game prior to the computer crash and it was extremely smooth playing.
After though it was a lot more laggy thats when I took a closer look at the setting. I did not run any further diagnostic programs
as I know what the problem is I just have no idea how to fix it.
Its almost as if the Motherboard does not have Agp 4x-8x enabled. But I can't find anything in the MB Bios to resolve this.

[Xtreeme]

Check smart gart. And have it "retest". Till smart gart passes you can try enabling till the cows come home. Aint gonna do a thing.

[Kara C]

Originally posted by Xtreeme
Check smart gart. And have it "retest". Till smart gart passes you can try enabling till the cows come home. Aint gonna do a thing.

Smartgart was removed when I updated ATI driver at the MS site.
But I lucked out doing a search on AGP enableing and ended up at the VIA site where I found the 4-1 drivers, installed these and everything works now. Be nice if all these different drivers were a little easier to find lol. But important thing is that I back all these damn things up and clearly mark them for the next time I have to reinstall everything!
Thanks for the assistance.

[eagle1]

Smartgart was removed when I updated ATI driver at the MS site.

Just so you know, never install drivers from MS site. Please just go to the manufacturers site and download directly from them.
MS drivers have been known to cause some problems (at least on Nvidia cards I've seen lots of problems with MS Windows Updates Drivers).

Just a tip!

[Kara C]

Originally posted by eagle1


Just so you know, never install drivers from MS site. Please just go to the manufacturers site and download directly from them.
MS drivers have been known to cause some problems (at least on Nvidia cards I've seen lots of problems with MS Windows Updates Drivers).

Just a tip!

It was kinda a last resort thing..I had done everything else at this point (had yet to discover the 4-1 drivers). But its very good to know that the drivers updates they offer are not that great.
I am guessing even if they come from the manufaturers site and not MS even when available there, they are still certified? I get all sorts of stupid issues due to non-certified drivers etc.