Sphere478 wrote on 2023-05-03, 03:11:

I’ve seen some amazing results from many with those gf2/3 cards but they haven’t worked well for me. I’m all digital with most of my displays. And those cards just refuse to work correctly with booting from DVI

The early DVI is limited to a max of around 1280x1024. But even a Radeon 9800 or GeForce FX can be troublesome. You want to go into GeForce 7 or Radeon X1000 territory for really solid DVI.

I actually prefer to use VGA most of the time even with digital monitors. For example you can get 1920x1440 on VGA which single link DVI just won't do.

Indeed. All my new display hardware is ditching it though. It’s unfortunate

AngryByDefault wrote on 2023-05-03, 21:22:

Yet, as I mentioned, it seems an AGP Voodoo might get damaged or cause damage in this mainboard, so that was my point actually, what could be a nice but safe option in this scenario.

I've never actually considered that I suppose. Voodoo cards are usually the only AGP cards that are rock solid in Super 7 motherboards. I would certainly recommend against a GeForce 256 or GeForce 2. Not because they would necessarily explode the board, but because they probably won't work stably with VIA MVP3. I've done some of that experimentation in the past.

The thought is depressing though. Super 7 was crap. I had a VA 503 decades ago. I still have a ASUS P5A stored away but haven't used it in like 10 years. Slot A isn't all that much better.

From my testing, anything nVidia and MVP3 = problems unless using the PCI versions with self reliant VRM. Even if you make the AGP version seem stable, other things happen like distorted sound etc. The VIA latency patch is no help. With 3Dfx cards, the Banshee will definitely put less stress on the AGP port. I would go with that or a Voodoo3 PCI. Outside of benchmarking, the Geforce cards are less compatible in certain games and some will become totally broken like Nascar Revolution.

swaaye wrote on 2023-05-04, 03:50:

[...]
The thought is depressing though. Super 7 was crap. I had a VA 503 decades ago. I still have a ASUS P5A stored away but haven't used it in like 10 years. Slot A isn't all that much better.

psybyrd wrote on 2023-05-04, 17:33:

From my testing, anything nVidia and MVP3 = problems unless using the PCI versions with self reliant VRM. Even if you make the AGP version seem stable, other things happen like distorted sound etc. The VIA latency patch is no help. With 3Dfx cards, the Banshee will definitely put less stress on the AGP port. I would go with that or a Voodoo3 PCI. Outside of benchmarking, the Geforce cards are less compatible in certain games and some will become totally broken like Nascar Revolution.

ugh... you´re killing me guys, I have to justify the money I spent on this all-mighty-agp-ss7-board without forking even more money on a Banshee/Voodoo 🤣

But hey, jokes aside, thanks for the feedback. Hearing from those who've been here before is what I wanted when I posted my questions.

(BTW: What I've read said both V3 and Banshee draw 15w.)

I'm kinda making my mind by now.... I won't play _that_ many games really (lack of time) so I am leaning for this: Give it a shot a my GF2 MX400 and that Savage4 I mentioned. If that goes very bad I'll reasess my options: Accept the lost battle, Insist with some other cheap alternative, stash the board in the hopes of eventually getting a Banshee ...

I don't know how, but untill a couple of years ago I didn't even know socket 7 boards with AGP ever existed, so I really wanted to build one, even with all of it's quirks. I guess it's also true that I have more fun putting systems together than using them....

In the past couple of years I've used two MVP3 motherboards - a Soyo SY-5EMA+ and an Epox MVP3G-M. Both boards have worked fine with every AGP card I've tried including GF2 Ti, GF 3 Ti 200 Geforce 4 4200 and 4600 (the Soyo didn't like the FX5600 but it worked in the Epox). Many early AGP motherboards had power issues (and certain makes and models are well known for this), but some boards were better than others.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-05-05, 01:46:

In the past couple of years I've used two MVP3 motherboards - a Soyo SY-5EMA+ and an Epox MVP3G-M. Both boards have worked fine with every AGP card I've tried including GF2 Ti, GF 3 Ti 200 Geforce 4 4200 and 4600 (the Soyo didn't like the FX5600 but it worked in the Epox). Many early AGP motherboards had power issues (and certain makes and models are well known for this), but some boards were better than others.

I started a project for adding power to agp slots

Re: AGP Power Improver

Currently, I’m kind letting it simmer simply because it is kinda a low interest, low priority idea. Also, I am kinda wondering if anyone is really sure if these issues are for sure a power problem. I personally don’t have any systems that need this currently. But if someone did perhaps they could hook up a scope to the card and prove that this is actually the problem. I’m kinda wondering if the idea of insufficient power is fundamentally an assumption and not a proven diagnosis. Anyway, that’s where that project is at. If more interest comes along that could revive it.

I don't think I've ever used a VIA MVP3 or Aladdin V board that liked a GeForce, Radeon, or G200/G400. Most of them force AGP 1x in the driver if they detect Super 7 and some later things like VIA KX133 or nForce1. But yeah you see people post about how they find them to be rock solid.

I saw an interview with a fellow who worked at AMD back then an apparently there was a joke about how many respins VIA needed for their chipsets. That's at around 20 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTXhZnjS238

swaaye wrote on 2023-05-05, 17:26:

I don't think I've ever used a VIA MVP3 or Aladdin V board that liked a GeForce, Radeon, or G200/G400. Most of them force AGP 1x in the driver if they detect Super 7 and some later things like VIA KX133 or nForce1. But yeah you see people post about how they find them to be rock solid.

When you say they didn’t like MVP3 or AliV, are you just talking about the forcing to AGP 1X, or was there stability issues or (hopefully not) damaged components?

Just trying to gauge how scared I should be of putting certain cards into my SS7 boards and the more personal experience I can hear about, the better. 😀

What's odd about the VIA chipsets is, even later ones like the 694X inherited some of these problems. Getting them to run in AGP 4x for example can be a real pain.
Soundblaster Live! while it can be made to work, It will still sound better on an Intel or ALI chipset board.
Clearly the VRM isn't the only issue unfortunately. Yeah Aladdin V boards will put up a fight with AGP cards if you don't mesh the right drivers.

danieljm wrote on 2023-05-05, 18:14:

When you say they didn’t like MVP3 or AliV, are you just talking about the forcing to AGP 1X, or was there stability issues or (hopefully not) damaged components?

Just trying to gauge how scared I should be of putting certain cards into my SS7 boards and the more personal experience I can hear about, the better. 😀

I've never seen a motherboard damaged by an AGP card. It's just stability issues. Games crash after random amounts of time. Or maybe Direct3D will not work at all. Weird texture corruption. 3DMark freezes or crashes on AGP texturing tests. Stuff like that.

The drivers set AGP 1x and disable features like sideband addressing to try to minimize instability.

There are a lot of variables in play though. Video drivers, BIOS settings, and AGP GART drivers all have an effect so there are a lot of ways to try to stabilize the system. The BIOSs on these boards are often not configured properly by default. Searching this forum will uncover a lot of hints.

swaaye wrote on 2023-05-05, 20:54:

I've never seen a motherboard damaged by an AGP card. It's just stability issues. Games crash after random amounts of time. Or […]
Show full quote

danieljm wrote on 2023-05-05, 18:14:

When you say they didn’t like MVP3 or AliV, are you just talking about the forcing to AGP 1X, or was there stability issues or (hopefully not) damaged components?

Just trying to gauge how scared I should be of putting certain cards into my SS7 boards and the more personal experience I can hear about, the better. 😀

I've never seen a motherboard damaged by an AGP card. It's just stability issues. Games crash after random amounts of time. Or maybe Direct3D will not work at all. Weird texture corruption. 3DMark freezes or crashes on AGP texturing tests. Stuff like that.

The drivers set AGP 1x and disable features like sideband addressing to try to minimize instability.

There are a lot of variables in play though. Video drivers, BIOS settings, and AGP GART drivers all have an effect so there are a lot of ways to try to stabilize the system. The BIOSs on these boards are often not configured properly by default. Searching this forum will uncover a lot of hints.

^ hit the nail on the head.

After reading this post I took some thermal imaging pictures of my GA-5AX with a Matrox G550 after 10 minutes of 3Dmark. It's quite interesting to see the spots generating heat on the mainboard.

First picture is the CPU + 2 CPU VRMs area. The CPU cooler is pretty cold as it's a modded Socket A one and completly overkill for a SS7 CPU...you can see the 2 VRMs on the left which are moderately hot. Just below these 2 components it's the L2 cache chip, and on the right the Aladdin V chipset.

Then we have the area just above the AGP slot, I guess it's a VRM for AGP. You can see that there is a lot of heat transfer in the PCB. On a stock GA-5AX the mosfet heatsink is attached to the mainboard via a screw. I have added a small heat spreader on top of it since a long time and it seems effective as it's a blue color. The majority of the heat is still being generated at the "back" of the mosfet, so on the motherboard side.

The last picture is from the G550 which is passively cooled, it gets really hot. The hottest part a 74°C is also a mosfet.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-07, 08:12:

Then we have the area just above the AGP slot, I guess it's a VRM for AGP.

According to the manual, this is +3.3V system power.
In general, everything was powered from it in those days, starting from the memory and the chipset.
Again, no one is forcing you to use it.There is a jp11 jumper for that.

shevalier wrote on 2023-05-07, 09:27:

According to the manual, this is +3.3V system power. In general, everything was powered from it in those days, starting from the […]
Show full quote

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-07, 08:12:

Then we have the area just above the AGP slot, I guess it's a VRM for AGP.

According to the manual, this is +3.3V system power.
In general, everything was powered from it in those days, starting from the memory and the chipset.
Again, no one is forcing you to use it.There is a jp11 jumper for that.

I m'not sure to understand what this jumper does, by default it's on 1-3,2-4 on both of my GA-5AX boards. Of course I don't know what previous owner did...

Does it mean that:
1-2,3-4 = use the 3.3V directly from the PSU
1-3,2-4 = convert 3.3V on the mainboard

Why would that be on 1-3,2-4 by default? Because some power supplies couldn't provide enough current on 3.3V? To have a more stable 3.3V than relying on what is provided by a crappy power supply?

Oh and I also see there is another jumper dealing with 3.3V, to basically over-volt it. Previous PCB versions of the GA-5AX don't have this jumper.

The result in interesting to say the least...

With setting 1-3,2-4:

With settings 1-2,3-4 no more heat. If I understand correctly this regulator is completely bypassed:

I guess a 50€ thermal camera is useful after all.

for AT boards Chinese 10A Buck converters are ~$5 with shipping, 20A ~$7. I dont see power as a huge problem, poopy chipset tho ... 😀

Boards like p5a and p5a-b have zero problems with agp power. Some very cheap board had some problem and the common one i believe was a FIC 2020 or 2007 (or something like that).

Didn't know the 503 had those issues as well. The problem came up when voodoo3 3000 and 3500 were released, voodoo3 2000 and banshee ran fine.

For socket 7 it is safe to just stay away from the highest cards as they use more power. Geforce2 ultra etc. And the fastest v3's.

Just use any GeForce 2 mx, 4mx or TNT2 and it should be fine. Or v3 2000. But I never had a problem testing ANY agp card on every other ss7 board and i had a lot. I've tested several revisions of Asus, Gigabyte, Epox, FIC, Aopen, jetway and others... P5A and P5A-B are my favorites.

I have a cheapie Tekram P5MVP-B4-1M board and a Soyo 5EMa+, both are VIA MVP3 based boards.

They have both been extremely solid with most of my AGP cards, providing the proper 4n1 drivers are installed. AGP2x is generally been the limit though.
However both my Radeon 7200 and Radeon 7500 have been problematic to get working properly on either board.
Oddly enough, my FireGL 8800 and Radeon 9200 both seem to work fine.

All of the nVidia cards I've tried have worked just fine on either board, my TNT2 Pro gets very warm so I did add a cooler on it.
I find that the lack of TnL hurts this card on the platform, even if it feels more period correct to use it over a Geforce 2.
Both of my Voodoo 3 cards work flawlessly.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-07, 10:49:

I m'not sure to understand what this jumper does, by default it's on 1-3,2-4 on both of my GA-5AX boards. Of course I don't know […]
Show full quote

shevalier wrote on 2023-05-07, 09:27:

According to the manual, this is +3.3V system power. In general, everything was powered from it in those days, starting from the […]
Show full quote

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-07, 08:12:

Then we have the area just above the AGP slot, I guess it's a VRM for AGP.

According to the manual, this is +3.3V system power.
In general, everything was powered from it in those days, starting from the memory and the chipset.
Again, no one is forcing you to use it.There is a jp11 jumper for that.

I m'not sure to understand what this jumper does, by default it's on 1-3,2-4 on both of my GA-5AX boards. Of course I don't know what previous owner did...

Does it mean that:
1-2,3-4 = use the 3.3V directly from the PSU
1-3,2-4 = convert 3.3V on the mainboard

Why would that be on 1-3,2-4 by default? Because some power supplies couldn't provide enough current on 3.3V? To have a more stable 3.3V than relying on what is provided by a crappy power supply?

Oh and I also see there is another jumper dealing with 3.3V, to basically over-volt it. Previous PCB versions of the GA-5AX don't have this jumper.

That's actually a good question. I'm also not sure which jumper setting would be optimal. I left it on default as well.