Hi,

Is it possible to use a 2X or 4X graphics card in a motherboard with an 8X slot?

The motherboard is the Asus A7V8X-X
The cards I have are:
ATI All-in Wonder 128
Nvidia TNT2

Thanks a lot!

I think this must be a miracle.

MATE, I bought the same motherboard, yesterday, and I run my ATI radeon in the machine. You can select different speeds (1 2 and 4x in the bios. Apparently, 8x won't come up in the bios unless you actually plug an 8x card in first.

I have a problem though. I have tried everything, and cannot get my onboard sound to work. I even plugged in an ALS4000 ac97 based soundcard, and it won't even let me use that!!! It detects, but under "mulitmedia" there is NO soundcard listed as useable.

ANYONE OUT THERE, please help me. I am getting well fed up here.

I have the exact same board, for the sound try installing the soundMax drivers off the ASUS cd that came with the board, windoze won't detect drivers for it for some reason... The video may be a little different of a situation, 8X AGP is second generation... therefore the cards are based on a higher AGP voltage, you may be able to run ine, but you risk frying your card probably, IF it works. you can use a 4x card, but a 2x card I'm not sure about,

All 8x boards support 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x speeds in the bios, but that is different than supporting 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x cards in the agp slot.

In general an 8x board will run 8x and 4x cards only, as they run at 1.5V. agp2x cards run at 3.3V, which are not supported on your board.

I believe both the cards you listed are agp4x, so they are fine.

When a card or motherboard is said to be agp4x/2x, that means it is compatible with an agp8x motherboard or card.

I checked the Radeon 9000 before whacking it in. It runs 0.8v @ 8x, and 1.5v @ 4x.

Thank you for the pointer, but the soundcard issue is a difficult one. I have checked numerous sites, and one in particular has a whole list of people with the same problem. They, like me, even install a second soundcard, which is listed in system hardware, but NOT listed in the "multimedia" section of control panel.

I am truly stuck now. I am going to have to work hard on this, me thinks. And those ASUS people are BAR STEWARDS, cause they don't work weekends so no support there! Can't believe no support outside of office hours!!!

Thanks for the help guys!

Just want to confirm one thing:
All 4X cards run at 1.5v, right? Because the board's manual says it'll fry if I put something else in, and I can't find anything about voltage in the manuals for the video cards.

(thanks again),
Karim

"All 4X cards run at 1.5v, right?"

yes.

If the manuals for the vid cards say that the cards are agp4x or agp2x/4x, then they will run on a 1.5v/0.8v mobo like yours.

If the manuals say the vid cards are "AGP Spec 2.0 compliant" then they will run on a 1.5v/0.8v mobo like yours.

The only problem is when the vid card is not agp4x but is simply agp2x, meaning it needs 3.3v. In that case it probably won't run on an 8x mobo, although even then there is another spec called "agp 3.0 universal" that does wotk with 3.3v/agp2x cards. Not sure if any of the new 8x boards are 3.0 universal though.

i have the same mobo and cant get the mofo sata hdd to work cant get xp on it any advice ??

Hi.
I also have the A7V8X-X MOBO and am currently running the soundblaster Audigy 2 and Geforce 4Ti4600 with no apparent problems.The Geforce is agp4x!The Audigy 2 went in seamlessly after I disabled onboard sound in the BIOS.
JARSC.