Help diagnose this...?

[THEJUICE]

Trying to diagnose problem(s). System frequently becomes unstable, freezes, or reboots. (i have already given up on unrecognized USB problem- will be using PCI-USB 2.0 card) Unsure if MOBO is bad- but didnt want to rip it out and send back to Abit...bought from TranscendPC before those fokkers went out of business last year (and didnt tell their existing customers).
Here is my system:

Athlon 800 (not o/c)
256 cas2 crucial/mushkin hq ram
IBM GXP 30gb (ata100,7200...)
Abit KT7 raid
Inno3d Tornado Gforce2 mx
(+other stuff)

Often after running mpeg on WinMedia Player or playing game- then running a different game, will get various VXD errors, or lock up or reboot?...
Other probs= cannot seem to get unique IRQs assigned (many runnning off of same IRQ (11))
Do the VXD errors mean there is a vid card driver issue?
would a faulty MOBO give same errors?
I have repeatedly tried tweaking the BIOS to fix USB problem- no go (yes, i have read paul's unofficial kt7 faq)

Thanks for any/all help!

 

[gritnugget]

If youre running Win2k then the IRQ sharing is not a problem (hit me FAQ Man!), if youre gettin VXD errors that sounds like 98 those are Virtual Device drivers..... what you can try to do is go into the BIOS and change the Plug and Play OS to diabled and make sure that IRQ assignments are set to maunal .. let your BIOS take care of that... the OS does do as good of a job managing it and you can and will run into problems...

wut OS? that always helps

 

[THEJUICE]

Sorry- forgot to mention- os= W98se.
I have tried both Plug and Play en/disabled and IRQs manual/auto.
Are there particular settings to use on the IRQ manual setting?
-thanks again

 

[THEJUICE]

any more help?

 

[Woody419]

Sounds like a basic IRQ conflict problem, time to switch those cards around. Maybe even delete them all out of the Device Manager (in Safe Mode to make sure you get them all), pull all cards and re-install one at a time.

AMD has a Data Sheet on this problem, and directions for a fix ie: the correct card installation order.

"As your computer configuration becomes more complicated and/or sophisticated, sometimes the system becomes difficult to configure and run properly. This problem is often caused by IRQ Conflicts. IRQs (Interrupt ReQuest) are unique signals that allow the cards or components to communicate with the system."

 

[THEJUICE]

thx -will give it a try