A7M266 Data Corruption

[Guest]

I have noticed some wierd things going on with my win2k installation and didn't know what was wrong. I thought it was my brother's girlfriend screwing around with my computer but now I don't think so. I started with a clean installation of win2k. Installed all the usual software and everything "seemed" to be working fine. Then I booted up and got BSOD, which said something to the effect of "If this is the first and only time you get this screen, ignore it." So I rebooted and everything was fine. Then a different time, I tried launching Diablo II only to find it wasn't there!!?!?? The diablo II directory was missing A LOT of stuff, but the program wasn't uninstalled, because it was still under Add/Remove Programs. Hmmm, that is wierd, so I re-install Diablo II. Everything back to normal. Then, for the last time, I boot up and irrecoverable BSOD. Missing Hive file or something like that. I'm thinking, WIN2k sucks!!! I switched over to win2k from 98se after I got a7m266 and 1.2TB to avoid the crashes and other problems with 98se. Now I realize it HAS to be 686B bug, and it doesn't have to be Live! sound card. Here is my setup that caused major data corruption problems. I have since re-installed win2k with no problems as of yet and I am flashing to 1004 to see if that fixes the problem. I will keep you up date.

1.2GHz 266 Athlon
A7M266
Viper TNT2 Ultra
SB PCI128
UDMA100 WD 20GB - Primary Mater
UDMA33 WD 4.5GB - Secondary Master
HP 8100i - Secondary Slave
I am almost positive this is a data corruption problem. Nothing else would cause such wierd problems. I think this is all of the interesting information one could want. If anyone is as curious as me, you'll want to know if the new bios fixes the problem. I will let you all know, no fear.

"You may be lucky, but your not Irish." - Chris Adamo

 

[paulcalmond]

As I'm running an A7M266 system on Win ME and haven't had any problems in the 3 months that I've had my system I wouldn't like to comment as to whether your problem is caused by AMD 761 / VIA 686B incompatabilities or a win 2000 config problem. I have seen on AMD's web site a mention of a win 2000 driver for AGP for use with Athlon systems, have you installed this ?
I realise it probably wouldn't cause the kind of problem you describe.

Also on AMD web site at this link
<A HREF="http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/techdocs/pdf/24952.pdf" target="_new">http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/techdocs/pdf/24952.pdf</A>

is a application note detailling incompatabilities between AMD 761 VIA 686B

The first of the two problems described could have some relevance perhaps.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by paulcalmond on 05/09/01 09:14 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Do you have a soundblaster sound card, or are you running the onboard audio? I think the mix of the two is what cause the error. I am going to try ripping out my PCI128, but when I first got my system up and running with the onboard audio, there was a BIG performace hit. I flashed to 1004 last night, and no problems for a week. I will let you know what happens. What are the best drivers for the onboard audio? A7M266.

 

[paulcalmond]

Yes I have a Soundblaster Live player 5.1 (model: SB0060) but I have not experienced any of the problems others have referred to.

My A7M266 is Rev 1.04 and I am using Bios version 1003.

 

[Guest]

I bought all the pieces to build a new computer a couepl of weeks ago which included the following:
Asus A7M266 Board
Samsung 128 DDR PC2100 Memory x 2
AMD 1.2 GHz DDR Processor
RADEON 64MB DDR
SoundBlaster MP3+ 5.1
Network Card
Hardrives
DVD, CD-RW

As you can see if a farily simple setup. I installed Windows 2000 and after a couple of boots I was having all sort of problems. I also found out that not matter what I did on the BIOS to disable the on board sound chip, it was still recognized by Windows (either 2000 or Windows ME). I don't know still if that was the source of the problem but definitely it was a torn in my side seeing in the configuration two soundcards.
I cheekd a couple of hardware sites before finaly seeing in here that there is a "undocumented" jumper in the motherboard that disables the onboard sound. After backing the registry, I proceeded to disable the jumper and it worked. The on board sound was finally disable and I haven't had any problems. Of course during this tests I switched from Windows 2000 to Windows Me. The computer is working so fine now that I haven't seen a reason to switch back.

I hope this helps because maybe this could be also your problem.