Trouble running Radeon X1650 Pro on Acer T135.

Narcoleptic · Feb 16, 2008, 04:21 PM

Hi all, new to this forum. Hope this is in the right section. If not could mods please move it?

Seems like enough good knowledge around so ill dive straight into my problem.

Specs first (im no pro so may include redundant stuff or miss some). Acer T135 comp with:
Mobo built by Gigabyte for Acer: K8VM800MAE,
Chipset VIA K8M400 CPU to PCI, Southbridge VIA VT8237 PCI to ISA
Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG, DMI/SMBIOS v2.3
Onboard VIA/S3 Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter, 64 MB Shared
AGP X4 slot
Win XP Home SP2

Decided to upgrade this so i added a second 512 Mb stick of PC3200 from Kinston yesterday. Seems to work fine with the old stick from Nanya Tech.

Then i tried to add a graphics card (Club 3D ATI Radeon X1650PRO 512MB DDR2(CGA-P1652) - AGP / TV-Out / DVI) and troubles began:

I cant really give a detailed log since i may have forgotten something but basically the Radeon card is detected, and i can run the system on it - briefly - before it crashes. There was also something weird going on when i installed the Drivers (8.2, same i find if i look for latest online as far as i can see) shipped with the card. If i remember correctly the setup was interrupted by a error message to the effect that setup could not be completed since the correct hardware config could not be found.

I came to this forum by finding this thread detailing a problem with another Radeon card and similar Acer system. I did what Tipstaff suggests in post 3 there for display settings but have not tried the whole sequence suggested by Dyre Straits in post 11 yet.

I have downloaded and installed latest chipset drivers from Acer.
I have downloaded and tried to install latest ATI drivers from Acer as well (but running on the old Onboard graphics, since the system crashes to fast with the Radeon card). Reasonably the driver setup tells me that the correct harware is not present. But so it did when the radeon card WAS present before. Weird...

There is also two BIOS udates availabe at Acer (versions r01-b4 and r02-a4) - with a warning not to flash BIOS unless instructed by Acer supprt etc. However i know nada about BIOS and cant even tell for sure wich is the latest version (r02-a4 i guess, but reluctant to guess about theese things). Should i update the BIOS or may new versions be specific to other T135 configs?

So theres a bunch of info, spiced by a hefty dose of confusion. Hope someone more knowledgeable could help me sort this out!

Thx in advance,

/Narco

ins · Feb 25, 2008, 10:53 PM

what kind of crash it is? is it blue screening? or does it give you any information?

I'm not 100% on this but are you disabling the onboard graphics before you plug in the graphics card? I -think- that it can cause some problems but don't take my word for it!

also i find that with 'not-so-new' graphics cards, the drivers they release aren't really aimed at them so can cause some problems. it may be worth finding older drivers and testing them with your card (if you get the chance :P) , again if someone could confirm this :P

if you can throw some more info about the crash then it'd help a lot. these are just things that i would go through before trying to find some more help

**temeteus82** · Feb 25, 2008, 11:04 PM

Thread moved to proper part of the forums

There is a lot's of problems with AMD/ATI cards and VIA AGP chipsets. Have you tried to put the AGP mode from auto to 4X?

jclark · Mar 16, 2008, 02:57 PM

The Acer T135 has a junk power supply. I had no luck running anything more powerful than a GeForce 6200 without upgrading the PSU. With both ATi and nVidia cards, I found it was necessary to:

a.) Drivercleaner Pro everything out.
b.) Replace the Via AGP bus driver with the generic Microsoft driver
c.) Drop the AGP bus to 4x in the BIOS.

(See, for example, NVIDIA Forums -> Graphic corruption on 6800 gt with 6.6.x.x drivers= or
NVIDIA Forums > VIA AGP 3D Corruption The same issues happened with an x800 and the same fixes worked)

With an upgraded PSU, I was able to run a GeForce 6600 at 8x (still using the generic agp driver). Not the Radeon, tho, only 4x worked with it.

Flashing the BIOS with a newer Acer BIOS didn't help. Flashing the BIOS with the generic Gigabyte K8VM800M BIOS (which breaks the OEM Windows, so if you don't have a retail or volume copy of XP handy, don't) didn't do much for the problem (although it did give me a fully functional BIOS).

I now have a 2600HD XT ($45 on clearance at Best Buy) waiting for it, but the 400W PSU I've got in there now isn't close to powerful enough. Gotta upgrade again.

Feb 16, 2008, 04:21 PM	#1
Narcoleptic DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Trouble running Radeon X1650 Pro on Acer T135. Hi all, new to this forum. Hope this is in the right section. If not could mods please move it? Seems like enough good knowledge around so ill dive straight into my problem. Specs first (im no pro so may include redundant stuff or miss some). Acer T135 comp with: Mobo built by Gigabyte for Acer: K8VM800MAE, Chipset VIA K8M400 CPU to PCI, Southbridge VIA VT8237 PCI to ISA Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG, DMI/SMBIOS v2.3 Onboard VIA/S3 Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter, 64 MB Shared AGP X4 slot Win XP Home SP2 Decided to upgrade this so i added a second 512 Mb stick of PC3200 from Kinston yesterday. Seems to work fine with the old stick from Nanya Tech. Then i tried to add a graphics card (Club 3D ATI Radeon X1650PRO 512MB DDR2(CGA-P1652) - AGP / TV-Out / DVI) and troubles began: I cant really give a detailed log since i may have forgotten something but basically the Radeon card is detected, and i can run the system on it - briefly - before it crashes. There was also something weird going on when i installed the Drivers (8.2, same i find if i look for latest online as far as i can see) shipped with the card. If i remember correctly the setup was interrupted by a error message to the effect that setup could not be completed since the correct hardware config could not be found. I came to this forum by finding this thread detailing a problem with another Radeon card and similar Acer system. I did what Tipstaff suggests in post 3 there for display settings but have not tried the whole sequence suggested by Dyre Straits in post 11 yet. I have downloaded and installed latest chipset drivers from Acer. I have downloaded and tried to install latest ATI drivers from Acer as well (but running on the old Onboard graphics, since the system crashes to fast with the Radeon card). Reasonably the driver setup tells me that the correct harware is not present. But so it did when the radeon card WAS present before. Weird... There is also two BIOS udates availabe at Acer (versions r01-b4 and r02-a4) - with a warning not to flash BIOS unless instructed by Acer supprt etc. However i know nada about BIOS and cant even tell for sure wich is the latest version (r02-a4 i guess, but reluctant to guess about theese things). Should i update the BIOS or may new versions be specific to other T135 configs? So theres a bunch of info, spiced by a hefty dose of confusion. Hope someone more knowledgeable could help me sort this out! Thx in advance, /Narco

Feb 25, 2008, 10:53 PM	#2
ins DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Evesham Posts: 207 Rep Power: 0	what kind of crash it is? is it blue screening? or does it give you any information? I'm not 100% on this but are you disabling the onboard graphics before you plug in the graphics card? I -think- that it can cause some problems but don't take my word for it! also i find that with 'not-so-new' graphics cards, the drivers they release aren't really aimed at them so can cause some problems. it may be worth finding older drivers and testing them with your card (if you get the chance :P) , again if someone could confirm this :P if you can throw some more info about the crash then it'd help a lot. these are just things that i would go through before trying to find some more help __________________

Mar 16, 2008, 02:57 PM	#4
jclark DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Acer T135 The Acer T135 has a junk power supply. I had no luck running anything more powerful than a GeForce 6200 without upgrading the PSU. With both ATi and nVidia cards, I found it was necessary to: a.) Drivercleaner Pro everything out. b.) Replace the Via AGP bus driver with the generic Microsoft driver c.) Drop the AGP bus to 4x in the BIOS. (See, for example, NVIDIA Forums -> Graphic corruption on 6800 gt with 6.6.x.x drivers= or NVIDIA Forums > VIA AGP 3D Corruption The same issues happened with an x800 and the same fixes worked) With an upgraded PSU, I was able to run a GeForce 6600 at 8x (still using the generic agp driver). Not the Radeon, tho, only 4x worked with it. Flashing the BIOS with a newer Acer BIOS didn't help. Flashing the BIOS with the generic Gigabyte K8VM800M BIOS (which breaks the OEM Windows, so if you don't have a retail or volume copy of XP handy, don't) didn't do much for the problem (although it did give me a fully functional BIOS). I now have a 2600HD XT ($45 on clearance at Best Buy) waiting for it, but the 400W PSU I've got in there now isn't close to powerful enough. Gotta upgrade again.