KT4V: now seen as lowered CPU, less memory and with AGP accel OFF ???

[Browser_ice]

Yesterday, I installed Max Payne2 which I hadn't played in almost 2 years. At the end of the install I had a surprise warning pop-up that said my AGP Acceleraltion is disabled. I did not understand as I never had this problem the last time this game was installed.  The only thing I had changed since then was flashing from 1.9 to 1.c (I had changed my CPU to 3000+ from 2100 but don't recall if it was before or after I had that game installed).

Nevertheless, I started to wonder what was that about and ran a dixdiag. To my surprise, that dxdiag told me 3 things:
- Athlon XP 1700+
- 1.5Gb memory
- AGP Texture acceleration disabled
(I'll post an extract of that diff once I am back in XP, in Linux right now)

The last time I had ran a dxdiag, it told me I have an Athlon XP 3000+ 2Gb memory and that AGP Texture acceleration was Enabled.  Just to be sure, I did a file search for a possible dxdiag saved file. I found one from 2006 and in it had the right infos.  I did a compare between that 2006 dxdiag and yesterday's one.  I did see that somehow, my PC was now seen as an Athlon XP 1700 with 1.5Gb memory and with in deed a disabled AGP texture acceleration. 

I thought that maybe somehow Windows was seeing wrong so I booted into my Xubuntu partition. Linux was also seeing the same thing. I started wondering if all this was somehow caused by the 1.C flash Bios I did back in September.

I remember back in Spring, I had baught a new AGP ATI HD card but it would not run at all. So I returned it. At that time I had upgraded my ATI Catalyst Drivers from 8.4 to 9.8 (because of a Windows + AGP + VIA chipset bug, I was stuck of using 8.4 as anything else higher caused graphics to be 8 bits at 640*480, but 9.8 seamed to had fixed this). So I returned the video card for a refund. At that time, before trying out the new card, I had re-installed back Half-Life2 to see how improved the graphics would be. Having returned that new video card, I had left Half-Life2 card in but when I wanted to play it again with Catalyst 9.8, the game kept crashing. So I reverted back to Catalyst 8.4 but then Hals-Life2 was complaining about something not being enabled. I did not know what was wrong and did not investigate further. So I removed Half-Life2.  That incident was the only times I saw something had changed with my hardware. Since then, I have not seen any error messages about anything wrong with my PC (unless I forgot about it).

So now, having my PC seeing my CPU being less, having less memory and having AGP problems, what should I do to find out what is wrong and how to fix it in less then a week (don't want to spend weeks on this) ?


[added comments]

Xubuntu (x86info tool) sees my CPU as :
Found 1 CPU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Family: 6 Model: 10 Stepping: 0
CPU Model : Athlon XP (Barton)
Feature flags:
 fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
Extended feature flags:
 fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmxext mmx fxsr 3dnowext 3dnow

Comparing files DxDiag.txt and DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
...

***** DxDiag.txt
               BIOS: Version 07.00T
          Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700+,  MMX,  3DNow, ~1.3GHz
             Memory: 1536MB RAM
          Page File: 288MB used, 5193MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
               BIOS: Version 07.00T
          Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3000+,  MMX,  3DNow, ~2.2GHz
             Memory: 2048MB RAM
          Page File: 373MB used, 5619MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
*****
...

***** DxDiag.txt
     Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
        Chip type: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor AGP (0x4152)
         DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
     Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
        Chip type: ATI RADEON 9600 Series AGP (0x4152)
         DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
   Display Memory: 128.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
          Monitor: COMPAQ S700 Color Monitor
  Monitor Max Res: 1280,1024
      Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6783 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
   Display Memory: 128.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
          Monitor: COMPAQ 150
  Monitor Max Res: 1024,768
      Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6606 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
 Driver Date/Size: 3/28/2008 23:04:32, 299008 bytes
      WHQL Logo'd: Yes
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
 Driver Date/Size: 3/21/2006 22:56:42, 257536 bytes
      WHQL Logo'd: Yes
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
         Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
    Mini VDD Date: 3/29/2008 01:21:53, 2873856 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-0212-11CF-CD69-0820A1C2CB35}
        Vendor ID: 0x1002
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
         Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
    Mini VDD Date: 3/21/2006 22:56:22, 1522688 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-0212-11CF-7C6A-0820A1C2CB35}
        Vendor ID: 0x1002
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
      Revision ID: 0x0000
      Video Accel:
 Deinterlace Caps: n/a
         Registry: OK
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
      Revision ID: 0x0000
      Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D ModeWMV8_B ModeWMV8_A ModeWMV9_B ModeWMV9_A
 Deinterlace Caps: {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoP
ocess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
                   {335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoP
ocess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
                   {3C5323C1-6FB7-44F5-9081-056BF2EE449D}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,2) Caps=
ideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
                   {552C0DAD-CCBC-420B-83C8-74943CF9F1A6}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,2) Caps=
ideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
                   {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=
ideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
                   {335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=
ideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
         Registry: OK
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
       D3D Status: Enabled
       AGP Status: Not Available
DDraw Test Result: Not run
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
       D3D Status: Enabled
       AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
            Driver Name: ALCXWDM.SYS
         Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6230 (English)
      Driver Attributes: Final Retail
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
            Driver Name: ALCXWDM.SYS
         Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6080 (English)
      Driver Attributes: Final Retail
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
            WHQL Logo'd: Yes
          Date and Size: 3/8/2007 13:34:46, 4027840 bytes
            Other Files:
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
            WHQL Logo'd: Yes
          Date and Size: 5/10/2006 14:44:08, 3964736 bytes
            Other Files:
*****

***** DxDiag.txt
            Driver Name: ALCXWDM.SYS
         Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6230 (English)
      Driver Attributes: Final Retail
          Date and Size: 3/8/2007 13:34:46, 4027840 bytes
              Cap Flags: 0x41
***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
            Driver Name: ALCXWDM.SYS
         Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6080 (English)
      Driver Attributes: Final Retail
          Date and Size: 5/10/2006 14:44:08, 3964736 bytes
              Cap Flags: 0x41
*****

...
...

***** DxDiag.txt
--------------
     Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
Device ID: PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_B168&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00\3&61AAA01&0&08
   Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\pci.sys, 5.01.2600.5512 (English), 4/13/2008 13:36:44, 68224 bytes

***** DXDIAG_30OCT2006.TXT
--------------
     Name: VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller
Device ID: PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_B168&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00\3&61AAA01&0&08
   Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\VIAAGP1.SYS, 5.01.0000.3442 (English), 7/2/2003 03:42:00, 27904 bytes

*****

How can I attach my dxdiag diff file to this thread ?

[eagle2]

If that graphics card you bought(which one exactly?) wouldn't run at all as you say, what was the point of changing the drivers?

Symptons would suggest the motherboard running at "safe" 100MHz bus, possibly due to inadequate power supply. Can't explain the disappearance of 512Mb of ram unless the motherboard is showing signs of fatigue(capacitor failure maybe).

Very nice opening post but you haven't given us the basic info on all your system hardware components eg power supply; number, make and size of memory modules; 

[Henry]

 Why did you update/flash BIOS? Did you clear CMOS with PSU unplugged after BIOS flash and then redo all of your BIOS settings for everything that needed reset such as FSB 166 (333) for CPU? Is the CMOS battery still good or does it need replaced?

[Browser_ice]

I had updated the graphic drivers prior to putting the new video card. I took a chance.

As for the hardware specs:
- 3 memory sims: 2x512Mb + 1x1024Mb (will have to come back for model brand and so on once I turn off PC)
- PSU is a CoolerMaster 500W PSU Extreme Power (RP-500-PCAR)  (had a 300W PSU  before).
- 2 IDE Hard disks : 80Gb master + 250Gb slave
- IDE slave CD Rom
- IDE master CD/DVD Burner
- floppy drive
- 2 120mm fans added
- CPU AThlon 3000+ Barton

Had no hardware changes for over 6 years except switching to a full tower (Aluminum Ultra Mid Tower - ULT31824) with new PSU and 2 fans.


I had updated BIOS because when I booted with an USB key plugged in, it froze my USB keyboard/mouse. Pluse that USB key has linux on it so I wanted to be able to boot to it. I am still not able to boot to it but at least my keyboard/mouse are not frozen anymore.  The battery is still good.

As for how I flashed my BIOS, I followed instruction supplied with the Bios Update (got from MSI). It did not mention anything to do related to what you said Henry.

So there is a possibily that the BIOS FSB is still set a 100Mhz ?  I'll check it out. I had this a long time ago and had it changed to 133 or 166 (don't remember).

I'll come back with the missing infos...

[Henry]

 I forgot the pics 1st time around, as previously mentioned by eagle2 check for bad caps, leaking, bulged, ruptured:

[Browser_ice]

Seams like the biggest cause of my problem was in deed the FSB setting at 100Mhz (default). I put it back to 166.

Now it says I have an Athlon XP 3000+ AND 2Gb memory.  DxDiag confirms it.

However, I still have the problem about the AGP Texture Acceleration = Disabled in DxDiag.  Honnestly, I have never payed attention to this value. MaxPayne2 is working ok without problems at max settings.  So I have no idea if this value was turned off the moment I installed Catalyst 8.4  . Again, the reason I have 8.4 is because when I tried installing (2 years ago) something higher (8.5, 8.6, ...) my Windows would boot up with 640X480x8bit display. When I had installed 9.8 to test the new video card, Windows had booted ok but I could not run HL2 anymore.

What do you suggest ?

p.s.: I added hardware specs in my signature.

[Henry]

 I'll leave that ATI & CCC to others as I'm not familiar with it.

[Fredrik]

First thing after a BIOS update is to pull power cable out and after waiting a little clear CMOS.

You will have to enter BIOS afterwards to re-set a few things, like time, date, boot order, and processor speed. You can set graphics acceleration there, too, I believe.

Use a trusted graphics driver. I would suggest you use the non-CCC version meant for your graphics card, meaning only display driver: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_xp.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.24&lang=English

[eagle2]

I think there's a driver for that 9600 in windows which should work ok, so you could just uninstall it and reboot.

Had no hardware changes for over 6 years

I can't believe you had two gig of memory six years ago. http://www.memtest.org/