Iwill XP333-R - End of my rope - Help!

Hi again-

First off, thanks to everyone who has helped me along through my past few posts. But, here's where I stand:

I have recently purchased an Iwill XP333-R v2.0 motherboard, and am having serious instability issues. The system randomly restarts often, and each time generates a bugcheck (Win2k pro) with a different code each time:

I've basically assembled an entire new system from scratch, piece by piece, so i have *no* idea which component might be to blame. Where can I go from here? Can anyone recommend a diagnostic tool? Is this common for a new system? I get ~3 unexpected reboots a day, and often programs quit because they generated errors and then won't restart. Pretty soon everything starts generating errors (from winamp to IE to explorer.exe) and I have to *manually* restart. My system consists of:

Iwill XP333-R v2.0 (12/21 BIOS update, all BIOS settings at defaults, FSB running at 133)
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
2x256MB OCZ PC2700 RAM
ATI Radeon 8500
Maxtor ATA/133 80GB HD
Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
ThermalTake Volcano 7
Enermax 350W Power Supply
Several case fans

Help! I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thank you for your help,
Darren

Have you downloaded the W2k service packs?

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

Then you admit ALi has bugs.. lol at least Via can't get blame for this one. I root for all the chips

Complicated Nit Picker

lol, why is it that you hate ALi so much? It's highly abnormal, ..<font color=red>I mean, everyone knows all the common VIA bugs, but no major ALi bugs have ever been disclosed, AFAIK.</font color=red><<

That's what I thought too, I didn't expect anybody to take
>>It sounds like the ALi bug<< seriously. I must not have explain myself to clearly, there for sorry for any misunderstanding. It was supposed to be funny, but I can see not everybody will have a sense of humor and pick up on that.


Complicated Nit Picker

Welp, I installed Service Pack 2, DirectX 8.1, and every other Critical Update under the sun. I have done a clean install of Windows, but I didn't reformat the drive in between tries. I'm down to one stick of ram, and I've got the barn door open and a big ol' fan blowing on the system.

One more added note: running SiSoft Sandra Pro, when I attempt to run the Motherboard Information panel, the program generates an error and quits out.

As for heat... when my system reboots, i often try to check the temp report in the BIOS (however accurate that may be) - and my CPU has never been above 43 degrees Celsius. Any thoughts there? I'm certainly not too sure of my Artic Silver application...

Thanks for the help - hopefully I'll make it through this!

Cheers,
Darren

i've only had the system for 2 weeks, and it's been buggy since day one.

latest report? even with the big ol fan blowing on the system, i just had a random reboot with a bugcheck. so maybe heat's not the issue?

d.

so, being kinda new to all of this... how do i reformat my c: partition? I tried following microsoft's advice, kicking into resuce mode from setup, logging into the current WINNT installation and then doing a "format c:" but that dinna work. What's the catch?

well if you want to go with the format here is how it goes, first make sure you boot from cd rom. when the screen comes up with the "to boot from cd press any key" do so. now you'll have to wait for a bit in win2k. you'll get different options now. choose the one thats something like install a fresh copy of win2k. when you see all the writing on the screen press F8. now you should be given the choice of installing win2k, but first choose to delete partition(s). now you should have one big clean partition. you may now install win2k. it'll do few things before it restarts. this time don't press any key. from here on its easy. all you'll have to do is wait and fill in your information. its easy, you can do it with no problem.

<font color=purple><b>I have a pc with a built-in house.</b> </font color=purple>

How about that?!? What was the secret? Well, I'm sure a complete reformat and reinstall helped... but I also found the REAL ALi AGP patch on ALi's website - I was just downloading the patch from the front page of the Iwill support site, which was version 1.74, whereas they've got version 1.81 of the driver on ALi's site. The system has been up for two days, churning away on all kinds of repetitive tasks, with no apparent failures!

...although I did try kicking my RAM speed up to [Fast] from [Normal] and I had a reboot, so mebbe that's not a good idea...

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and the moral support. I'm just happy to have a working system. Now for overclocking...

Cheers,
Darren

amd has not approved this board for xp1500-xp2000 at all, return it.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processor [...] XP,00.html

martin

What I would do is try another OS. I don't see how your hardware could have anything to do with those errors your getting, but back up all your data, and try Windows XP. Or what you can do is take out one device at a time and boot, for example, the sound card. Get another sound card, install it, boot, if its onboard, disable it and use another sound card, for the video card, take it out, get another video card, try that. Disconnect one device at a time. Dont take out anything that will not allow you to boot into Windows (Ram, etc...). I tried this when I had the Soyo Dragon, the computer kept locking up on me, I took out the sound card and replaced it with another one, found out the hard way that VIA chipsets and Sound Blaster sound cards conflict.

And if you are having heat problems, get a case exhaust. It takes up a PCI expansion slot, but it does a good job.
http://www.startech.com/ProductPho [...] .large.jpg

-d3

nice i'll keep that in mined. good job man.

<font color=purple><b>I have a pc with a built-in house.</b> </font color=purple>

I appreciate your response. As a technician, there is a proper way to build machines any it seems many of the issues on this site are do to them testing boards instead of building them the way Amd says to. I agree, they do not update their site frequently, however I would point out that MANY motherboard manufacturers claim compatibility & sometimes even certification when indeed they have none of either. Amd has not approved ANY Iwill board for xp1500-xp2000 at all. Our experience has been a lack of quality & reliability for that brand which may explain not being approved for any model. When I reply to a problem, the first thing I tell them is use Amd website approved product only & make sure the Processor is a RETAIL box.

Sincerely,

Martinr

I'm loving this lol

Complicated Nit Picker

Hay I had to let you know I was here. lol

The bashing goes both ways, but hay who's counting? lol
Hay I got Win2000 up. I lost count after opening 50 IE. It's great. I'm going to have 3 computer side by side. 98, 2000 and XP. I'll be doing some game testing, so I might be looking you backup. hehehe

For advise of some test to run that is. What, where you thinking of something els? lol


Complicated Nit Picker<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by jiffy on 01/18/02 06:51 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Yeah, I'm sorry too. It doesn't do us any good.
I hook up win2000 using NTFS and read everything so it went pretty smooth, eccept for the sound, I didn't have any instruction, but got it working. I'll fool with it later.
On the Net it flys and I can feel how solid it is. It doesn't play my UT very good. I'm going to get XP and give that a try, figure I'll get it with my Maxtor HDD. I think I'm getting a little carried away with these computers. Now I come home and fire two. Guess I don't like to wait and keep busy.lol

Complicated Nit Picker

OK, this is what I want you to do. Stand up and put your left hand on top of your head, and at the sametime hope 10 on your right foot. I know it's hard to beleive, but it works great.

What do you mean the fans don't work? do you have one in front and one in back?

Complicated Nit Picker

I'm putting the Koolance case together right now, it's going pretty good. I can cool the HHD also. There is this putty you put on the HHD that forms to it and makes up the difference of space. I guess you can say it's like a heat sink, it's called encapsulate. You can see it when you check out the Koolance case. Anyways I would try using that with a Peltier on the back of your case or use a water cooling accessary but you might have to customize your case

Complicated Nit Picker