I'm curious as to how much difference, performance-wise, it makes between running a video card at AGP 2x and AGP 4x. I'm trying to wring the final ounces of performance out of my 1.4Ghz Athlon and GeForce4 Ti4600 before upgrading, and I've noticed that I can only run my video card stably at AGP 2x on this motherboard (Asus A7M266). If I bump up the AGP speed in the BIOS the resulting display in FS2002 has a lot of tearing and artifacting that renders it unflyable, but in 2x it displays just fine. I'm considering an upgrade to an nForce2 chipset MoBo, but I'd like to get all I can out of my current system until I can upgrade. Anyone have expertise in this area?thanks,

Have you tried updating the BIOS? BIOS updates oftentimes fix voltage and other glitches. I would also update your VIA 4 in 1 driver. (now called Hyperion) Those should help your AGP problems. Regarding the AGP speed itself, I'm not sure about the difference between 2X and 4X but I read an article in this months Maximum PC that between 4X and 8X AGP, the 4X was slightly faster.

Thanks for the reply. I've got a curious combination of chipsets on my Mobo... AMD 761 Northbridge and VIA southbridge. So I'm not sure if I could or should run the 4-in-1 drivers. I'll look on their site and see about it though; maybe it'd clear the problem up.thanks,

No, you probably cannot! VIA cautions about this arrangement! Your best bet is to see if your MOBO manufacturer has updates for the controller chips.

oooh good call. I just saw the 266 and assumed Via. Check Asus's site and see what they have.

Check out this post...is excellent!BTW, I have the same mobo but with an athlon xp 1800+http://www.2wolfs.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.pl...&num=1045018711

Ouch. Okay, I went ahead and flashed my BIOS since it was several versions old. I should have known better than to do something like this to get a marginal increase in performance... it's just not worth the risk sometimes. Well, I wound up on the bad side of this one and now the computer won't boot at all. When it loads it makes it to the screen that would normally display the XP startup screen, then flashes a momentary bluescreen stop error and reboots. I can't read the error, it happens much too fast. I went ahead and got a new MoBo (hey, I was looking for a reason to get one of those hot new nForce2-powered boards so I can also upgrade my processor soon), and the same error persists! Looks like I may have to try reinstalling Windows. Anyone know how to stop a machine from automatically rebooting on a windows error? I already set it not to in the performance options, but I don't think it's getting far enough to even read that preference.I'm not a happy camper tonight :-(

Does it boot into safemode? (press F8 to get to the menu)I'm not sure what originally caused the blue screen after a BIOS update, if the BIOS went corrupt the machine wuld not have posted. Another thing to try would be to load the last known good configuration, but with a new motherbaord slapped in there it's probably not going to help.Windows XP tracks hardware changes and by putting a whole new system board in probably ticked it off even more. You're most likely going to have to reload XP because of the new chipset etc.Sorry :(

Bill,Stop a moment, take a deep breath, and use a little troubleshooting logic.First, during the BIOS update, did it complete and tell you that it was finished and you could reboot your computer? If so, did you reboot to the basic BIOS setup or try to load directly into Windows.If you tried to load directly into Windows, that may be your mistake. I don't know your BIOS setup but usually, it is necessary to clear the BIOS CMOS so that the new settings of BIOS can be set in the CMOS. Some BIOS(s) can accomplish this during the BIOS update and others require a jumper be moved, board power be removed, to remove the power to the CMOS letting it clear the CMOS memory.Once that is accomplished and the jumper is reset, board power plugged in, 60Hz plugged in, the computer is booted to the BIOS, and settings are then made to the cleared CMOS.You may be experiencing the same problems with your new MOBO because of conflicts in your BIOS setup. I would try reading your computer manual on BIOS setup, if you have one. I would also try using a Boot Floppy (Win98 or earlier) to see if you can boot to the DOS prompt.