HELP with Abit KT7A-RAID!!!

[Spiker]

Ok here is my problem, my soundcard and modem don't work with my new Abit Mobo but worked fine in my old Dell Mobo. I get them to work for a few minutes if I powerdown, unplug and hit the power button three times, but they stop working within minutes as soon as I get them working again. I'm thinking it's a problem with the pci-isa bus on the Abit KT7A Mobo. Could my voltage be set too high or too low? I have my bus voltage set at 3.5 and my core at 1.75. I'm overclocking to 1333 by 10 X 133/33 clock settings. I have a 300W power supply so I don't think I would have a power sortage. Anyway here is what else is in my system:
256Mb Crucial CL 2 PC133 SDRAM
10G and 20G Maxtor harddrives
X-Games Live! soundblaster soundcard(not working)
56k Modem(not working)
10/100 3Com ethernet card(don't know if it is working)
Please help!!!

 

[JustStarting]

Have you installed all drivers in the proper order? This board is particularly sensitive to order of installation of drivers as addressed in the installation manual.

1) install OS
2) install Via drivers
3) install video drivers
4) install sound card drivers- some people have problems with SBLive! cards. I installed the card but did not restart system when finished. Look in the device manager and see what IRQ it has assigned to the sound card. When you restart go into the bios and set that IRQ to legacy. This will avoid any issues with sb16 emulation and the highpoint controller.
5) install USB packs and all the rest of your software.

You may also want to ensure everything is installed and working correctly before overclocking right away. I know its tempting but its worth the wait.

 

[Spiker]

Alright I'll try that stuff out, but I'm pretty sure I followed that order before and it still didn't work out correctly. Plus it doesn't make much sense why both my sound card and modem would work and then just stop all of a sudden.

 

[DrewsNick]

I would suggest clocking down the chip to like 1 gig or not much higher first. Get everything stable either at the defaults or not much past that. also sometime what slots you put things in can have an impact. try different slots for different items?

 

[Shukla]

First: If you're overclocking, why did you bump the I/O voltage? You could just bump the core plane and be fine. Try this.

W.r.t. sound card issue:
1a. Go back to normal clock on everything. See if you're having the problem still.
1b. Remove all cards but video and sound. Try the system.
2. Your sound card is PCI right? Run it in slot 3. Try again.
3. Finally, put it in slot 6 (shared with ISA) and in bios reserve IRQ 5 for legacy. Try again.

Reinstall the sound card into the Dell and see if it's fried.
(Check bios version).

BTW: On many Abit boards, if you hit the power button 3X quickly, you're resetting the bios to default settings.

 

[Spiker]

Ok I tried moving my Soundcard all around my PCI slots. Had it in 2,3,4 and still no effect. I did set my chip and fsb speed to default 1200 which was 12 X 100. Somebody told me to check my pci bus speed but I didn't change that at all it was still set to 33. I rebuild my old dell system and both modem and soundcard work great! So I'm pretty sure it was a problem with the Abit MoBo. Maybe I didn't try something but I'm pretty darn shure I did. I'm sending it back to powerstart computer co. where I bought it, they will test it and if it is broken send me a new one. BUT if it is good they send it right back...so I'll find out if I'm an idiot and not doing something right. Anyway thanks for all the help you guys are great, without this forum I'd be lost!

P.S. it is a Brandnew soundblaster x-gamer live! 5.1 soundcard and my modem is a U.S. robotics 56K

 

[JustStarting]

Probably no fault of your own. Sometimes components are just plain incompatable. Board will be checked out fine because they will not use the same components to test as you have done. This board is relatively new and still has some incompatability problems I'm sure. I always stay a generation behind the latest stuff- its cheaper and usually all the bugs are worked out of stuff that has been around a while.

 

[Spiker]

I'm sure the board will not check out fine. Most, if not all, benchmarks done on this board use a soundblaster live! 5.1 soundcard in slot 4 or 3. And if my board didn't work with just the soundcard and video card, and thiers did, I don't see how mine could be fine when it doesn't work. If it is fine, then Abit has some major problems, and everything I have read says this board works great with just about everything, except for some USB problems.

 

[billyjak]

Install the soundcard then the modem. Go to device manager under sb 16 emultion and allow printer sharing, this will redirect your IRQ and it should work.
This is what I did with mine and got it to work.

 

[Spiker]

before I even installed the modem I just installed my soundcard and my ethernet card...still didn't work. At first I thought my soundcard was bad untill I installed the modem and realized both where shutting down at the same time. But I'll still give it a try tomorrow. Who knows maybe it will work and I will not have to send it back.

 

[Spiker]

Ok I have desided to give my MoBo one more chance to work. I have been doing a lot of FAQ reading and it seems soundblasters have a problem with sharing IRQs. And that is what is probably wrong with my ISA modem, it probably wants its own IRQ too. Anyway this will be my last try, don't work it's being shipped back and hopefully I get a new one that works...but lets all hope it works this time. Just wanted to thank everybody for their help. And here is a GREAT FAQ for abit kt7 and kt7-raid MoBos....Abit KT7 and KT7A FAQ