Help with overclocked Duron please!

[ThaiBruin]

Hi all. I have just built my first computer and my first overclocking job. Everything runs fine so far. However, whenever I play MP3's for more than 15 minutes or attempt to load any game, my computer simply freezes. And this occurs at all clock rates from 600 to 900. Any ideas what possibly could be going wrong?

My specs:

Duron 600mhz
Elsa Erazor X GeForce 32mb SDR
128mb PNY PC133 ram
Abit Kt7 RAID motherboard
Aureal Vortex Sound Card

Thanks in advance!

Also I notice that my system seems to run a little hot 50-52 celcius for the processor and the system is slightly less)

 

[SamS]

I had similar problems until I removed my sound card. Check to see what IRQs are shared with your devices and make sure your sound card isn't sharing one.

Also, get the latest bios updates.

 

[GaffMan]

How do you not share IRQ's on the KT-7 Raid if you're using the raid controller and USB? I have a video card, sound card, network card and using USB and Raid Controller, and the only card I have that doesn't share an IRQ is the video card. It's a pain, because I have lots of IRQ's available.
I have a ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder and the TV application always crashes if I do other activities while the TV is playing. I was wondering if it didn't have to do with the IRQ's. These new PCI cards are supposed to be able to share IRQ's, but I don't think they do to good a job.


GaffMan

 

[Compellor]

Make sure that you first install the latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers. I had to resort to formatting my HD because I upgraded from a BX mobo. As far as IRQ conflicts go...I have none, but it took some rearranging of my cards to get it so they were not sharing IRQ's. Here's where my cards are located:

AGP slot: Visiontek GeForce 2 GTS - IRQ 11
PCI slot 1: None
PCI slot 2: Hauppauge WinTV tuner card - IRQ 10
PCI slot 3: none
PCI slot 4: Diamond Monster MX300 sound card - IRQ 5 (Sound Blaster Pro emulation is using IRQ 7, but it can be disabled if need be)
PCI slot 5: none
PCI slot 6: none
ISA slot: Ethernet card (connects to cable modem) - IRQ 9

In the bios on the Abit KT7, I have PNP OS set to yes, and let the bios configure everything automatically. I disabled COM port 1 to free up an IRQ.

I recommend anyone with an Abit KT7 mobo go here for information:ABIT KA7 Motherboard FAQ

 

[GaffMan]

Compeller, with this being your setup on a KT-7 Raid Motherboard:

AGP slot: Visiontek GeForce 2 GTS - IRQ 11
PCI slot 1: None
PCI slot 2: Hauppauge WinTV tuner card - IRQ 10
PCI slot 3: none
PCI slot 4: Diamond Monster MX300 sound card - IRQ 5 (Sound Blaster Pro emulation is using IRQ 7, but it can be disabled if need be)
PCI slot 5: none
PCI slot 6: none
ISA slot: Ethernet card (connects to cable modem) - IRQ 9

won't you have WinTV card sharing IRQ with ACPI, and MX-300 sound card sharing with USB card?

I have my sound card in slot 2, so it's sharing IRQ's with ACPI. Thought that would be better than putting it in slot 5, where it would have to share IRQ with the KT-7 Raid controller. KT-7 FAQ says something about disabling ACPI, I wouldn't mind doing that, but don't see where I can do it in bios. I removed my sound card, and the ATI TV crashes less often, so I think IRQ's have something to do with it. Network card is in PCI slot 4, shares IRQ with USB.
I'm not using any serial ports or the floppy drive port, I have several IRQ's available but can't assign my equipment to them. There's not a whole lot of intellegence in this automatic sharing of IRQ's ..... why when several are available should 2 pieces of hardware be forced to share the same IRQ? Especially when it seems to cause problems?

GaffMan

 

[NMTinHK]

I have a similar system to yours, and had hugh problems with my SB live card.

Firstly the Via 4-in-1 latest driver is VIA 4-in-1 24. (Check HDD controllers in Device Manager)

Secondly the ABIT supplier told me that PCI slots 3&5 are problematical with SB cards, something i havnt tested and seemingly people have their card in these slots with no probs.

Finally, and this worked for me, is check the disable device in the SB16 emulation device in the device manager. I then reinstalled liveware 3 and had no problems.

Also are you overclocking your CPU, perhaps your voltage needs a tweak upwards ? But this should only be the case if you are overclocking.

Good Luck

 

[Compellor]

GaffMan,

Yeah, I'm not all that impressed with this ACPI thing. My old Pentium II on a BX mobo never had this problem; PCI cards all had their own IRQ.

Yes, my WinTV video capture card shares an IRQ with ACPI holder for PCI steering and the sound card shares one with the USB ports. That's fine, and is ok since I haven't had any lockups or crashes yet. When I first built my new system, practically everything was wanting to use IRQ 11! That seemed a little strange to me, so, I tried everything until I got it so all my PCI cards were using separate IRQ's. I had a major problem with getting my joystick to work since it connects to a serial port. My network card seemed to be the problem, so, I disabled COM port 1 in the bios and Win 98 finally found it. I'm just glad everything works now.

 

[DancingBear]

ThaiBruin,

what hard drive do you have? I have had problems with freezing also. So have others here with Maxtor 7200rpm drives. I thought that I had solved my problenm by moving the drive to the Highpoint controller. The only freeing I have had since then is in 3DMark 2000.

Please be sure to share anything that you find out.

 

[ThaiBruin]

I have a 30gig Maxtor 5400RPM drive... could that be the reason? And anyone else have an Elsa Erazor X card? It's just ridiculous cuz within minutes (sometimes instantaneously) as soon as windows boots up, the chipguard kicks in and says the graphic card is too hot! and when i touch it, it almost burns my fingers... I realize I might need more cooling on the card, but it's just ridiculous how hot it gets so quickly. Does it have something to do with the system?

 

[GaffMan]

DancingBear

I also have a 7200 rpm Maxtor 20G hard drive, along with a 60G 5600 rpm drive, hooked to my highpoint controller ON IDE 3 and IDE 4 as master drives. Don't have any problems with computer crashing except when TV on ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder is being used.
However, I can't run the ATI 3D demo without crashing, and a few of my EA Sports 2000 series games aren't detecting I have a 3D card. ATI tech support friendly but not helpful at this point in time. I've downloaded 3D Mark 2000, getting ready to install and run it shortly.
And for some reason MS Word 97 won't install on my system without crashing (the rest of Office 97 installs fine), think it's due to Windows ME but haven't found solution on web yet.

GaffMan

 

[GaffMan]

NMTinHK

In response to your suggestions:

Firstly the Via 4-in-1 latest driver is VIA 4-in-1 24. (Check HDD controllers in Device Manager) .....

- I have downloaded the latest 4 in 1 driver from viatech.com, but when I run it it only gives me options to run the AGP driver and some system info driver, but nothing for the HDD. Device provider reads Microsoft, with driver date 6/8/2000. Running Windows ME. I think I'll try to download only the hard drive controller driver from viatech and run it, because the 4 in 1 driver doesn't present me the option of installing the hard drive controller.

Secondly the ABIT supplier told me that PCI slots 3&5 are problematical with SB cards, something i havnt tested and seemingly people have their card in these slots with no probs....

- I'll try swapping slots and see what happens.

Finally, and this worked for me, is check the disable device in the SB16 emulation device in the device manager. I then reinstalled liveware 3 and had no problems....

- I disabled SB16 emulation immediately after installing Liveware 3, but haven't reinstalled since then. Will give it a try.

Also are you overclocking your CPU, perhaps your voltage needs a tweak upwards ? But this should only be the case if you are overclocking...

- Overclocking 700 to 750, voltage bumped up .05. Bad situation with heat prevents me from going higher. I have my computer housed in a cabinet in my computer desk. There's only a small area for the air to exit from the cabinet, and that area is just an inch away from a wall. My CPU temps go very high easily, currently using the stock fan that came with my Duron 700.
I have a 3 week old chrome orb, but I'm not going to grind the fins to make it fit the KT-7 motherboard. I'll either sell it or keep it for some other time. Have a small copper heatsink ATTech CM25 on order (looked good in a review comparing it to orb and Globwin,and same price as an Orb), with some artic silver, and a 2CoolPC blower to get my CPU temp closer to my case temp. I've got to put some fans in the in the case to pull in cool air if I'm going to keep it there, I want to overclock to 950. But I have tried running PC at non-overclocked conditions and the TV still crashes.
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll let you know how things work out. If these suggestions don't help, it's probably some problem with the drivers for the video card, it's a pretty new card.

GaffMan

 

[GaffMan]

Problem With My System Crashing is definately the ATI Radeon All In Wonder Card. Reformatted drives, installed Windows ME with just video card installed, installed VIA AGP driver (non-turbo mode, with BIOs AGP 4X disabled), same results - system crashes whenever TV apps are run (but DVD and 3D games run and looked great). Tried same procedure using Win 98, same results. Now running system with GeForce2 MX card, all cards installed, AGP 4X with Via driver turbo mode, USB enabled, Duron 700 currently overclocked to 900 and lots of software installed without any problems. Going to call ATI today to see if they will identify problems as hardware or software (2nd call, 1st call to them was not helpful).


GaffMan