ATI Radeon 7000 and a BIOS flash?

Video, SCSI, modem, CDROM/CDR/CDRW, etc.
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MattyJoe
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Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2003 3:07 am

Hey everybody,

I'm having a problem and I need someone with more expirience than I to tell me if I'm on the right track, or if I'm completely wrong.

I purchased a new video card for my girlfriend's pc, it's an ATI Radeon 7000 32MB 4X AGP. The pc is running WinXP Pro and it hangs on normal start up. I can however start it in safe mode. After troubleshooting this new card related problem for the last week I called ATI tech support and they recommended I update the bios. Right now the the pc has the MOST recent ATI driver for the the Radeon card and has a newly updated via chipset(KT 133). It still hangs.

The motherboard is an ECS K7VZA reversion 3.0 and the bios chip says Phoenix Bios D 686(there may be a B on the end of that). This is what ECS's tech support team told me about downloading the correct bios update from their website:

"Sir,

Download and flash to the most recent update posted on our website for
your motheboard, as the most recent update contains all the previous
fixes."

Can I just download award bios update 3.7 off the bottom of this page since it includes all other fixes? http://www.wimsbios.com/index.htm?/numbers.shtml

Or do I need to be more specific and look up exactly what my bios number is?

Sorry to ramble, but any help is greatly appreciated because I know the wrong bios update could be catastrophic.

Thank you,
-Matt
Denniss
BIOS Guru
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Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2002 8:16 pm
Location: Near Hannover (CEBIT) Germany
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The latest Bios is all you need + the Bios flash program ECS advises to use if not attached to the Bios file

It might help to disable AGP4x in Bios as this Board often has problems with AGP4x and Radeons
Have you installed the latest VIA 4in1 chipset drivers from www.viaarena.com ?

Another suggestion ist your PSU struggles a little having problems to feed the new VGA with enough power
MattyJoe
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2003 3:07 am

Denniss,

I currently have the AGP slot set to 2X for troubleshooting purposes. Is this what you mean? Also, yes, I do have the latest via 4in1 chipset drivers installed on the computer.

Should I consider upgrading to another power supply? Right now it's 300W. I figured that would be plenty. If the bios update doesn't work, I'm gonna take the card in and have it tested then I may check that PSU.

Thanks for the input!
-Matt
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