FW: [AG-TECH] Video boards...

[Mike Daw]

I'd like to add to this that we're having IRQ sharing problems with our 3
audio cards on our Linux box (that we're currently working around by only
having one!). We have an ASUS CUSL2 motherboard. Maybe this motherboard
should be on a "not recommended" list. Certainly no one pinpointed it as a
possible problem when we sent out our proposed hardware...

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov]On
Behalf Of Jay Beavers
Sent: 01 August 2001 16:39
To: Yuan (Eric) He; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] Video boards...


As a long time buyer of ASUS equipment for home use, I heartily
recommend against using their motherboards with Windows 2000 or Windows
XP.

I've run into far too many compatibility issues with ASUS motherboards
over the years, mostly centered around ACPI power management and Plug &
Play IRQ allocation for the PCI bus & AGP support in the BIOS.  While
the computer I'm writing this on is running an ASUS CUSL2 motherboard,
it's one of the last ASUS boards left in my home.  Even this motherboard
had serious AGP performance issues until I applied a beta BIOS patch I
found floating around ASUS Germany ;-)  That said, it's running dual
monitor NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS AGP / 3DFX Voodoo3000 PCI without issue.


What you're probably running into is an IRQ allocation issue (all video
cards on one IRQ?) perhaps combined with an AGP bug in the BIOS.  Is the
blue screen IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_NOT_EQUAL (which is some guys code for
'your hardware is broken')?  Update the BIOS to see if that helps.  It
it doesn't perhaps try another brand of motherboard or make the BIOS IRQ
allocation problem easier by putting fewer PCI cards in the machine.

 - jcb

-----Original Message-----
From: Yuan (Eric) He [mailto:heyuan at ku.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 8:08 PM
To: Jay Beavers; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] Video boards...


I got trouble with NVIDIA chip as well. I installed two TNT2 PCI cards
(without an AGP card installed) on an ASUS Dual Socket 370 motherboard,
but Win2K simply crashes into blue screen at its start-up. I tried using
a Matrox dual-head G450 AGP + one PCI TNT2, the same thing happens.
Finally I replaced the two TNT2 cards with one Matrox G200 PCI and one
ATI Xpert PCI. Now I got three cards work together
(MGM450_AGP+MGM200_PCI+ATIXPERT_PCI) under win2k. But there's still
something I don't really understand: (1) Win2k won't start every time,
the machine occasionally needs to be reboot for several times before it
let you log on, just like Jay's problem. But as long as win2k boots,
every video card works just fine. (2) PCI cards are very picky at slots.
Now I let G200 stay in slot 1 and Xpert stay in slot4. But this is the
only scheme that I found can work for all three cards. I can't exchange
G200 and Xpert for their slot numbers; neither can I put Xpert in PCI
slot 2 or 3. I can understand there may be interrupt conflicts between
certain pairs of PCI slots or PCI/AGP slots, but it's weird to me that I
have only one choice! Any idea from Jay or other people? Thanks!

--Eric

Yuan (Eric) He
The University of Kansas

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov] On
Behalf Of Jay Beavers
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 6:16 PM
To: richardc at cs.utah.edu; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] Video boards...

I am using 1x NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS AGP and 3x NVIDIA GeForce2 MX PCI
cards in one display machine under Windows XP.

There is currently a bug in the NVIDIA GeForce driver for Windows that
causes a subset of boards to be recognized upon boot.  Rebooting the
machine (many times in the case of four boards) will eventually result
in all boards being recognized.  I have filed a bug report with the
NVIDIA team and it is scheduled for fix in the near future.

 - jcb

-----Original Message-----
From: richardc at cs.utah.edu [mailto:richardc at cs.utah.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 1:51 PM
To: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: [AG-TECH] Video boards...


Hi all,

Has anyone gotten a GeForce MX AGP and PCI cards to work as a video
display machine? How about ATI Radeon?

Curious,
Richard C.
SCI Institute