hi there,

i have an ati radeon 9700 non-pro and an asus p4s8x that has agp8 support.

i have the latest drivers instaled (catalyst 4.1) but if i turn the agp8 on and fast write on also the computer works fine for a while and then it just hangs. so the only way i can work with it is to turn the agp to 4x and fast write off..but that sucks. but even with agp4 in some more recente games it still hangs while playing them.

anyone here knows of anything that can solve the problem? is my gc and mb just not made for each other? thanks.

Do you have the latest chipset drivers for your mobo installed? How about the latest BIOS for your mobo?

Anyway, there is virtually no difference in performance w/ AGP4x vs AGP8x (~about 1 %), so I wouldn't sweat that, nor is there much (if any) to be gained by having fast-writes enabled....but the "hangs" need to get worked out.......

Try disabling "VPU Recover" in your ATI control panel

I think the radeons do not support fastwrites. So try turning AGP 8x on and turning fastwrites off in the BIOS. Also make sure you make a clean install of the drivers if you didn't do so before, that sometimes fixes problems too. Hope that helps.

thanks for the replies.

ill try those tips now, and came back here if i need more help.

once again, thanks.

Sure they do, they just test for compatability w/ your mobo and will automatically turn them off (ATI's SMART-GART) if they are found to be unstable in your rig....If you don't have SMARTGART installed (you can uninstall it) you may cause instability if you enable fast-writes and they're not compatable w/ your rig.

Fast-Writes work fine on both my Intel based Abit IC-7 mobo and AMD based Epox 8KRDA+, but frankly I see no benefit whether I turn them on or off.....

ive installed the latest bios, gc drivers and agp drivers.

turned agp to 4x and fast write off on both bios and ati control panel. also ive disabled win xp write combining.

anything else i can do so it wont hang on more recent games? please.

thanks.