ATI Radeon x1050 & ECS K8M800-m2

[carloslo]

Hello,

I have a machine with the following specs:
Motherboard: ECS K8M800-M2
Processor: Sempron 3.0
Memory: 1.5 GB
HD: 250GB
OS: MS Vista Business Sp1

I am trying to configure an AGP ATI Radeon X1050 video card, but the computer always reboots before showing the Vista logo.

I have tried the following:
1) As the motherboard has an integrated video card and found no way to disable it in the BIOS I unistalled its driver and disable it in Vista using the device manager.
2) Installed the new video card
3) installed the video drivers with no issues
4) restarted the system and got the problem I mentioned. It always reboots.

I can login in safe mode and it does not report any issues. Nothing in the event logs and nothing bad in the device manager. The event logs only shows an unexpected reboot.

I checked with ECS and they suggested to use Windows XP instead. The drivers of the card says Windows Vista.

I tried changing the AGP driving value to 10, 68, EA, EF with no success. The default is DA.

I will appreciate your suggestion.

Thanks,

Carlos

 

[ZarkY]

Try Chipset / Platform Drivers directly from Via (The K8M800-M2 uses a via chipset) http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2 and maybe latest ATI Catalyst Drivers (Don't know if they support AGP cards or not, but It worked on XP w X1650 AGP).

I've sold these boards, so I'd like to know what the outcome is... (Never much liked VIA Chipsets, but seemed fine since AMD XP era)

 

[carloslo]

Hello Zarky,

I installed the via drivers but nothing changed. Same issue is still there.

Something I noticed is the video and ethernet devices have same IRQ 10, but no conflict is shown as they use different addresses. It may be correct, but wanted to mention it.

What do you think I should try now.

Thanks for your help,

Carlos

 

[ZarkY]

I draw a blank...
I guess if it's a IRQ sharing issue, maybe disable Ethernet in BIOS, just to see if it works.
Possible to try another AGP card?
Or, reset BIOS settings to default (after writing down what setings they are before doing that!)
Or, maybe un-install ATI drivers and Catalyst, and try installing latest ati driver only, or if already done that, try previous version (Once had problem w ati hd 3200 chipset graphics on a new mainboard and catalyst 8.7 😛 )

 

[carloslo]

I have tried all I thought. I even used another old card I had ATI 9252. While Vista installed its default driver with no issues it does not have any acceleration enabled because it says it is for DirectX 8 and vista supports version 9 and above. So, it is useless.

I was checking on MS website and the cards I am trying to use aren't supported, that might be one of the issues even though ATI X1050 says it is for vista.

I am not sure what to do. Most of the cards listed in MS website are PCI express, not AGP and the motherboard ECS K8M800-M2 has no that kind of slot.
My options are:
1) buying another motherboard and video card
2) buying another motherboard with pci express and agp and try existing card.
3) Try to find an agp card listed in MS website.

How could I have some guarantee one of the above options will work?

Do you have any recommendation you have tested in vista?

I am So frustrated. Just can't belive everytime microsoft changes OS all hardware needs to be replaced (???) I am software developer and I would never do that to my customers, I just do not get it. Is it we all are MS' cautive customers?

Thanks,

Carlos

 

[ZarkY]

Well, not all blame should go to Microsoft... 😉 I suspect ECS or VIA (chipset) or ATI for the AGP Port weird-ness. AGP compatibility wasn't the greatest. 😛

Glad PCI-e is in, as I've never had problems mixing and matching.

If ya do go for a new mobo, try and ATI 780G chipset or Nvidia 8200 and an in-expensive AMD AM2 CPU. The on-board video is powerfull enuff for vista, and has a PCI-e Slot (if it isn't). I have a Giga-Byte GA-MA78GM-S2H, and have been very pleased with it. but the GA-M78SM-S2H looks promising as well.

I have an MSI mobo with same/similar chipset and ati hd 2600 agp video, I'll give it a whirl in a few days. Kinda wanna know too...

 

[ZarkY]

'K tried with an MSI K8mm-v with k8m800 Via chipset, and ATI HD Radeon 2600 XT (HIS brand), but found no easy drivers for it... Did a search for ati agp hotfix 8.10 (Current Catalyst Set) and bingo, found it on AMD's support site. Drivers worked fine for me. maybe the hotfix drivers may help.

BTW, I used Vista x64 and AMD Turion ML-30 from a laptop. Nice low power system.

 

[carloslo]

ZarkY,

I appreciate your help. I tried several configurations with Vista and several driver version and all failed.
I decied to test using Windows XP on same hardware and found it works wonderful. So decided to enable dual boot.

As mentioned above the solution was:
1) Partition 1. Vista with a disabled video driver. This allows my kid to do his homework and run other installed applications like Excel, email, etc.
2) Partition 2. Windows XP pro SP2 with enabled video driver (only for gaming). The games run fast and with no issues as no other applications are in background.

I strongly recommend this solution for those that have both OS at hand.

The above clarifies the hardware is not the problem as Microsoft and AMD were pointing the finger to, but in the software itself either vista or the ATI drivers for vista.

Thank you again,

Carlos

 

[hitsaati]

'K tried with an MSI K8mm-v with k8m800 Via chipset, and ATI HD Radeon 2600 XT (HIS brand), but found no easy drivers for it... Did a search for ati agp hotfix 8.10 (Current Catalyst Set) and bingo, found it on AMD's support site. Drivers worked fine for me. maybe the hotfix drivers may help.

BTW, I used Vista x64 and AMD Turion ML-30 from a laptop. Nice low power system.

You use a Turion ML-39 mobile cpu on your ECS K8M800-M2 motherboard and it recognizes the cpu? Run smoothly?