K7S5A + 4x AGP (again?!)

This has probably been hashed over a million times by now, but in my
search of this NG I haven't seen any solutions, so I'm going to ask again


I have a Rev. 3 K7S5A. Ever since I got it, installing the SiS AGP driver
would cause windows to crash in short order. At the time I was running a
Geforce 2, and so performance was still ok, even though now I realize I
was only running AGP 1x all that time.

When I upgraded to a Geforce 4, I noticed I wasn't benchmarking anywhere
near where I should be. I finally found out I wasn't running 4x AGP, and
discovered that I could get the SiS AGP driver to run and be stable if I
set my FSB to run 100 (133/100 in the bios), and this in turn set up AGP
in 4x mode with all the features enabled. I've been running this way
ever since, which gives me good performance with the Geforce, but the
system is a bit unstable now. Every once in a while it'll not post, or
crash shortly after getting into windows.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what the problem might be? I'd like to
be able to run 133/133 again, as my memory bandwidth is down quite a bit
with this configuration. I've tried Kingston 2700+ RAM, with no change
from my generic 2100 sticks. I also tried a beefier 450 watt power supply
briefly, also with no change.

At this point I should probably just upgrade to something newer, but this
board has been pretty good aside from this pretty minor annoyance.

Thanks in advance for any input.

A bit more info about the power supply, since it looks like some people have
solved similar problems by upgrading to big (550 watt!) PSU's.. According
to the hardware monitor in the bios, here are my voltages with my PSU (300
watt) and an Enermax 450 watt unit:

300 watt:

1.6: 1.6
2.5: 2.464
3.3: 3.248
5.0: 4.892
12.0: 11.968
-12.0: -12.131

450 watt:

1.6: 1.6
2.5: 2.464
3.3: 3.280
5.0: 4.999
12.0: 12.160
-12.0: -11.803

I notice that the 3.3 volt still isn't quite up to where it theoretically
should be, even with a 450 watt.. I wonder if I should try to get a 550
watt PSU to test with. Surely .02 volts can't be that critical??

Hi,

Had the same problem. It seems the Sis driver is for Win98SE. It replaces
the usb driver as well. Extract the original from your Win98 cd and place
it in the appropriate directory. The file is openhci.sys. I replaced it in
the driver directory so it wouldn't happen again...

HTH

Kirk
"JM" <> wrote in message
news:FRDHb.380$...
> A bit more info about the power supply, since it looks like some people
have
> solved similar problems by upgrading to big (550 watt!) PSU's.. According
> to the hardware monitor in the bios, here are my voltages with my PSU (300
> watt) and an Enermax 450 watt unit:
>
> 300 watt:
>
> 1.6: 1.6
> 2.5: 2.464
> 3.3: 3.248
> 5.0: 4.892
> 12.0: 11.968
> -12.0: -12.131
>
> 450 watt:
>
> 1.6: 1.6
> 2.5: 2.464
> 3.3: 3.280
> 5.0: 4.999
> 12.0: 12.160
> -12.0: -11.803
>
> I notice that the 3.3 volt still isn't quite up to where it theoretically
> should be, even with a 450 watt.. I wonder if I should try to get a 550
> watt PSU to test with. Surely .02 volts can't be that critical??
>
>

Hmm, I don't think it's that though, since the SiS driver *does* work once I
drop the FSB speed down... I am running win2k anyway. When I tried winXP
as an experiment to see if it worked, it tried to install its own AGP driver
and had similar problems. 2000 installs the AGP as a PCI to PCI bridge,
which works, but doesn't seem to enable any of the advanced things like 2x
and up, and the fastwrites, sideband, etc. I will check to make sure I do
have the proper version of the driver though.

"crayzKirk" <> wrote in message
news:9MnIb.38$...
> Hi,
>
> Had the same problem. It seems the Sis driver is for Win98SE. It
replaces
> the usb driver as well. Extract the original from your Win98 cd and place
> it in the appropriate directory. The file is openhci.sys. I replaced it
in
> the driver directory so it wouldn't happen again...
>
> HTH
>
> Kirk
> "JM" <> wrote in message
> news:FRDHb.380$...
> > A bit more info about the power supply, since it looks like some people
> have
> > solved similar problems by upgrading to big (550 watt!) PSU's..
According
> > to the hardware monitor in the bios, here are my voltages with my PSU
(300
> > watt) and an Enermax 450 watt unit:
> >
> > 300 watt:
> >
> > 1.6: 1.6
> > 2.5: 2.464
> > 3.3: 3.248
> > 5.0: 4.892
> > 12.0: 11.968
> > -12.0: -12.131
> >
> > 450 watt:
> >
> > 1.6: 1.6
> > 2.5: 2.464
> > 3.3: 3.280
> > 5.0: 4.999
> > 12.0: 12.160
> > -12.0: -11.803
> >
> > I notice that the 3.3 volt still isn't quite up to where it
theoretically
> > should be, even with a 450 watt.. I wonder if I should try to get a 550
> > watt PSU to test with. Surely .02 volts can't be that critical??
> >
> >
>
>