I need help!

[Guest]

I just signed up to this forum in hope of that someone here could advice me how to solve a serious problem with my PC. My seems to be all messed up and doesn't remember the working directory. This causes that most of my games crash after about five minutes, the savegames disappear in all Command & Conquer games and if I save the game then I can find them on random locations on my harddrive (mostly the windows/system directory), Unreal and Unreal Tournament can no longer find the maps, mods etc... This is getting rather frustrating.
I am running a 1200Mhz Athlon Thunderbird with 256Mb DDR and ASUS A7V motherboard. I have tried downloading the latest VIA's 4 in 1 drivers and Asus A7V BIOS. I also have a SB Live! and Creative GeForce256 DDR that for some reason are sharing the same IRQ and I don't know how to fix that. I also have a IBM 60GXP that seems to work fine although some say there's some problems with them, and I have tried updating my Windows 98 SE. Do you think a re-install of Windows would help? I don't have the upgrade version tho so I would have to format my harddrive and that is the last thing I would want. Is it really my motherboard causing the problem? Is there a compatibility problem with my SB Live! IBM 60GXP and GeForce256 or is it just my Windows 98 SE that has gone bad? Has anyone had the same problem? I would be thankful for any advice that could help me get rid of it. Please, save my Christmas!

 

[BrainStorm]

Do you have a good, up-to-date anti-virus software? I can't see nothing else than a virus for doing that.

It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick!

 

[Guest]

No, I don't have a anti-virus software =( ...but I've had this problem ever since I changed my Abit motherboard and 500Mhz Celeron to the Asus and Athlon and installed Windows 98 SE on my new IBM harddrive instead of the first edition I was using before so I think it has to have something to do with that.

 

[Kronos]

I would pick now as the time to "upgrade" to Windows XP. The best way is to do a clean install. Yes...you can do that even with only the upgrade version of XP. All that is required is a bonafide previous version of a Windows OS disk that is introduced when XP asks for it. You can try to just upgrade from the present OS. Who knows...that alone may solve your problems.

I want to die like my Grandfather...in my sleep...not screaming in terror like his passengers.

 

[Guest]

Nah... I'm waiting for the release of Lindows

 

[Crashman]

I found your problem. VIA. Get rid of that and your problems are gone!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[girish]

Crash you really are after VIA!

and you are right!

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Haven't heard any complaints on the Kt266A yet. Could this be their first good chipset? Who knows, I'm not buying it! I've fallen for their tricks before, I don't trust them any more, and they don't deserve my money!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Guest]

So you mean that the only thing that helps is changing the motherboard? I'm gonna try reinstalling everything and getting better drivers and Norton anti-virus 2001. If I still have the problem then I guess I will have to change motherboard. Is the KT266-A chipset better or should I go for a completely different?

 

[girish]

Well, not really.

The problem SBLive! and VIA southbridge is pretty popular. Reset the BIOS, set PnP OS to no. You try doing a clean format/install of the system. install the VIA 4in1 driver before you install anything on it.

And dont install too many system utilities that eat resources and mess with windows settings.

Maybe you wont need to get a new board.

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[girish]

Well, the KT266A might be good enough but it still has the infamous VIA southbridge just with a new V-Link. I cant believe that VIA could have re-engineered the complete southbridge. And then, it was just the southbridge that gave all the troubles.

The Northbridge was pretty good with too less problems, would accept virtually any kind of memory (I mean all brands and densities and noname ones) and performs quite well.

Only if somebody had used a non-VIA southbridge with a VIA northbridge back when they were linked by the PCI bus, they might have earned a better reputation.

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Remeber VIA's AGP timing issue? I wounder if that still exist? Seems video card manufacturers (instead of VIA) found a work around, I bet they're still using it!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Crashman]

Their are fixes for your issue, but their not perfect. Newer VIA 4-in-1 drivers, newer SB-Live drivers, newer BIOS, setting PNP OS to NO and reserving IRQ 5 for SB16 compatability are all recommended.
The issue is related to how poorly the 686B southbrdge handles data and the fact that the SB-Live hogs the PCI bus. Other cards have had similar problems, but not to the extent of the SB-Live. Use of a different soundcard or a different motherboard is a reasonable choice after all the above fixes have been tried, should they fail.
This problem goes all the way back to the MVP3 chipset, BTW, I don't know if it's been remedied by the KT266A, but generally I don't recommend VIA chipset boards.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Ncogneto]

Actually to date all via southbridges pretty much stink. I realize this has already been posted but it deserves a little more exposure to contradict those spouting the benefits of anything by via.

<A HREF="http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/817/index.html" target="_new">http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/817/index.html</A>

I don't care how good there new chipsets northbridge/ memory bandwith is. IMO this makes it still a crapola product. It provides a little more insight into the soundblaster problem ( in all honesty I think this is the result of two crapola products coming together to make one humongus stink). For those thinking that simply not going with a creative soundcard is a workaround for the issue you are sadly mistaken, exspecially if you ever have any plans for using a decent SCSI or IDE raid setup with your board.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don;t tell you!

 

[Crashman]

Broken bursts: Motherboards with VIA chipsets start to interrupt the burst shortly after the cycle has started. These interruptions taking place every 1,2 µs make the transfer rates of ATA/133 controllers drop down to 64 MBytes/s in a worst case scenario.

This is the situation that caused problems between the Aureal Vortex2 cards and the VIA KT133/KT133A chipset!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Ncogneto]

I wonder if the via latency patch would have helped with the aureal cards? Doesn't matter, VIA still stinks.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[digital_trucker]

I don't know, I've had an ASUS 133 and didn't have any problems that I didn't create myself. Now I have an MSI 266a and it's stable and fast-a beautiful board.

Santa must be a trucker.

Dorr, MI

 

[Ncogneto]

Thats great! just don't expect to obtain ata 133 speeds. Admittably the northbridge seems great. It is the southbridge that is in question here. Users using only a single drive may never notice the problem. Someone that spends alot of money for a raid solution will be disaponted.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[digital_trucker]

Well, this MSI has onboard RAID. No problems to report. Fastest drive access time I've ever had. RAID 0 of course.

Santa must be a trucker.

Dorr, MI

 

[Ncogneto]

Even onboard raid solutions still connect via the pci bus.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[Crashman]

Probably, I've heard some people claim they had no problems with an aureal card on their VIA motherboard, others claim unfixable problems, I think it has to do with the demands of other cards on the PCI bus.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[digital_trucker]

The only problem I've ever had was with the 133 and the ATI AIW Radeon. There were 'compatibility issues'. 'Course, that card sucked anyway and when I went to the GeForce 2 all the problems went bye-bye.

Santa must be a trucker.

Dorr, MI

 

[bront]

Files being moved sounds more likely to be a virus, not a hardware or software problem.

Chesnuts roasting on an open CPU
Bill Gates nipping at your wallet

 

[Crashman]

Funny thing, starting with the TNT2, nVidia cards were originally incompatable, but several workarounds were integrated into BIOS, 4-in-1's, and nVidia's drivers that slowed the performance enough to prevent lockups. Makes you wounder how fast these cards would be if they didn't have to compromise the drivers to suit VIA's needs.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[digital_trucker]

To tell you the truth, I wonder if the marvels of extracting the last possible ounce of speed is necessary. What is available standardly is usually more than sufficient for most apps.

Santa must be a trucker.

Dorr, MI