AGP 2X to 4X

10.08.03

I dropped big dinars on a Nvidia 5600 AGP board with 256MDDR so my son could play Madden 2004. The hardware install was no problem (except I moved the conexant modem down a slot to improve the air flow around the AGP board). The modem also switched com ports when I re-booted?? I think this was related to the Nvidia install not the movement of the Modem to a different PCI slot. Anyway I had to point AOL to a second copy of the modem and all was well. Meanwhile I noticed from the Nvidia S/W screen that the damn thing was only on AGP 2x!! Madden 2004 was running great so I had to decide if I was going to break the golden rule (If it ain't broke don't fix it). I checked the bios (hold the Delete Key down during boot) but the only AGP setting was the apeture size?? I set this to 256M even though I really have no idea what it does. This didn't make a difference so I installed the Via 4in 1 upgrade downloaded off emachines web site. Still was at 2x. I decided to Flash the BIOS so I downloaded the latest version from emachines with the Win flash utility. The crappy emachines Bios upgrade did nothing...still 2X. After reading some articles in this Group I decide to Flash the Bios with the latest version from the ECS web site (MOBO=L7VMM). First I backed the existing BIOS up on my Thumb drive using the same Winflash utility (in case I had to contact the boys at badflash.com) then I swallowed hard and Flashed away. I rebooted and Rock and roll I got 4X.
Good Luck Fellow Flashers...FYI the new ECS flash was VMM11. [l7vmm11.exe in the download section]

bl0wme2001

Issues with T1600 & Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital Card

09.01.04

I upgraded my T1600 from the crappy on-board sound to a Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital card after having some funky sound issues in a game I was playing. The sound issues went away, and life was good.

Recently, I got Doom III, and a few other games and they were causing the computer to lockup with a horrid
stuttering sound. It was driving me nuts!! I checked everything, but mainly focused on my video card. Didn't once think about the soundcard other than checking that I had the latest drivers for it. I swapped out 3 video cards, games continued to crash.

Finally, last night, I read on the ViaArena (mobo for the T1600 is an ECS L7VMM VIA chipset), about a guy
who had the same motherboard, and had to remove his SB Live card due to the fact that it was causing games to
crash. I pulled out my soundcard, and played Doom 3 for 2 hours, no crashes.

So, there must be an incompatibility somewhere between the SB Live card and the VIA chipset, or something about the L7VMM motherboard.

BT

Mobo Swap

08.07.05

My C-1641 with the ECS L7VMM died of swollen caps. Replaced mobo with an Asrock K7VM3. Booted computer and it fired right up. Probably the easiest swap I have ever done. Got to windows login screen and tried to log in but it said I had to activate windows xp first. Clicked to activated and it said it was already activated and sent me back to login screen. Tried to log in and same cycle repeated. Put in a new 200G hard drive and restored XP and it worked as advertised. Found my new hardware as the audio/video are slightly different. USB 2.0 driver not found as that is in SP1 which I am downloading now (SP2 actually). Also it said I had 30 days to activate, clicked on it and used the code off the back of the machine and it activated over the internet first time, no problems. I would have liked to use the hard drive that was originally in this computer without doing a restore. I did not get an option to repair that installation or any options to activate it, it just kept saying windows was already activated. Hope this helps.

lbp1963