Instability problems!

This is likely due to your use of a motherboard with a Via chipset. It is unfortunate that AMD continues to license Via to create chipsets when it puts forth such buggy products.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

That is likely the case. Via chipsets have an extremely high rate of errors, but not all of them are faulty. Additionally, they are extremely sensitive to the components you add to your system. Most notably, there are very bad issues with Via chipsets and the SB Live. But even with the most conservative peripheral cards, you still run into problems. The worst of it is the data corruption issue on hard drives. You can install the latest 4-in-1 drivers for your Via chipset, but this is a hardware bug and you may not be able to get rid of it 100%.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

You are welcome to disagree with me...
There is always the possibility of having a power supply that is insufficient or having buggy RAM. The Via chipset though is the most common cause of such problems as the Blue Screen of Death. To help rule out bad RAM or a bad PSU, we will have to get more information. DaveJM: What power supply are you using? What is the wattage rating on it? How much and what kind of RAM are you using? Have you tried swapping in different RAM, perhaps from a friend?

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

This really doesn't sound like a chipset issue. A bad motherboard perhaps, but not the chipset. I'd agree with AMD_Man, it sounds more like bad RAM or a bad PSU.

And Ray, since when did you become an expert on VIA chipsets for AMD processors?

<i>There are two theories on arguing with women. Neither one works.</i>

Dude stop with the Sound blaster live. Wrong Mine has work great. And I agree with the other two. Most Problems I seen are from the ATi/g450 Video card. But I can t say that always ture. frist amd 700 I had the ATi work great. But both mother boards Ran the sound blaster Live.

Guess its unfortunate that intel lets via make chipsets for their products as well then?

"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!

Try these steps.

1. Check the specs on the power supply. Tell us the wattage and the current ratings for +3.3, +5, and +12 volts. (28 amps, 28 amps, and 14 amps, repectively, are good. Higher is better).

Regarding power, I recommend getting a copy of Motherboard Monitor 5. Set up the log mode and use it during your testing. You can later check the log. Make sure your +3.3 and +5 volt readings don't drop too low. The +3.3 reading usually won't vary much but +5 volt might. On the latter, a 0.10 volt drop is OK. 0.15 volt is starting to get too low. 0.25 volt is serious. I'd be leary if the 3.3 volt line goes at all below 3.3.

2. Download the latest AMD 760/761 chipset drivers from AMD and install them. Test the system.

3. Test for issues with the SB Live card. First, remove it and see if 3D games now run without crashes. If the system is stable then you have found one source of your problems.

Fixing it can be difficult. Try moving the card to a different PCI slot but first do step 4.

If you use the soundcard for DOS applications then you may need to reserve an IRQ and a DMA channel in your BIOS. If you don't use it for DOS applications then you can just disable 16-bit emulation. However, these are just sound issues. Tackling them can wait until you resolve stability problems.

4. In your BIOS disable an legacy ports that you know you won't need. These may include the PS/2 mouse port, the parallel port, and two serial ports. For each one of these that you can disable you will free up one IRQ. This may help with stability.

5. Check for IRQ conflicts and IRQ sharing. With Win 9X/ME, an nVidia card and NIC's usually don't like to share with anything else. Sometimes modems don't like to share but it depends on the modem and with what device the modem shares an IRQ.

6. I don't think you have a heat issue but you can easily check this. Open the case and use a room or desk fan to blow air in. If the system is now stable then you do have a heat issue.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 01/21/02 12:13 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

memtest86 ... http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/#download8

<b><font color=blue>Computers run on smoke, I let the smoke out of mine and it quit working </b> </font color=blue>

Well now you have hit on it... Intel does <b>not</b> license Via to create chipsets for the Pentium 4. This is why there is a lawsuit in regards to Via's chipset. They are not licensed.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

I looked on the PSU which is 300W and it shows these reading:-

+5V - 30A
+12 - 10A
-5 - 0.5A
-12V - 0.8A
+3.3 - 14A
+5 VSB - 2A

Here is the log i've done from Motherboard monitor 5:-

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Total number of readouts: 238 CPU Speed: 1402 MHz |
|Running from: 1/21/02 11:55:29 AM till: 1/21/02 12:35:13 PM |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor | Current | Low | High | Average |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor 1 | 0° C | 0° C | 0° C | 0° C |
|Sensor 2 | 0° C | 0° C | 0° C | 0° C |
|Sensor 3 | 0° C | 0° C | 0° C | 0° C |
|Core 0 | 1.79 V | 1.79 V | 1.79 V | 1.79 V |
|Core 1 | 2.64 V | 2.64 V | 2.64 V | 2.64 V |
|+3.3 | 3.42 V | 3.42 V | 3.44 V | 3.42 V |
|+5.00 | 4.86 V | 4.81 V | 4.86 V | 4.85 V |
|+12.00 | 12.19 V | 12.19 V | 12.37 V | 12.19 V |
|-12.00 | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V |
|-5.00 | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V |
|Fan 1 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
|Fan 2 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
|Fan 3 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+

I'm a bomb disposal technician... if you see me running, try and keep up!

Thanks a lot, i'll update my settings and run the log when I get home from work tonight.
Regarding the +5 volts, it is indeed 4.86 or there abouts at idle and has never been up to 5 at all which may be a concern.
I'm also getting a new PSU from my Dad so i'll be able to try this and see what happens.

ps. Thanks for the help guys, its really appreciated, I was almost gonna throw the thing out of the window at one stage! Well, I still might!


<i><b>--I'm a bomb disposal technician... if you see me running, try and keep up!--</i></b>

I've been using a new PSU and my system is now really stable! It hasn't crashed once..touch wood!

Thanks for all your help guys..its been a good learning exercise so it was well worth it, thanks!

<i><b>--I'm a bomb disposal technician... if you see me running, try and keep up!--</i></b>

Believe it or not, it could be your CPU temp. Mine has a tendency to get unstable at 50 or higher once in a while. No blue screens though. Of course, vibration might have a bit to do with it in my case.


It's nice to feel wanted - as long as I'm not one of America's Most!

Oklahoma City, OK

I'll second that, both the congrats and the comments on power supplies.

If anyone is interested, here's a link to an excellent article on selecting a power supply.

<A HREF="http://www.ocworkbench.com/articles/psu/psup1.htm" target="_new">http://www.ocworkbench.com/articles/psu/psup1.htm</A>




<b>We are all beta testers!</b>