Well I just pissed away the day chasing a problem on my “spare” machine.
I was trying out the “turn WIN 2003 Server into a workstation” guide.
The machine had W2K on it and was a great spare gaming rig. Here’s the Parts list:
• Win2000 Pro
• Mid Tower ATX Case 400 Watt
• ECS K7VTA3 v8 (standard OEM no frills)
• XP 2400+ 266FSB OEM & VANTEC AeroFlow VA4-C7040
• Mushkin PC2700 512MB 2 2 2 T1 (256X2)
• AGP Leadtek 8X Ti 4200 128meg
• Onboard Audio 5.1
• Onboard NIC
• 1X WD 30GB EIDE ATA100 1X WD 10GB ATA66
• PCI Promise ATA66 Controller for the CD/DVD drives
• PlexWriter 48/24/48A
• Mitsumi 12X DVD-ROM

Anyhow I could not get AGP acceleration to work. At first I
thought it was the graphics Card so I swapped it out for another
and still the problem persisted. I thought that I had Screwed up
something in the installation Messing with the drivers and Directx
so much, so I re-installed server 2003 std again and still after I
went to Directx Diag. the system reported no video acceleration
at all and when I installed the NVIDIA drivers it would hang again
and lose video signal…
All of this took several hours and I was getting a bit miffed at the
whole thing.
I put the video cards into on of the other rigs and they worked
fine….. so in the end I had to deduce that the APG slot / controller
has given up the ghost.
Well it was a crappy $40 board to begin with so I guess I can’t
complain to much.
I’m gonna crack some beers and frag for a coupe of hours, that’ll
make me feel better.

I've built about 14 machines with K7VTA3 (revision 5 and revision 8) boards... never had a problem with them.

Come to think of it, have you tried Windows 2000 or XP again, rather than 2003, to see if you can get acceleration?

Yes, I installed XP eventually, only to have the same issue
again.... weird, it was working fine before I started the OS switch.
I restored a old backup of W2K (ghost) and AGP texture
acceleration fails.
Directx says I have Direct Draw and Direct3d enabled but no
AGP acceleration.... weird? (not available)
I’ve never had this happen before..

That's not weird... AGP Texture Acceleration is an outdated and outmoded technology. Most new driver sets won't have texture acceleration enabled.

If you restore to a backup of W2k and you are getting D3D acceleration, then your machine is fine... the problem lies in the drivers you are using in your new install.

The fact that the video settings show up as avail. in DXDIAG in
W2K must just have been "leftovers" from the install. because
when I tried to test Direct3d, the system hung and when I
returned to the DX screen after reset / reboot / recover,
they were all three set to "not avail"

okay... now I've installed WIN98 and still the same issues.
all this with nvidia ref drivers I've used many times.... the board
does not act fine. I've reset the BIOS and double checked all the settings
and everytime I go to desktop -> settings etc. and try tro get
the display onto anything over 8bit and basic config resolution
the system locks up.
I can boot into VGA mode with XP and Server 2003 that allows some "prettier" settings but still with no Direct3D or AGP Accl.
Ive tried 3 different cards in this machine now.
Creative Savage4 3D Blater (just to try something 2X)
Ti4600
and the trusty Ti 4200.
All with the same results..... any ideas are welcome
I would hate to make an ***** of myself trying to RMA a good board :blush:

no they don't they either hang up the machine or complain
about no harware acceleration found

Definately a bummer. If the board isn't too old I'd suggest an RMA, but since it was so cheap to begin with you might as well get a newer one.

I saw K7VTA3s, new, for $36

Bummer indeed Well I took your advice Soul Harvester and
went looking out on Newegg.com this is what I'm going to get
to replace it with:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-123-208&depa=0&manufactory=BROWSE

Just a few bucks more... but a bit better I think.
besides, it'll give the excuse we all crave... to upgrade!!