BIOS setting question

[The Jeep]

Hi
In my BIOS (Asus A7V133 with Award BIOS V6), under Boot Settings, there is an option for 'primary VGA BIOS'. The options are PCI card or AGP card.
The default setting is PCI card, but as I have an AGP graphics card, surely this should be set to AGP card, or does it make any difference?
This may sound like a dumb question with an obvious answer, but I am trying to get the bottom of some problems I'm having with my setup and ruling this setting out (i.e. getting it right) means I can move on to other areas of investigation.
While I'm at it, does the 'AGP aperture' setting, elsewhere in the BIOS settings screen, make much difference to performance? Should it be set to the graphics card RAM size? I'm running a video capture/editing application with this PC (by the way, it IS the same PC as I've previously posted about, and I HAVE replaced both the cpu and motherboard! OK, still having problems, like when the system completely crashes during video playback. Hmm....).
Many thanks in anticipation of a helpful response.

 

[eggplant]

Primary vga device doesnt make any odds unless you have a pci AND an agp card.
As for aperture size, have a read http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/43

Have you done a ram test of any kind (cant remember if you have) does it just lock when video editing or other intensive apps?

 

[The Jeep]

Thanks eggplant - very useful information! I can probably leave the AGP aperture on its default of 32MB as I'm not using this PC for games, only video editing. And resolving the VGA BIOS question is one less thing to be concerned about.

You may recall from my previous posts that I am running Win2K on an Asus A7V133 with AMD Athlon 1.2GHz cpu. I have an old-ish Matrox RT2500 video capture/processing card and I'm running Adobe Premiere Ver 6.02. I have 768MB of RAM, though when I reinstall the system, I just have one 256MB stick in slot 1, and no other cards, save the Matrox G450 AGP graphics card. Additional Promise ATA100 drives are disconnected at this stage.

I believe the order of software installation probably plays a large part in system stability - I should mention at this point that I've had the system up and running very nicely, for a few hours, and then on video playback within Premiere it suddenly crashes right back to a system reset. Doesn't happen every time, but is a major cause for concern!
To this end, I have been experimenting with the installation sequence, and this is my latest attempt to get the most stable system and hopefully remove the crashing problem:

1) Install Win2K on a freshly NTFS-formatted partition on C: drive (40GB allocated, with the remaining 80GB set asside for data, etc).
2) Install my NIC
3) Install SP4 for Win2K (Internet connection required)
4) Install SP4 'rollup' (most recent update to SP4)
5) Install AMD AGP patch 'Large Page Minimum' to registry from Asus CD-ROM.
6) Install downloaded Via Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers, ver 4.45 for improved AGP performance.
7) Install Matrox Millennium G450 driver and software from original CD-ROM (all updates to this driver cause my screen to totally fail and then when I try to revert back to the original driver, Windows gets stuck on loading, hence the need for a fresh install of the entire system! Safe mode doesn't help either).

Now I'm going to go ahead and reinstall the Premiere software, then the Matrox card, drivers, latest version of Video Tools software.

My thinking here is that I have done things in a better order this time, with all the Win2K software (up to SP4 rollup) installed BEFORE anything else.

Does this seem like a sensible approach?

 

[The Jeep]

sorry eggplant, got carried away a bit...RAM test? Not sure what you mean. The Matrox s/w carries out a DMA/HD test.

 

[Igorian]

You did well to get exactly the same motherboard and processor.

One question though, if you are wanting a graphic processing machine, why continue to use a 1200 Athlon and a dated board?

You did replace your 300W PSU too didn't you?

 

[The Jeep]

Hi Igorian.
The trouble with updating my motherboard is that Matrox make very specific recommendations regarding mobo compatibility. The RT2500 is now quite a dated card, and one that I can't afford to replace, so I stick to the generally very stable A7V133. I understand that it can only take a maximum of 1.2/1.3 GHz Athlon, and I am quite happy with this rather low speed by todays' standards.
I have built a much more powerful P4 3.2 GHz machine for my audio applications, which are my main thing, using a more recent Asus board. I have thought of sticking my RT2500 card in there to see if it accepts it, but my auduio machine has no more room inside its custom case, and anyway, I'd rather keep the two (video and audio) separate.

The only thing left to replace is the 300W P4 ATX psu. However, as an electrician with a handy amp-meter, I managed to determine that my video PC was consuming only about 115W when running the video application, less than half its capacity. There could, of course, be some other problem with the psu, and I'm considering upgrading it to an Asaka 460W, but I don't want to be throwing good money after bad! Too late, already done that you may well add...

Incidentally, the previous issue with my cpu fan failing seemed to be caused by an intermittent connection around the fan controller (could be a psu issue?) and I've since taken that fan off the controller and plugged it directly into the mobo fan header.

 

[The Jeep]

One other question, gentlemen, and I hope I'm not burdenning you with too many queries as I'm trying to give you a general picture of my situation in the hope that any glaringly obvious deficiencies might be spotted.

Premiere/Matrox RT2500 insistes on DMA being enabled on the HDs used for capture/playback. However, my IBM Deskstar ATA100 drives don't give me that option when I go into the device manager: I assume that DMA is enabled by default (somewhere - BIOS?). There are two boxes there, though, one giving me the option to 'Disable tagged queing' and one to 'Disable synchronous transfers'. They are in the SCSI properties page (I do realise that I don't have SCSI drives, but anyway). Any idea of what would be the best options here for stable video/audio playback? Ta.

 

[eggplant]

Quick reply as I'm off out, I'll reply properly later
DMA will be enabled but you can check, go to dev manager, ide controllers (primary or secondary wherever your drives are) properties,advanced.

 

[The Jeep]

Thanks eggplant: yes, as I expected, DMA is enabled. I look forward to any further suggestions you have.

 

[The Jeep]

Disable tagged queuing? Disable synchronous transfers?
Any ideas guys as to what effect ticking or not ticking these boxes makes to HD performance?