I was told by a friend that to get full stability and performance I should disable my southbridge because I have a 8800GTS graphics card and I dont need that onboard graphics its just interfering with the 8800. My mobo is a ECS KA3 MVP. and the south bridge is AMD SB600 and I dont know if thats a onboard graphics or what, should i disable it, or does that have nothing to do with the stability and performance. my computer also freezes alot and im forced to restart, my processor model is unknown because i need to do a bios update, i have all the files but i dont have a floppy drive, is there any way i can do a bios update from a flash drive? if so how do i set up the bios to boot from flash? I have an AMD 6000+ that i upgraded from a 4600+ and thats why it says model unknown.

do you have any ideas why my comp is screwing up? you can talk to me on aim (AFGUnit106) or msn (xtriple6mafia@hotmail.com) and help me out, or just post on the thread. thank you

O yeah, I know alot of other people with the same rig as me who get better performance in games or whatever, im not sure why, but i have all drivers up to date and everything.

If you disable the southbridge, your system won't work. I suggest you stop listening to your friend...lol

Go to the motherboard manufacturer's website to find out how to update your BIOS.

The 6000+ is a power hungry PSU. I believe it's rated at 100W. And the 8800GTS is a power hungry video card. Hopefully you have a kicka$$ power supply that's up to the task? Your problems *may* be caused by an overburdened PSU.

no my power supply is perfect, 650watts BFGTech with extra cooling. i can update the bios by using the files there an exe. but that is risky, i made a thread about this a while ago and they said its risky just use a floppy, but i dont have one. need to boot by flash drive, is there any way to do that?

I will boot by the exe but im not sure which block to update, there is DMI block, cmos, and all that. (i know not to touch the cmos), there are pics of the blocks on ecs website if you want to check it out, and tell me which ones to update.

but do you think thats the reason why its unstable? because the bios isnt updated?

Yes, disregard your friend. It it were possible to disable the South Bridge you would lose the IDE, USB, PCI bus and on board Ethernet if you have it. In fact anything the allows the computer to communicate with the outside world would go.

I sometimes wonder where people get these ideas from.

Stuart

yeah i wonder that too.. he was like the southbridge is your onboard graphics, i was like ...???

ok anyways, so i guess i need to update the bios, through which blocks? God i hate bios stuff..

"my computer also freezes alot and im forced to restart, my processor model is unknown because i need to do a bios update".

If your BIOS can't properly configure your CPU that is the first place to fix. If a BIOS update is available then update it.

I'm wondering if a nVidia card is even compatible with this MBoard. At any rate here is what the graphics card manufacturer states for PSU requirements.

Minimum of a 400 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 26 Amp Amps.)

Considering the cost, it's foolish not to have a floppy drive. It may not get much use, but there are times when it will come in handy...this is one of them.

Do you have the printed manual for this mboard? If you do most if not all of the subjects you're asking about, including the Gigabit LAN, are explained about in the manual - I realize it's not in male dna to read manuals if you can avoid it, but you need to READ IT!. If you don't have the printed manual, there is probably a *.pdf or it on the CD that came with the mboard, or you can download that fron the ECS web site

"I was told by a friend that to get full stability and performance I should disable my southbridge because I have a 8800GTS graphics card and I dont need that onboard graphics its just interfering with the 8800."
" My mobo is a ECS KA3 MVP. and the south bridge is AMD SB600 and I dont know if thats a onboard graphics or what"

In addition to the above info provided by others:

SB600 has no integrated graphics!
Your mboard does not have onboard graphics!
Even if you didn't know that, all mboards with onboard graphics have a video port (D shaped, 15 pins in 3 rows) built into it's edge - if your mboard does not have a video port built into it's edge, it doesn't have onboard graphics!

Even if it did have onboard graphics, the bios disables it automatically when a video card is installed in a slot - it's hardware/chipset CANNOT interfere with your video card, but if you in that case had any drivers for the onboard video installed you would need to un-install them in case they interfere with the drivers for your video card, especially if the video chipset is made by the same maker.

This mboard has the best of the current ATI/AMD chipsets. It is optimized for ATI chipset video cards, and Crossfire if you have two ATI cards installed, but a single NVidia one will probably work okay.

As OtheHill has already said, the first thing you need to do is update your bios so it recognizes your cpu properly, assuming it can - did you check the CPU compatibility list for your model on the ECS site?

Updating the bios - SEE THE MANUAL!

Did you load all the drivers for the mboard after Setup was finished? If you didn't, do that! Your mboard will not work properly until you do. All the necessary drivers are on the CD that came with the mboard, or if you don't have that, the ECS site has driver downloads for your model, though you may have to go to the AMD/ATI web site to get the main chipset drivers as it isn't clear to me whether they are on the ECS site.

all drivers are loaded, bios isnt updated though

i never knew that if you have a mobo designed for ati it isnt going to give full compatability to Nvidia, so you suggest i get a 680i or something?

You might as well try it since you have it already - it being an NVidia chipset card probably has nothing to do with your problems.
BUT if you ever install another NVidia chipset card and both cards support whatever NVidia's equivalent of Crossfire is (SLI?) where you connect the two cards together, they probably won't work as well as they would on a mboard with an NVidia chipset that does. However, that's too expensive an option for most people anyway.

If this mboard still doesn't work properly after updating the bios, you may be using the wrong ram.

Trying ram in this mboard that works in another mboard , or trying any ram you buy or have lying around, may not work - it has to be compatible with the mboard and it's chipset.

See response 5 in this for some info about ram compatibilty, and some places where you can find out what will work in your mboard for sure:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...
Correction to that:
Mushkin www.mushkin.com

If your ram module ID string IS on a compatibilty list somewhere, or in any case, you could also try this:
A common thing that can happen with ram, even ram that worked fine previously, is the ram has, or has developed, a poor connection in it's slot(s).
This usually happens a long time after the ram was installed, but it can happen with new ram, or after moving the computer case from one place to another, and I've had even new modules that needed to have their contacts cleaned.

See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...
.....

If after all of the above the computer still isn't working properly, THEN you may need to try an ATI chipset video card.

There are NO certified NON ATI crossfire cards.

"There are NO certified NON ATI..." (I'd insert) chipset "... crossfire cards."

That's true, but that doesn't necessarily mean the NVidia chipset card won't work okay.

Probably work OK alone but in pairs I doubt it.

Your PSU appears OK, so it can probably be ruled out...unless you got a lemon.

From a review:

"the BFG Tech 600W power supply is a solid unit that is capable of delivering a lot of power but at the expense of lower than average efficiency and much higher than average noise. The main output voltages stayed well within the ±5% tolerance under moderate to heavy loads and the unit comes fitted with connectors to support NVIDIA SLI dual video cards and SATA drives. And lets not forget the Lifetime warranty and 24/7 Tech Support for added security."

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?ai...

As for the motherboard...personally, I wouldn't have gotten a board based on an ATI chipset. But if I did, I don't think I'd run an nVidia based card with it. I don't know what the price difference is, but a HD2900XT probably would have been a better choice.

Anyhow, do the "free" things before even considering changing out any hardware. Update your BIOS, then run thru all the BIOS settings & manually configure for best performance. Check for RAM errors (run memtest86). Double check all connections. Make sure all drivers are up to date. Did you install the ATI SB chipset drivers?

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_c...

ohh i havent installed the southbridge driver. ill do that now.
my friend just gave me a floppy drive, im gonna hook that up and update the bios.

do i just need the south bridge update or do i need all that other crap?