Had a problem with my Asus board so I sent it out and they sent me one back. That one had a similar problem. No video so that one went back too.I just set up the 2nd replacement and everything works EXCEPT video card isn't being recognized. The card is identified correctly during POST but not by windows. Hardware mgr says CPU to AGP Controller is a problem device. Gets a code 10. Device failed to start or might not be working properly. I tried installing the Nvidia software using the autodetect setup but it says the chip is not supported and gives me a list of nvidia cards. Both of my cards are on that list and auto detect says driver not found, not supported for either. I did manual setup and installed drivers but it still wont work. Nvidia isnt recognizing the cards probably due to the AGP controller problem. I thought maybe just putting the same HDD back on the same board might be causing a problem so i formatted another hdd and installed fresh w2000 pro for test purposes then motherboard drivers and got the same CPU to AGP controller message in device mgr...and the nvidia auto detect gave the same message of chip not supported. This a7v8x-x has a via kt400 in it and im using the same via 4in1 driver disk I originally did. Asus updated the bios on this board when they sent it back. The label on the chip says 1008 and the bios is identified as AWARD Version 6.0 with a revision 1013 (done by asus before they sent this board to me). Would a bad bios flash cause this problem? Is it hardware related on the motherboard? I've been at this for 10 hours now, multiple hard drives, install, uninstall, drivers, software...changing video cards...u name it....plus the mb is set up on a cardboard box this time BEFORE putting it in a case so things are spread everywhere. Between testing my original and installing a bad replacement I learned NOT to put it in the case until its tested! I'm using the computer right now to type this (book...sorry for the length)...and it works fine xcept Im stuck with 16 colors. Sooo...is my CPU to AGP problem a bad bios flash or hardware problem or....??? (I checked bios and all settings are at default per the manual) I'm hoping i've overlooked something that can be corrected here rather than spend 30 minutes on the phone with Asus again just to have em go thru the routine with me... ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated!! Thanks in advance. Dave

Your problem may stem from the inability of Win2000Pro Sp1 to support DX9. The way to install a current grapics card is as follows. I might add this is for ATI cards and I assume Gforce would be the same. You need to hit escape when Windows attempt to setup your graphics card. This forces the default VGA display to run. Now you can install the network only so you can get online. Update Win2000 to SP 3 or 4, (Iuse 4 without problem) and apply all patches inscluding IE6. After that is complete, install the motherboard chipset drivers. Reboot and now install DX9 and then install the graphics card and the GART driver accompanying the drivers. The gist of what I have described is this. The current batch of graphics cards can't run under Win2000sp1 because they require a higher version of DX than sp1 supports. Other issues with sp1 are USB 2.0 support and drives larger than 137GB. There are work arounds for these issues as well. Before starting to perform this routine I would suggest that you completely cleanse your system of any graphics drivers and software. Reboot and try as detailed. It is somewhat of a pain to work on the internet in such a low resolution. Should you want to you can forgo the patches after SP4 and the IE6 update until after the graphics card is installed.

Some great suggestions but I was already running 2000 SP4 and IE6 Sp1 on this same hard drive prior to the MB being sent out for service. I received the same make and model board back but not my original board as they probably sent me a refurb. The graphics drivers, service packs, software were already on this drive. It was running DirectX 8 that came on the video card software cd (Gf4MX440Se) and I installed Directx 9 vb runtime patch from msft on both my machines (my ECSK7vTa3 usng a KT333 chip works also with the exact same setup and O/S). In fact I ran a direct X diagnostic for the heck of it on the ECS machine the other day with both video cards and both were fine under that setup. I also did all updates and patches on the new 2000 install I did last night on the small 3Gb test HDD I set up with the same results. The board is automatically using default VGA driver or I wouldn't be looking at anything. Under DISPLAY in device manager it shows no info available. Shows the only problem device as teh CPU to VGA Controller. The fact the Nvidia install CD is telling me the "chips" (video cards) I've tried (which do appear on the list of supported cards the message display)are not supported tells me the CPU doesnt recognize there's a card installed at all. There's no onboard video so it is installing default vga drivers but beyond that it doesnt know anything. So what I've got is the same make/model board I sent out...back now, running the same video card it had in it (Sempron CPU instead of my Athlon which is now in the other machine but the bios revision was done by asus and everything else works), same hard drive that was in it, same video drivers and software (re-installed)...but it wont work. The Via CPU to AGP Controller sounds like a link between the cpu and video card to me and unrelated to an install problem. I've also uninstalled that via driver and reinstalled the 4 in 1 driver 2 times but no difference there. Any other ideas?

OK, I don't know if this applies to nVidia or not but with ATI the AGP (GART) driver needs to be the ATI version of this driver. If you installed the VIA 4 in 1 drivers, I believe that one of them is the AGP (GART) driver. As I have no experience with gforce cards I go by what I've read. Doesn't nVidia have thier own AGP driver as part of thier detonator drivers. ATI has something called maintenence utilities that are designed to address problems like this there are two files. One will remove all ATI software and the second will remove all AGP drivers (anyones). I think nVidia has a similar utility. If not the AGP utility will work on your system to kill all AGP drivers. The last VIA chipset board I used was quite a while ago but I seem to recall instructions at that time not to use the AGP driver by default. Try changing the display type in advanced settings after cleansing the system of all drivers related to video. Go by way of Display> settings> advanced> adapter> change> next> search> specify a location> supply the path to the driver files.

Appreciate your continued follow up on this. I did uninstall AGP related drivers (I had manually run AGP driver setup as Nvidia CD auto detect was reporting wrong AGP Chip (not supported)...but apparently the drivers are not installing correctly anyway as the AGP card is not detected by windows. The video card doesnt show up in Hardware device manager at all which is the reason Nvidia auto detect isnt finding it. The VIA chipset controls CPU to VGA functions that allow the cpu to work with the video card....so if the CPU to VTA controller isn't working....it won't even see the card...which appears to be the situation. That's why I uninstalled VIA drivers and reinstalled again....3X now to no avail. All of em uninstall and reinstall fine...Xcept the CPU to VGA Controller. I did find one other problem. BIOS was set for PCI instead of AGP video so I corrected that. EVEREST now reports the video card with full detail where it didnt see one at all before. That still doesnt fix the VIA Chipset controller problem which is keeping windows from seeing the card. I might have to contact asus (another 30 minutes on hold only to have em tell me to set it up on a box ...which is where it is now taking up my kitchen table)and go thru the whole this that again....only to have em issue me another RMA for a 3rd board. I have a feeling these refurb boards rnt worth squat. I dont know how they ever leave the test area. If its me or something in setup and i eat those words later....great! as long as i dont have to send it back again...but i have a bad feeling.... If u have any other ideas...let me know...but im sure it revolves around the VIA chipset. I'm going to try the via forum and see if they have any ideas... Thanks again.

You may want to try the ASUS forum over here: http://forums.pcper.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8

If the MB itself has drivers, they must be loaded first, otherwise the AGP card and VIa 4 in 1 drivers will give you fits. Not sure from your post if you done this or just the 4 in 1 stuff. Larry