Terrible problems...

[Guest]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here, I hope it's not off topic or
anything.

I just bought myself an Athlon 1.2Ghz(266) AXIA chip and
a ABIT KT7A mobo, 40gig seagate drive, new case.. etc.

However, I CAN NOT get it to run on Windows 2000 with
a bus speed of 133/33 and a multiple of 9!

If I have it at this speed and the system boots, If I can
get Sandra 2001 loaded I can run CPU/Memory test for
hours, yet the first time there's heavy disk (like
booting or anything else) it freezes the machine.

This is very confusing to me, as if I wind the clock
speed back to 100/33 (multipler of 12) the system runs
100% stable but a fair bit slower.

Anyone else had this problem? It seems that when running at the full speed any disk activity can cause the system to fail (freeze). I've run out of wits on this one..

Is it the CPU? Memory? Motherboard or the Hard Disk?
Where should I look? I'd like to eliminate possible
causes of the problem before going back to the PC shop
and asking them to fix it..

Any help appreciated..

Here is the system spec.

1.. 1.2Ghz Athlon (266Mhz) AXIA (no idea what AXIA means)
2.. ABIT KT7A Motherboard (brand new)
3.. 256 meg memory (SD-RAM NCP?)
4.. Seagate Barracuda ATA III 7200rpm 40gig
5.. Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital etc
6.. Pioneer 116 16x dvd

Other notes:

SiSoft Sandra gives the drive a rating of 25500 while
running in 100/33 Mhz bus speed. Yet when the bus speed
is at 133/33 Mhz the rating drops to 11500 (that's when
it 'can' complete without freezing).

I'm no hardware expert, but something here seems a bit
odd. I'm running this rig at 100/33 right now.. Should
I just accept this as bad luck?

-Westie

 

[khha4113]

What its core voltage is?

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[Guest]

I think it is set to 1.7 volts.. should I up the voltage?

 

[Guest]

does this board use a high point controller? and if so, is your hard drive connected to it? if so, is the controller sharing an IRQ with another piece of hardware in device manager (like you video card or NIC)? just a thought.....the fact that your cpu/memory tests prove to be stable says to me that the cou/memory are stable. and they should be. that board should handle that chip speed and FSB setting no prob. im guessing you either have an IRQ conflict, or the wrong drivers (or out-of-date drivers) for you controller. look to the hard drive......

ignore everything i say

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Not sure what a High Point Controller is, how do I find out? The IDE cable is coloure coded, blue on the mobo and blue at one end of cable. I plugged the blue end into the mobo and other into Hard Drive.

It's weird that it only happens at 133/33Mhz, could it be the hard disk?

 

[khha4113]

<b>I think it is set to 1.7 volts.. should I up the voltage?</b>
Yes, set it 1.75V to see if it's stable.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[jlanka]

Not sure what a High Point Controller is, how do I find out?

He doesn't have a highpoint controller because its a KT7A, not a KT7A-RAID

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Well, I was up till 4am this morning trying to get this horrid thing working, this is my first experience with an AMD system...

The voltage is running at 1.75, I'm totally out of ideas.

 

[noko]

Check out this article dealing with the KT7A-Raid, I know it is a raid version but the problems there seems similar. Anyways the article goes into great depths which may help you solve your problems, he was able to get a very crash prone setup ultra stable.

<A HREF="http://www.tech-report.com/columns/ryu/2001q2/crashathon/index.x?pg=1" target="_new">http://www.tech-report.com/columns/ryu/2001q2/crashathon/index.x?pg=1</A>

Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b>

 

[bw37]

westie:

go here: <A HREF="http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm" target="_new">http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm</A>

for general KT7A set-up recommendations.

BW

the more I learn, the less I'm sure I know...

 

[jlbigguy]

What kind of memory are you using? PC100 or PC133? It sounds like you have PC100 memory.

Check the SDRAM CYCLE LENGTH in the BIOS (Advanced Chipset Features) and set this to 3. If set at 2, your memory may not be able to run at this setting.

<font color=blue>This is a Forum, not a playground. Treat it with Respect.</font color=blue>

 

[jlanka]

Also, just for kicks try running with a minimum config - i.e. without sound card and anything else you don't need.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>