problem with agp port?

Question

i seem to be having problems with my agp port,i currently use a 128mb pci-bus radeon 9250 card which is great for what i do and can cope with most games,even doom3 and need for spped
however i have tried 2 agp cards in my agp slot,which is according to si-soft sandra(benchmarking tool) a x4 agp port,it is a sis730s mobo and has a old style agp slot without a white clip
on trying the 1st card a ge-force 4 mmx(128mb) ,i manage to install the drivers ,but all images are cloudy and have a bitty texture to the images,and the second card a old 3dfx voodoo 3 will install ok and windows xp finds the drivers but then the screen will go grey and after 10 seconds it re-boots
however my pci-bus radeon 9250 is working brilliant and has great dvd playback and good frame rates
in bios i set these settings for a agp card
primary video=pci(agp) irq for pci= yes
is ther any other settings i am missing and what is the agp problem?
thanks

Answer 1

If your processor is as old as your motherboard, having an AGP video card really isn't going to improve much. You'd probably be better off just keeping the PCI 9250, and saving your money for a new computer with a PCI-E slot.

The problem is that you can't still buy AGP cards meant to go into a motherboard as old as yours. The Voodoo 3 should work fine, but you'd have to figure out which jumper position is the 4x. Also, the last driver made for that card was put out in 1999, so it isn't going to support anything past DirectX 5 or 6, so you wont be able to use it for any game made past 1998 or 1999, and won't be able to use it with Windows XP at all, since it comes with DirectX 7.

If you can get the GeForce 4 working, that would be the card to use, since nVidia is still making drivers for it. It probably also has a jumper (assuming it isn't new) to set the 4x/8x AGP. If not, it also won't work.

Answer 2

It's not the BIOS, Si-Soft sandra isn't always perfect. Sound like you have a 2X or 4X slot but the other cards are not 2X or 4X compatible.
As for the BIOS Settings, set primary video to AGP, set IRQ (Interrupt Request) for PCI to no. If there is a shared memory setting for video set it as low as possible. If there is an AGP memory setting then set it to match the memory on the card.

Answer 3

Your ATI X850 attracts about 60 watts. It below pressure your ability provide lots and between the rails ought to were overloaded. Get a larger rated ability provide. A 430W - 480W might want to run cool and be very good.

Answer 4

Disable on-board video and try it out again.