I didn't try many NV cards on the MVP3 board but I also had unknown problems with a TNT causing serious audio lags with every audio cards I tried with. I think also the Geforce SDR gave me crash but maybe some mobo wattage issue considered the amount of power required.

I found a tool that lets you set a "Super Socket 7" compatibility registry. It has two settings. It does prolong the time until crash, but, well it still crashes...

Oh yes, that issue with the delayed audio, I also witnessed that.

I think tomorrow I will just do a quick motherboard swap for the DFI board. I think that board is newer, so maybe that helps...

Have you tried setting agp aperture size to 4 mb and agp mode to 1x (if needed) in bios?

dondiego wrote:

Have you tried setting agp aperture size to 4 mb and agp mode to 1x (if needed) in bios?

The board doesn't have an AGP speed option, but I have set it through software. Haven't tried aperture size of 4 MB yet...

EDIT: Ok so I transplanted the motherboard for the DFI. All working now. The TNT, and only the TNT, is still giving me the flashing black stuff in the image, but that might just be a specific driver bug for this card. TNT2 works great and the TNT only does this in Direct3D, OpenGL games are fine.

This will probably help, it worked for me with the Geforce 3 😀
Re: Socket 7 system stability issues

falloutboy wrote:

This will probably help, it worked for me with the Geforce 3 😀
Re: Socket 7 system stability issues

Thanks, I actually stumbled across that thread 😀

Unfortunately it didn't solve the issue. I have now moved to a DFI board and everything is working, I might re-visit the AOpen board again later though...

Some digging around the internet, and found this old thing from 1999....

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php … 7-Unstable-TNT2

brostenen wrote:

Some digging around the internet, and found this old thing from 1999....

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php … 7-Unstable-TNT2

Sweet, something to try 😀

i have a mvp3 board from TMC and i had no issues with nvidia cards in win2000, tried several cards and ran many benchmarks without any problems. i am not sure if its board difference or os support though.
on the other hand, i had as many agp problems with ali5 in win2000 as you did, although it seemed to work in win98.

btw: whats the model of your dfi? i want a k6xv3-66...

noshutdown wrote:

i have a mvp3 board from TMC and i had no issues with nvidia cards in win2000, tried several cards and ran many benchmarks without any problems. i am not sure if its board difference or os support though.
on the other hand, i had as many agp problems with ali5 in win2000 as you did, although it seemed to work in win98.

btw: whats the model of your dfi? i want a k6xv3-66...

DFI K6XV3+/66

That one works great, can't wait to start benchmarking 😀

Was able to complete all the tests with the TNT. I still got 2 or 3 crashes, and until I move to the voodoo cards, I don't know if it's the AGP issue again or something else.

Started testing with the TNT2 Pro, a great card and looks beautiful in 32 bit.

I had a Tyan S1590 back then. For me the stability was fixed by using an older VIA 4-in-1 version and selecting an option during the install which effectively lowers the AGP speed to 1X. Anyway, it sounds like you've got this sorted out.

Performance wise, I found that I got the best performance with an older nVidia driver. I think it was version 5.32. This version was only stable after getting the VIA setup just right.
Later nVidia driver versions were slower but more stable when using an unstable VIA AGP driver. I guess nVidia did something in those later drivers to try to work around the VIA AGP problem, but hurt performance in the process.
This was with a Geforce2 MX.

Yes, using older drivers is often mentioned.

I'm using slightly more recent ones because I want to use a range of cards with the same driver. I did use an older VIA driver, it does let you select between Turbo and normal for the AGP. But the DFI board has a BIOS option, so I set AGP to 1x in the BIOS.

A GeForce2 type card should be plenty for Super Socket 7.The TNT2 seems a good match, but at high resolution at 32 bit colours it's not quite enough.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Was able to complete all the tests with the TNT. I still got 2 or 3 crashes, and until I move to the voodoo cards, I don't know if it's the AGP issue again or something else.

Started testing with the TNT2 Pro, a great card and looks beautiful in 32 bit.

Have you lowered the aperture size in the BIOS? Say.... 4mb. Just to see if this makes any difference.

AFAIK that setting disables agp and worked for me.

I had a DFI K6XV3+/66 once and it was a solid when it came to overclocking but the dimm slots are very cheap so be a bit careful. Had a K6-3E running in that board at 550mhz (1.6v) along with a sexy v5 5500 agp that clocked like a bat out of hell.

brostenen wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Was able to complete all the tests with the TNT. I still got 2 or 3 crashes, and until I move to the voodoo cards, I don't know if it's the AGP issue again or something else.

Started testing with the TNT2 Pro, a great card and looks beautiful in 32 bit.

Have you lowered the aperture size in the BIOS? Say.... 4mb. Just to see if this makes any difference.

Yup! Also have the AGP 2x option disabled.

But I haven't tried 4 MB on the AOpen board, that would be awesome if that fixes it 😀

Did you try using PCI equivalents of these AGP cards to ensure the issue is entirely AGP related?

Don't have any, but the Voodoo cards worked flawless.