Unreliable Windows bootup w/ Duron 700 & Epox 8KTA+. Hardware problem or other? I'm really stumped.

[Ruark]

I'm building this system for someone else, and have yet to be able to get Windows 98 to load consistently w/o crashing. It always crashes at the same place, the desktop wallpaper will have loaded, and the start bar and desktop icons have yet to be loaded. The crash will then be either a hard lockup, or an automatic reboot.

Once Windows is loaded; however, it has NEVER crashed. I've been looping 3DMark2K and Quake 3 for hours w/o a hitch.

So far I've updated the MoBo BIOS, reinstalled Windows, tried it w/ and without VIA drivers and onboard sound, and swapped out everything but the MoBo, CPU, and HD.

The system fails to boot in about 1 out of 4 or 5 attempts.

Has anyone else ever encountered this, or have any other ideas?

 

[Ruark]

^

 

[weeber]

Wow Ruark, we have identical problems with completely different setups. My T-bird 900 crashes (atleast used to) at the wallpaper too every once in awhile, but once it's running, the thing is very stable.

You wouldn't happen to have two hard drives running would you? Right now, I have UDMA disabled in BIOS and DMA unchecked in Windows just for the second drive and that seems to have helped alot. The second drive is running as a slave on the primary channel. UDMA and DMA is on for everything else (primary drive, DVD, and CDRW).

Are there any other commonalities between our systems?

My system:
Athlon T-bird 900
Soyo K7VTA
300W PS
2 Western Digital HDs (20gig, 6.4gig)
Pioneer DVD (10x)
Acer CDRW
Voodoo3 3000
MX300
ISA modem
PCI network card

Let me know if you run across anything yourself, is sounds like we might be having the same problem. It's been frustrating me for a couple of months now, but disabling DMA on my second drive seems to have helped.

 

[Ruark]

Nope, single HD here, and not much else similar either. GF2 MX, and an SMC NIC are the only cards in the MoBo, and the floppy and CDROM are disconnected in an effort to isolate the problem.

I tried turning DMA off, but no luck.

 

[Ruark]

Surely someone else has some ideas!

I'm going to try to go to a friend's house today and try the CPU and HD in his Duron system, and see if it works there.

 

[Jingle]

Sounds like you guys are well past the problem I had, but just in case...

I bought a retail Athlon 900 and installed it on a 8KTA+. Had all kinds of crashes. Couldn't install Windows 98, wouldn't get through device recognition of a pre-installed drive with Win98, etc. I did finally get a pre-installed copy of Win2000 running, but not without crashes. Tried better RAM; no help.

Finally returned the motherboard and got a Chaintech 7AJA. Same problems. Had noticed that the health monitor (which I've never had any confidence in) indicated absurd CPU temperatures with both boards (up to 160F). So, I opened the windows in the room (below zero F outside!) and pointed a big fan at the CPU. Worked normally for the first time. Was able to install Win98 and everything else that hadn't worked. Health monitor showed 130-140F CPU temperature. However, I'm no eskimo, so this wasn't the plan.

Called AMD about thermal compound on the heat sink as furnished. You pull off a piece of red tape and it leaves the blue thermal compound on the heat sink. I figured possibly it needed replacing after having had the heat sink off 3 or 4 times. So I asked for their recommendation of replacement material. They said to just get the stuff from Radio Shack.

So, with a tube in hand I removed the heat sink and started to scrape off the blue stuff with my fingernail, when off popped a piece of blue plastic revealing the white thermal compound. Turns out the red tape I had removed initially was supposed to pull off the blue tape. Since I had no idea it was tape and assumed it to be blue thermal compound I had been running the whole time with an insulator (the blue tape) between the heat sink and the CPU!

Naturally, with the tape gone, everything's fine and the health monitor usually shows around 102F in a comfortable 73F room.

Sure was a big waste of time!

Jingles

 

[weeber]

Thanks Jingle, but my temperature seems OK, although I was thinking it might be heat related at first myself. My CPU temperature usually stays around 104F and like I said my system is extremely stable once it gets up and running (even after running intensive 3D games), the problem is getting it up and running

I guess I don't have a morning computer, it's just cranky in the morning when I first try to boot it up. I'm beginning to think that it's a problem with something Windows is trying to load when it first starts up, but for the life of me I can't find what it is or figure out why it's so tempermental.

 

[Ruark]

Well, it seems I've gotten an unstable CPU.

By only exchanging CPUs I'm able to reproduce the exact problem in his system.

Now to undergo the RMA ordeal. *sigh*