Write-Combining & AGP read – Driving me nuts!
Hardware: ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB
Six months ago, my system was running stable.
AGP 4x
Acceleration to FULL
Write combining ON
AGP write OFF (always been like this. Cannot turn ON)
AGP read ON
Since then, I only made System Updates (windows)
I believe that ONE (or some) of them has changed the way windows behaves…
Suddenly, my system crashed when resuming from hibernation;
Overtime I got screen freezes on windows logon screen;
Firefox screen freeze scrolling down some “complex” pages
And recently, visualizing ONE not so very special EMAIL in outlook express 6 sp2, the system
would reboot immediately!!
I?ve spent many days looking for a solution over the months (changed EVERYTHING I could think, from bios to drivers), and it seemed that my system was ready for the trash can (my old faithfull PIII!). Reinstalling XP was NOT an option!!
Today, after almost 8 hours of testing ATI drivers, I ended up with the same, more recent one
for the 9200 (from catalyst 6.5 – Driver 8.252). it was NOT a driver issue.
Dozens of reboots later, i solved the “firefox” issue by disabling the “AGP READ”
I lost 20% of my graphic board Speed by doing this (tested in 3D)
I then reverted to “AGP READ” ON and tried a solution for the “Outlook” problem
I solved the “Outlook” issue by disabling the “Write-Combining” (via display properties)
I lost 20% of my graphic board Speed by doing this (tested in 3D)
I then disabled “AGP READ” again with the “Write-combining” still OFF
I thought: This is really BAD! I?m gonna loose 40% of the speed in games, with a system that was 100% STABLE 6 months ago!
Then, I made the final test and had a BIG surprise!
SYSTEM was running at FULL speed, just as when “AGP read” and “Write-combining” were both ON!
System seems stable (firefox does not hang, outlook is stable, and I still need to test the hibernation and login problem)
But, for NOW, here is the BIG question:
How does a system with “Write-combining” OFF and “AGP read” OFF runs at the same 3D Speed as a system with BOTH options ON??? (when each option OFF will loose 20% 3D graphic speed??)
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