New T-Bird System Won't Stop Crashing?

[Daniel]

I just helped a buddy build a new tbird 750 system, it was a barebones system from mwave.com. Came with a nice case, 300 watt ps, Soyo K7VTA-B mobo, 128 megs of pc133 and floppy. All we installed was a nic, a hp cdrw, and a pci v3. We loaded win2k and it seemed fine here but when he took it home he said it crashes about every five minutes even when you just leave it alone. I installed the newest 4in1 via drivers and had him get the newest v3 win2k drivers too, any ideas at all?
thanks,
Daniel

 

[backWERD]

what brand is the PS?

 

[Daniel]

Not positive but it was part of a tbird specific package he ordered, I don't have it right in front of me but I'm sure it's amd recommended. I just asked him to at least pull the nic and see if that is it before anything else.

 

[gzollinger1]

From HardocpTODAY.

"More than a few people have made mention of this, so I thought I'd post this and see what comes of it. . . Hardtechs4u.com seems to think the new VIA 4-in-1 drivers are a little fishy. . actually they say they could be fake or a cruel joke at best. . . SO be forewarned"

I don't know if this has anything to do with your problem, but be forewarned.

 

[Daniel]

Hmm anyone know if it is possible to install older 4in1 drivers to try then?

 

[zippy]

I haven't had any problems with the Via 4in1 4.28 drivers on my machine- I am using an MSI 6309 though (Via Apollo Pro 133A).

 

[Adul]

I have the Via 4-1 4.26 NO problems there. I also have 4.25a. Sure it isnt a heat issue.

 

[Daniel]

4.25a was the highest one on the website, should I try a different version?

 

[Daniel]

It's sub 90 degrees F, non overclocked, nice case fan too, he isn't playing games, or doing anything it just keeps crashing he is telling me. I had him pull the nic and it's not that, any other ideas? It's the first time I've built a amd system or even helped in one so I'm sure I might be missing something.

 

[LostBoy]

What do you mean by crashes? Does it reboot or lock up, or what?

Did you install the Win 2K AGP patch for AMD processors? Any service packs?

 

[Rent]

I'm curious about this - my friends TBird 900 keeps crashing - his specs:

TBird 900
MSI K7TPro2A
4in1 4.28
Hercules GForce2 MX
Montego Quadzilla
256MB PC133 Generic
SMC Nic

From what I can tell, its not overheating, hes got a Antec 300w PS, and its got adequate cooling. I'm thinking video drivers, but then again, I don't know.

 

[Daniel]

Actually no I didn't know there was a amd win2k patch, but he's not using the agp port either, it's a pci video card, I can try it though. And no it's just a regular install of win2k pro, no service packs, and from what he is telling me he says it is restarting, I can have more clarification tomorrow when I go over to check it out but wanted to see what sort of things to check for on a via/amd/win2k system.

 

[EvilKnevil]

i got a Duron700+Soyo SY7KTVA system too...been having freezing problems as well..

check out the thread here

Been going at it since Christmas..and am getting frustrated

:disgust:

 

[Daniel]

Thanks alot EvilKnevil, I'll definately try that with disabling usb irqs on the bios too, I thought about a irq problem that's why I had him pull the nic first to see if it helped but that sounds like a good option too.

 

[RayThunderEarth]

isn't it connected with the type of motherboard ??

---------------

 

[gregdee]

I recently built a system using the same Soyo and had tons of problems. I have crucial ram, approved power supply, the right drivers, etc. etc. I RMAed the Soyo (from mwave also) for the Epox board and now the system is incredibly stable - I also can't get it to crash!!

I highly recommend the Epox. I thought maybe I just had a bad Soyo...

 

[gregdee]

EvilKnevil - RMA your soyo for the Epox or MSI or ASUS. I'm SO pleased with my Thunderbird system now on a good board. That along with my old K6III+ on an ASUS P5A+ are as stable (or maybe more so) then any Intel chipset based system I've ever had!

 

[EvilKnevil]

hi gregdee

that's always an option

will give it till the weekend

 

[Daniel]

Well tomorrow I'll try that stuff that was suggested, worst case is call mwave back up and ask to swap it for something else, I don't mind really but the guy who it belongs to would be majorly annoyed about it, oh well.

 

[Mem]

Daniel,what ram is he using?It`s best to use high quality ram like Crucial.

 

[Daniel]

It was the pc133 included in the barebones system from mwave I'm really not sure on the ram but I would imagine its fine at 100 fsb.

 

[Daniel]

Ok, I'm on his machine now, the crashing he was referring to is a total freezing of the os, have to hard reset the machine.
I disabled the usb to irq setting, still freezing.
Checking device manager in win2k he has the following things on irq 11:
Voodoo 3 pci
SMC nic
via ac97 audio
via usb universal host controller (two of them)
When I check resources to see if I can change the irq it says that there are no confict so it doesn't offer a option to change it, could that be the problem, if not does anyone else have any ideas?
thanks again,
Daniel

 

[Daniel]

One last thing I tried before I left, the usb filter driver from via, I have a via based intel system at home that crashed like mad before that, I'll keep everyone informed as to whats going on.

 

[miken]

Is your BIOS enabling a VGA IRQ before Windows? If so disable that feature.

Your Power Supply MUST be AMD approved.

Your RAM MUST be PC133 at the RIGHT CAS level.

4 in 1's MUST be the latest VIA APPROVED BETA drivers.

Your HS/F should NOT BE TOUCHING THE SOCKET BY THE CPU!

TBirds can be picky, especially with BIOS's.

 

[furyMonkey]

Voodoo3's pretty much require the bios to have Assign IRQ for VGA enabled to work. Try removing everything but the video card and any USB devices, and add them in one by one. I'd try removing the sound card first, I have a Vortex2 and it shares an IRQ with my USB ports, causing my burner to lock up the entire OS if the Vortex2 is in the system.

I ordered my Duron 700, Abit KT7, and 128 megs of PC133 ram from mWave and so far am quite satisfied. The PC133 ram runs fine and dandy at 133mhz CAS2 (woohoo) but I am not running it at 133. It's at 100mhz CAS3 right now, along with all my other ram which is PC100 CAS3 but runs at 105 CAS2

It's questionable about the stability though, as my joyride with reinstalling a couple days ago has got me a bit disturbed, but this time around it appears fine. (I'm using 4.24 I think, btw)