HD 2600 PRO AGP - driver problems

[bill_carson]

Hd2600 Pro Agp 512mb (windows Xp)

Well in my opinion AMD under finance the developement of there Linux driver!

It's not just the linux driver, the same problems occure on windows!

6 (SIX) months of this thread, ONE ("Be or not to be?") problem and not yet solved! This is not just a shame, this is SCANDAL!!!

You are right 100%

Hope this is a drivers issue and will be fixed soon.

What worked for me was underclocking the core from 600MHz to 550Mhz. Hope it will also work for some of you. Good luck guys

[jman0918]

Stabilizing Visiontek HD 2600 AGP 512 MB

Hi guys,
I bought my card for $40 from a local chick who picked up 6 of them at Best Buy for $25 each. I wanted to be able to play Colin McRae Dirt without buying an Xbox 360 or a new CPU/RAM/GPU combo.

Originally, I was able to stabilize the 2600 AGP in XP using Catalyst 7.11 or 7.12 and reducing the AGP speed to 4x. I picked up Vista and was unable to adjust AGP speed using SmartGart (not included in Vista) or my BIOS. However, I am able to adjust the AGP Drive Strength and the AGP voltage in BIOS. I was upset, so I gave it a shot after I read that overclockers turn up these settings to stabilize the GPU card.

I have a VIA K8M800 board, the MSI K8MM-V, with a Clawhammer 3200+ @ 2 ghz, 2x512 mb Kingston PC3200 2.5-3-3-8, Audigy 2, and a Thermaltake 430w. I read that AGP Drive Strength is unique to VIA, and DA > EA helps in some cases.

I am happy to announce that I installed the Catalyst 8.3n AGP driver from the Visiontek site, I am able to boot to desktop in XP at AGP 8x, and then start and PLAY Half Life 2 Episode 2. The AGP Voltage is set at 1.8. It defaults to 1.5v, and hangs at 1.75v

I don't hsve enough RAM for Vista gaming yet, but the desktop is stable, and Aero looks pretty. I don't play with Linux, but turning up your voltage may help. I figure that some of the signal strength/GPU power is lost because of the Rialto chip.

I tried this fix as a last resort. I figured it was only $40 and I still have an x800 if it burns up. It looks like the card needs the extra voltage to function.

If you have a Dell or HP motherboard you may not be able to try this fix. I'm curious if others can get their card to work.

[bridgman]

I just want to stress that we are still working on 6xx AGP support for both Windows and Linux, so while tweaking may help a bit it is not the real solution.

[jman0918]

I don't believe this is tweaking, so much as discovering what the hardware needs to function given the driver and hardware options.

[bridgman]

Agreed. I'm just saying that until driver support is finished I don't think there will be any combination of BIOS settings that will make things work the way you want.

[jman0918]

AGP 3.0 stability introduced.

DBI Output for AGP transfer or Dynamic Bus Inversion

I called MSI and they said that feature's included in the AGP 3.0 implementation, so my only option is to increase the voltage.

I csn only guess it's because the 2600 is a native PCI-e part.

[the_corona]

Hi,

I think I'm in the same boat, I have a HIS HD2600XT AGP card and the drivers just crash my system (Ubuntu) on start-up and I can only hard-restart it :-(

Are there some drivers I can install to make the system at least workable? As it is its pretty slow, videos stutter all over the place and I get heavy tearing when moving around windows and stuff. In short, its anything but fun to use Linux for me.

I read about those RadeonHD drivers, but they don't seem to support HD2xxx cards at all yet.

Keep in mind I'm pretty new to linux and I don't want to do any kernel patching or something crazy like that (BTW I keep trying Linux once a year or so but everytime it ends up with small problem that just make it impossible to switch for anything but playing around.....:-()

Any suggestions?

Thnx

[philosopher0926]

I installed the RadeonHD drivers on Ubuntu 7.10 (and 8.04 a week later) following the guide posted a page back. Granted, I can't play any games, but my resolution is at least supported. (I myself have a SAPPHIRE HD2600 XT 512 AGP). If it's 3d accelerated graphics you want, I'd just wait for the official driver release, RadeonHD won't do it.

I have the same overall problem with linux as you: whenever I try it, I'm usually hit with some advanced problem that can't be overcome without following some insane set of instructions that remind me of a rube goldberg puzzle (To keep you from pulling your hair out, the guide I mentioned is real simple: just copy and paste everything in italics in that page as you go along).

It's ironic- I keep windows as my primary operating system because it "just works."

Ninja edit: The guide I'm talking about

[the_corona]

Thnx philosopher!

I followed you're guide but I'm stuck where it says:

After that, it's time to update the xorg.conf to reference this new driver. In the Section "Device" area that is showing vesa, avivo, or fglrx, change the Driver "<driver-name>" line to radeonhd.

in xorg.conf I don't have anything that says vesa, or avivo or fglrx? The closest thing I can find is:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

I guess I should change that to:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "radeonhd"
EndSection

I really don't wanna get to the point of it not booting at all anymore, so I thought I'd rather ask. Sorry if this is dumb :-)

Thnx again

[mwosdev]

Bridgman

You are clearly close to the action.

Firstly, a well done . . . .

The notion of extending the life of AGP by designing the 2xxx series is excellent. Not everyone wishes to (or indeed can finance) upgrades to motherboards/processors/memory constantly - the option of a performance boost by using a new chipset via AGP is first rate.

I have almost entirely used ATI graphics cards both personnally and in the business environment as a result of quality, price, performance and support. The 2xxx AGP series is somewhat baffling - I cannot recall such a situation with any previous series. All new software releases have their irritating little quirks but nothing on a par with this. Testing seems to have been by-passed prior to release.

I have the option to return my card for a refund but I see this as a last resort. IF a functioning driver set was available then clearly the card will perform better than the one I have at present. So, bottom line is . . .

Is it an absolute certainty that a Driver will be produced such that the card does actually function as per h/w specification and claimed performance?

Not looking for dates - just need to decide whether to hold on to the card or admit defeat and get a refund.