problems with my card maybe you guys can help

[Guest Jbrady2020]

first off let me apologize for posting in here if it was the wrong place to post , but i have reached my wits end trying to solve the issue on my own. I figure maybe you guys have went thru this issue,and lot of you seem to know what your doing.im pretty knowledgable to some degree and can follow directions easily. so i am asking for any tips or suggestions on potentially solving this issue. I got a nice x800XL hybrid 256 GDDR3 card by sapphire. its a pretty good card runs well actually. but i noticed a strange occurance, it seems that Agp Write under smart gart is disabled, i cant turn it on, when i reboot it is off. its not fast write so thats off. any of you went thru this issue?? i have the MSI DELTA LSR series card AMD 3200 XP and via 8237 chip set.Im really looking for some possible solutions. I noticed i get 5-10 fps no matter what i change my settings on FS2004 before i was busting out 20-25+ fps a second. i reinstalled 4.51 via drivers, cause the latest 5.00a that are avialable dont do anything. i have the newest 6.4 cat drivers, completely reinstalled from scratch using clean tool. i checked my brothers pc, and his 9800 pro has agp write enabled. i find this very disturbing with my card. i dont know what to do short of reformatting my HD( although i heard it doesnt really hav to be done) which will be incredibly hard with all the data id have to back up to dvd/cd mainly 3d modeling files and textures and other work related files. i dont know what to do. can anyone lend a hand??thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

James-No need to apologize! We're all here for the same reason- so if the help is hardware related- i don't think anyone minds. (Heck- i've pleaded for help here a few times myself...)When you "reverted" your drivers- did you actually UNINSTALL the older drivers- then reboot and install the new ones? If not- you might not have reverted even though you thought you did....Some of the other guys around here are better at hardware than I- i'm sure you'll get some suggestions.

[Tabs 2,790]

Check your BIOS AGP settings, update to the latest BIOS, and yeah as RSR suggested, ensure your system is totally clean of any old driver set before installing the latest one. For that I use Driver Cleaner, which you can get at www.driverheaven.net ...What I do is uninstall the driver using Add/Remove Programs, (make sure you uninstall both the Catalyst Control Center and the driver itself) Do not reboot if it asks you to. Then run the ATI Software Removal thing that's also in Add/Remove - now reboot and load Windows in Safe Mode (press F8 repeatedly as the OS starts to boot to bring up the menu). Once Windows boots in Safe Mode cancel any New Hardware Found junk that pops up and run Driver Cleaner and have it clean using the "ATI" filter. Also run the "Cab Cleaner" from the menu on both SP2.cab and driver.cab. Now, reboot in normal Windows mode, cancel the new hardware found crap again, and now finally install the latest driver.I've had problems in the past with VIA motherboards and this AGP stuff - definitely try installing the latest VIA driver from www.viaarena.com before doing the ATI driver too.

[Guest Jbrady2020]

i'll give it a go, i happento get dc cleanr but i don't think I did all those steps you stated. ill definitely do that then. hehe. sucks running out of black ink inya printer lol. ill let you know what happens.

[Guest Jbrady2020]

no dice bub. i did what you said and it still has the agp write off. i updated my via drivers to 5.08a version of hyperion pro drivers. im at a loss of words here, it always something. im gonna see what i get from sapphire and their response to my issue.

[Guest D17S]

I doubt AGP fast writes are it. I've messed with that and it made no difference at all. Get this: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725ATI Tool. Check GPU and memory clock speeds against what they should be. Make sure the card is operating in AGP 8X. The overclock drill will be a basic health check. Don't leave it overclocked (for now!), but make sure it will go . . . at least a bit. Almost sounds like bad hardware.