Ordered the barebones from oversto((.com yesterday, along with the Viewsonic VG-150 from dell. What video card will be the most optimal?



-------------------------
Do you feel like we do? Say, where can I buy a talk-box so I can quasi - digitize my voice?

Something similar to this happened to me just a few days ago. On my systems I had moved it and knocked a metal standoff (cheap design) out of it's hole just enough to short something out. The CPU fan header didn't work (other headers did though). The CPU didn't warm up. The drives spun up. No video at all. I thought the MB or CPU was toast until I took it out of the case and watched it fire up.

Try removing the system from the case. Installing just the CPU+HSF, memory, and vidcard.

-------------------------
And in the end, when all is said and done, you have to keep pushing it harder, and taking it higher.
Heatware: Demon-Xanth
UGTZ: DemonXanth
E-8ay: x33mhz
My systems

Demon-Xanth,

The same thing happened a couple of times when I forgot to remove extra standoffs when I replaced motherboards, and it was causing a short. (Now, I always make sure match up the holes on the motherboard with standoffs.)

So is a 300W power supply required for this system even if you have no plans to OC it? I think I'm going with the 950MHz tbird to be on the safe side. I just want to cut down on shipping and try to get all the parts at one locations (if possible).

In addition, if I decide to purchase the Radeon LE, will I still be able to hack it to a DDR?

-------------------------
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

William Blake

Anyone check temps on this system with a 1Ghz Tbird running burn-ins?

-------------------------
RIG
myurl
MAIL
myemailaddress

GregANDTCH I have the same problem with my setup. I have tested everything that I have put in the new box in another system with no problems. I pulled the motherboard out of the case and although there is an extra stand off installed, they have capped it with a plastic slip cover (very cheap) because the stand offs do not remove easily (if at all).

I tried to post the motherboard out of the case and still got only movement from the fans, but no video, beeps, or any other indication that there was any life in this thing at all. I even tried attaching a speaker to speaker header thinking that the on-board speaker might be bad.

Oh well....... The price is right and I have requested a RMA number from Overstock. I just hope that there returns department is not SUCK.

Later...


-------------------------
Hittman

Hittman's Rig

Thanks for the reply's!
I ended up taking the processor back off and glared at it.
I think I intimidated it enough to work now.

Since the board is already mounted in the case, I couldn't see if the heatsink
was parallel to the processor or not. I left the copper spacer off and tried
not to press down on one side more than the other. When I took the spacer off, it looked
like it was touching one of the IC's on top.(of course it moved when I removed the heatsink)

It will POST now, hopefully it will continue as I install Windows.




-------------------------
Why look ?
You can JUST !
My children

Well folks My CC was maxed out. (My computer parts CC not the wifes )
So I lost the Athlon 900 at Ubid. They canceled the BID at their discretion. Oh well I figured thats life. Some times life sucks.

AnyWho I got the case. (dances the jig. Something you DON'T WANT TO SEE )

It is the GVC BCM what ever MBD.

The motherboard will NOT overclock!

It supports up to 1 gig and all durons so far.

It does UDMA ULTRA ATA 66 hard drives.

The sound card is the VIA sound chip.

Use the 4 in 1 driver for the KT133 chips and the sound driver listed there.
Http://www.via.com.tw

The case is darn sweet. Put the hard drive above the floppy before you put the CPU and heatsink or you will be removing the fan and heat sink to put it in. Removing the Powersupply did not help LOL.

The Ultra 80 cable only has 1 connector the secondary cable has 2.

I want one of those 6 inch floppy drive cables so-


1. I dont have to roll it up and try to tuck it out of the way.
2. there is only 1 drive supported and no extra part to get in the way.(I havent seen two floppy drives for a long time.)
3. It is cute

I do remember the case, the hard drive mounts to the front! I looked it up, this is the retail system Micron was dishing out at Best Buy.

I looked at the Engineering specs pages(these are not public knowledge): Any Duron and Athlon to 1 gig for this system.

My Wifes new system.

850 athlon (My 1 gig is shipping Tuesday delivery)

Heatsink Global win 32. (I ordered me the SK6 )

Linksys Ethernet. (I saw a comparison the linksys came out above all other cards)

On board sound. (She hath no idea )

6.4 Seagate IDE 5400 Ultra 33.

Aopen 20x Cd-ROM (this has been in almost every system since my K6 200)

Oh the video card is a Leadtek tnt NOT tnt 2. 16 megs. The wife loves it.

She freaked out when she saw how fast it booted ME, thats windows Millenium Edition not when she kick me where the sun dont shine.
was 14 seconds flat!!!

As stated above the system runs on 100 Mhz FSB
It autodetected the ram and set the CAS and latency speed acordingly.
I put a fan in the front and it is very cool.
I mounted the fan with sheet metal screws works fine couldn't figure out how the get the front off.
For the person asking yes it is set to boot Cd-ROM first.
Set this to Hd only and you will boot very fast.

______________
I wish I had the money this thread has cost me


-------------------------
_____________
Real Guns Dont hurt People.
People Hurt People.

 Message edited by: RealGun on 07/27/2001 23:12:33

This board MAY BE able to run a 266FSB using a software tweak utility mentioned below.

I am not making any claims about the PowerSupply but the board itself may be able to handle it.
266FSB by using SoftFSB to tweak the PLL's on a kt166
How its done

Evadman mentioned on the hotsales thread:
"you can run a 1.0 266 at 200 if ya need to, but without modding the bridges ya only get 750 MHZ out of it. I have one running in the system I am typing this on."

BurningRome provided the Kt133/PLL info:
PLL clock chip is: IC Works (ICW)
Part number is: W230H.
Right next to that 14.3MHz crystal.
I see W230 at the CPUCool web page as one of the usable ones.

I read about the tweaks, but want to clarify if this is the equivalent of a bios update?
I was hoping to tweak the settings once to my chosen 'default' so that the CPU/PLL would permanently run (unless I choose to retreat) at the 266FSB settings.


1. SoftFSB-The purpose of this Windows application is to change the base clock(FSB) frequency without restarting the system. Any FSB changes are instantaneous.

2. CPUCool-The ability to change the FrontSideBus. (With this option you can vary the CPU frequency.)

3. CPUFSB-changes the FSB speed for many popular motherboards.

BTW if anyone wants to FURTHER explain how these utilities/tweaks work, that would be cool.


Update: Well I just grabbed a Boxed Athlon 1.0 266FSB so it seems I will be trying to adjust the PLL's or jump the bridges to atleast get the 200FSB instead of only the 750.
Update II: Big salute to RickyBaby for the thesis on how to modify the PLL's posted below.

 Message edited by: AirMail1 on 07/28/2001 19:50:54

AirMail1,

I explained a little bit about this on the other thread. If you use any of the utilities you mentioned it should work. I looked briefly on SoftFSB and didn't see the PLL (Clock Chip) used on this board as a supported one. It does seem to be supported using CPUCool or CPUFSB.

Using these utilities is safer than the mods listed in your post and does not require any changes to the bios. In fact the changes you do with these are temporary. The next time you reboot your system the changes go away (unless you configurate it otherwise).

OK, so this is how they work. You boot your system at the regular voltage, multiplier, and bus speed. Once in windows you invoke the utility and choose your clock chip (if you have done this already they usually save the chip you chose the previous time so you don't need to do it again). Each PLL supports a different range of frequencies so you will get a drop box which shows the ones that are supported for your chip. You choose one and hit "Apply". The utility writes directly to the clock chip hardware to set the new freq and presto you are running faster !!! You can attempt several different frequencies to see what the fastest your board will do and once you determine whats the fastest you can save that setting away. That way the next time you start the util it will be automatically configured for the correct chip and bus speed you want. SoftFSB has a setting which will start itself automatically with windows (pretty cool). After configuration the next time you boot the util will run automatically choose the correct chip and FSB speed ... resulting in faster system with almost no effort. Cool.

OK, whats the catch ? Well, for one, you are overclocking which can be dangerous. You will be limited how far you can go (FSB wise) by a number of factors. First, the PCI and AGP bus speeds are derived from the FSB so if you increase the FSB the PCI & AGP speeds will increase as well. Some periperals are sensitive to increases in speeds (mostly PCI cards). The way it works is the following: the PCI is the FSB speed divided by 3. So if the FSB is 100 the PCI is 33. If you increase the FSB to 120 the PCI becomes 40. Many periperals won't run at 40. However if you set it to 110 the PCI becomes 37 and most PCI devices WILL run at 37 so its a pretty easy overclock for most. If you are using the onboard sound and a AGP video card you might find that 115 will work fine too.

There are other restrictions about how far you might be able to overclock. When you increase the FSB you also increase the speed you are clocking the memory. However for most small increases (like 110 and perhaps 115) this won't be a problem if you are using decent RAM. You will also be limited by the CPU. If you got a 1 gig tbird that shouldn't be a problem to get either 110 or 115. In other cases it is harder because the utils do not effect the default voltage to the CPU. So if your cpu won't run at the higher speed at the default voltage you are out of luck. Also, when you run at a higher speed the CPU gets hotter so you need to make sure that the HSF you are using will handle the heat. Similiar to heat you need to make sure that the Power Supply is up to the task of generating power for the faster speed.

The worst thing in my opinion is that a lot of times when you overclock your system becomes unstable. What I mean is that you may have your computer on for several hours and be in the middle of doing something and it locks up. Thats why people recommend running a burn-in-test to verify that your overclocked system is actually stable at the new speed. You can see what I mean easily. When you are running the util and playing with the freqs to determine which one is best try setting the freq unrealistically high. As soon as you hit Apply and freq changes WHAM your system locks up. When you reboot it'll have to run scandisk because windows will determine that it had a improper shutdown and you will be back to the normal speed.

Given our board and your chip I would think 110 (1100 for your CPU) would be easy. You might even get 115 (1150). One other benifit is that when you overclock you get the benifit you speeding everything up. You read/write to RAM faster, you data gets transfered to the video card faster, etc. So you system at 1100 could actually be faster than a regular 1150 system. Cool.

Good luck and let us know how it goes. I have a 950 on order and plan to overclock just like I described so as long as you are careful it should be pretty safe.

Oh yea, one other thing. The CPUCool/CPUFSB utils are shareware. You can download them, install them, and try overclocking. If it doesn't work just uninstall them. IE ... it doesn't cost you anything to try.

RB

Bump to RickyBaby for a great post!

-------------------------
RIG
myurl
MAIL
myemailaddress

Okay guys, I got mine yesterday, also got my 1.2ghz t-bird in mail too...put the t-bird in my main rig, popped out the duron to put in this itty bitty little guy..any suggestions on the most painless way to upgrade this without wiping my HD? I'm just curious if there is an easier way to do it..I've always wiped them before..old machine is an amd k6-2 500 with a 30gb 5400 hd..i won't bother with the other details but u kinda get the idea of the Hardware change...



-------------------------
ATB is NOT TRANCE

"What part of NO do you not understand?

Come back in two weeks when you figure it out."

AnandTech Moderator

I was the one to provide the PLL chip info.....Airmail1 or Rickybaby, please post the results of any softFSB/CPUCool tinkering with these babies. Thanks!
pk

-------------------------
"Hell, if you understood everything I say, you'd be me!"
-Miles Davis

I took off the front panel, and I see another switch below the power switch. Also I see in the manual that pins 5 and 7 of the front panel connector is "reset" Anyone mod the front panel to use the bottom switch for a reset button? Think I will drill a "oh hell" hole in the front panel in line with the hidden reset switch.
Edit: I took off the right side panel, marked the location of the switch on the side of the case and then transfered the marks to the inside of the front panel. I drilled a hole through the panel the size of the long nozzles you get with the cans of compressed air. I put the panel back on, put the nozzle (it's black, so same color as case trim) in the hole and cut it so maybe 1/4" sticks out. Switch is spring loaded so works good. Probably gonna stick a spare MB speaker in this case, MB's got a 4 pin connector, I see number one pin, but what is the + and -? Just installed W98, no glitches, gonna do the video card next.

 Message edited by: Flatbroke on 07/28/2001 20:54:57

Installed win98, 192mb's of pc133 a banshee(don't laugh these videocards do still work) and a nic...got it up and running with my router. My driver cd does not work though,,I went to the ftp site and downloaded all the files from there..anyone have any suggestions about these drivers? Are they worthwhile or should I look elsewhere?

-------------------------
ATB is NOT TRANCE

"What part of NO do you not understand?

Come back in two weeks when you figure it out."

AnandTech Moderator

Does the modem need a driver? or will WinME detect it?

-------------------------
My Rig
Kids Rig

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son!

Has anyone checked the CD that came with system, shouldn,t that have the latest 4 in 1 drivers on it..I tried, couldn,t get any usefull information..Waiting on Cpu arrival....To above, It`s possible but I don,t think ME has the drivers for that modem loaded in the os..

-------------------------
Lot easyer to save then work..

Man I wish my cpu would get here. (1ghz 266FSB) STILL NOT HERE

I did get a chance to borrow a friends athlon 900 200FSB w/256mg ram
and Win2k SP2 installed fine.
(didnt test for sound nor did I install the 4 in 1 driver, but as was mentioned on the other monster thread, the bios I have is already 1.4)

I like the idea flatbroke mentioned (reset is sometimes a necessity) and will probably due likewise, but what really has my attention is installing an 80cm fan inside the case.
All one has to do is:
EDIT: Better position for fan is mounted inside the case. Then cut away at the case and the black plastic overlay to remove obstructions. I may drop down to a 60mm since that 80 I have moves 50cfm.
1. cut the metal case to the dimensions of the fan (to receive the full air flow) and mount fan to metal (from the inside face)
2. Cut the black plastic to also accomodate the airflow
3. Add a few clean openings in the beige plastic.

Also going to round my cables. The case is so compact yet it seems I have loads of air space since everything is so squished. I hope to get good airflow.

BTW has anyone tried to install a Hard Drive beneath the floppy. I was thinking of 'hanging' one in there.

NOTE: I received my refurbed Guillemot Video Card from Newegg and it came with EVERYTHING. Card, adapter for videout out, software.

This is going to be the best $200 system I ever had.







 Message edited by: airmail1 on 08/01/2001 18:21:33

Hey, my 950 TBird shipped today. Anybody try overclocking yet ?

RB

I'm about to go BIOS hunting for this kit. Can someone point me to the most current one that has the most options active in it? The BIOS in mine doesn't show IRQ assignments at boot and I want to see which PCI slots share resources with other hardware. No option to disable "quick boot" or anything in this BIOS.

Edit: Well, I went here and tried a BIOS 1.02 and 1.04. the 1.04 was just like the one that my kit came with. The 1.02 warned that it wasn't for my part number, but I went ahead and tried it. No better than the 1.04, and a couple of things looke questionable (I.E. like it wasn't for my part number) in the BIOS. I flashed back to the 1.04.

If anyone comes up with a better BIOS, please let me know.

E.

-------------------------
Support The Babylon Project - A FreeSpace 2 Total Conversion
Attention: Spearman of Death/Flag of Iron is coming Sept. 11, 2001!!!!!!

 Message edited by: MisterE on 07/30/2001 22:44:50

Anyone having problems getting the modem to work in Win98? I've tried drivers from ftp.wxy.com, support.micronpc.com, and www.pctel.com and get no joy. The modem installs ok but dial-up networking tells me that the driver doesn't support my hardware. Running the modem diagnostic in control panel results in a blue screen and a failure message.

I'm trying to set up the modem for practice only. I'm probably gonna sell this box and just wanted to know what headaches the winmodem might give.

-------------------------
Support The Babylon Project - A FreeSpace 2 Total Conversion
Attention: Spearman of Death/Flag of Iron is coming Sept. 11, 2001!!!!!!

Hey MisterE,
I'm having the same problem.
I get the BSOD when I run modem diagnostics.
I've tried the "xwy.com" drivers
& the Micron.
When I ran the Micron installation program,
it told me to click on the "button" below
to start.
There wasn't any button on my screen.
Just a fancy blank blue area.
I just had to let windows detect it & point it to the
Micron folder.
Did you have that problem?


-------------------------
Why look ?
You can JUST !
My children

GregANDTCH: That is the EXACT same thing that I experienced (including the lack of a button on the Micron drivers). I looked back through the Hot Deal thread for this system and found mention of the Zoltrix modem drivers here. Look for the "Phantom 56K" and give its drivers a try. The win98 drivers work great for me.

Let me know how it goes!

E.

EDIT: 2xCOG, I think that it was your post in the hot deal thread that led me to Zoltrix for the drivers. Thanks a bunch!

-------------------------
Support The Babylon Project - A FreeSpace 2 Total Conversion
Attention: Spearman of Death/Flag of Iron is coming Sept. 11, 2001!!!!!!

 Message edited by: MisterE on 07/31/2001 04:04:00

Hi MisterE and GregANDTCH,

I believe the problem you are experiencing: failure to recognize the
modem, blue screen, etc. is because the driver at the xwy site for
Win98 is not correct -- I had the same thing happen.

After scrounging around for awhile, I found these drivers that got
the modem working properly in Win98:

MODEL: FMHSP56PCI "Phantom 56K"
Zoltrix modem drivers page

Others have also had success with these drivers.

Good luck!

:2xCOG

EDIT: It seems that MisterE and I were posting at the same time!
In any event, MisterE has thoughtfully provided a direct link to the
appropriate win98 modem drivers; this appears in the preceding
message -- Kudos!

---

 Message edited by: 2xCOG on 07/31/2001 13:46:36

Thanks MisterE & 2xCog,
I remembered I had a driver cd that came
with one of those $10 OD/OM modems.
It's also a Pctel modem.
The cd says "Computer Associates"
and has a bunch of junk on it.
The good thing is that it worked.

-------------------------
Why look ?
You can JUST !
My children

<< Anyone having boot problems should shut it off, unplug it, and then short the bios mometarily (just left of the battery toward the pci slots, three pins, remove jumper and place it momentarily over the upper two pins, then replace to original position).

Mine's buttoned up right now, so not too handy to check but go right ahead if you are sure of the jumper number and let them know. These boards had pretty obviously been booted before and that info was locked in the memory. Clearing let mine boot right up.

..If you look close, it should be labled JP13..



-------------------------
Lot easyer to save then work..

I'm hoping to win an ubid auction for a 1 gig Athlon retail box processor. A little over a $102 for it. Would I need to upgrade my power supply for this? I plan on putting in:
30 GIG 7200 RPM Wester Digital Hard Drive
Phillips 8/4/32 CD-RW
A NIC card
A VideoCard(undecided on what kind)
256 MB RAM
I later plan to add a DVD drive, so upgrade or not? Thanks

Just noticed the CPU I'm buying has FSB of 266 and the mobo is 200! Stupid me.

-------------------------
My Heatware

My first built by me, RIG

 Message edited by: wiredspider on 07/31/2001 23:42:22

I have a silly question, thought I had the hard drive situation understood, I got one of these - AMD 800 ,256 DELL ram. Will this use the ATA 100 HD's or do they need to be UDMA 66, a brief explanation would be appreciated also.
Thanks

-------------------------
DELL DIMENSION XPS-T450/ WIN 98SE
128MB RAM
LITEON 1210B CDRW AND TOSHIBA DVD-ROM
PINNACLE STUDIOTV PCI
ALTEC LANSING SPK/SUBWOOF
VISIONEER 4400 USB/HP DESKJET 882C

Ata100 and udma are pretty much the same thing. You don't have to worry, your harddrive will drop from an ata100 to ata66 which results in NO NOTICEABLE speed decrease at all. Hell harddrives have a hard time keeping up with the ata66 speed.

Would Win2K run well on this system? For the modem, are there any Win2K drivers? If now I'll swap it out if nothing else is holding the system back from going with Win2K.

I just ordered the case a couple of days ago, building a new rig for my brother and just posted in that original thread if anyone would care to answer my questions =D.

-------------------------
DC Domain
DC-1

"What I had, I gave today.
What I saved, I lost forever."

Do I need the AMD AGP miniport drivers for this system?

 Message edited by: ABBimmer on 08/01/2001 02:29:55

"For the modem, are there any Win2K drivers? "
That cd I have (see above reply)has some Win2k drivers on it.
I don't have Win2k to test with so I don't know if they are the right ones?!?!
It has a Win2k folder, then seven modems to choose from, and I don't know
which one this modem is.

"Do I need the AMD AGP miniport drivers for this system? "
AFAIK you would need the VIA drivers, not the AMD ones.




-------------------------
Why look ?
You can JUST !
My children

Sweet, thanks, 7 huh? I guess more chances of at least one of them working.

-------------------------
DC Domain
DC-1

"What I had, I gave today.
What I saved, I lost forever."

Mine wont boot, I guess it's back to Overstock.

-------------------------
HEY! Click on the damn banner ads!
Wer das runterläd is total beklopt!!
¨°¨®
¦Ò

Hi all.
I received this from RickyBaby after I pm'd him about maximizing CPU and FSB on this box. Interesting for those that went with the 266FSB. Beneath his comments is a minor suggestion for powering a heavier duty fan on the CPU.

"I don't know what the fastest processor you can run on this machine is. Actually, I got my board and have setup most of the stuff on it but I have a processor on order and haven't received it yet so I am dead in the water. My processor should be here by the end of the week.

So for some speculation. I think the limit for this board is the power supply circuitry on the board itself. The way it works is that the power supply (PS) supplies power to the motherboard (mobo) the mobo has circuitry on it that changes the PS power to the power that the chip actually gets. It appears that even if you have a good 300+ watt PS that the circuitry on the mobo is the limiting factor. So, given that the AMD Palimino (new version of TBird) has some optimizations on power usage (20% less that TBird) if you used a Palimino you ought to get 1.2ghz or slightly better with this mobo. This doesn't do you any good right now because you won't be able to get a Palimino for a couple of more months.

In terms of changing the bus speed via software, as I posted in the thread the best approach appears to be CPUCool or CPUFSB. They both do the same thing. However, if you want to run at 133 FSB you will probably have problems. Here's why. The BIOS appears to be pretty stupid especially if its the Micron one. The way it works is that when you boot up the bios tries to detect what type of RAM you have and and configure it appropriately. So lets say you have regular PC133 RAM. It will detect that this will run at 100mhz with CAS2 or 133mhz with CAS 3. It will more than likely configure the memory for 133 with CAS3. If you use SoftFSB to set the FSB from 100 to 133 then the clocking to the memory would go from 133 CAS 3 to 166 CAS3. Most PC133 memory won't run at 166. So you are screwed.

If you were able to use the bios to set the memory to 100mhz CAS3 and then using CPUFSB to overclock to 133 it would work. But if the bios set it to 100 CAS2 you would be screwed again because most PC133 won't run at 133 CAS2.

So in other words, if you have a 266 FSB chip it will be difficult to run it in this mobo at its correct speed. The only way you can is if you find a bios that allows you to override the memory settings to set the memory to 100/100 CAS3."
RB

PS, I think my analysis is correct.
-----------------------------------
Ok so if RickyBaby is right, us with the 266 are either going to be clocking the FSB down substantially or will have to jump the cpu and clock it down to a 200FSB.

Only thing I can add or suggest is that you run the cpu fan (if your not going with something 'normal') directly thru the powersupply and NOT thru the board. Most higher end fans have a monitor jack that you still install into the 3pin on the mobo.

Oh one more thing. On this board someone mentioned a kickass fan for 50$. Very expensive but supposedly has a way to add modifications to jumper settings...thus multipliers. (I am not clear on it but only read it in passing)

Information some may need but others may find useless:

BIOS IRQ assignments for PCI slots:

PCI-1 (nearest AGP slot) - Shares NO interrupt with anything.
PCI-2 - Shares interrupt with onboard sound
PCI-3 - Shares interrupt with USB.


PTSNOOP program in memory after setting up modem in Win98:

I used the Zoltrix modem drivers for Win98 when setting up this system. I noticed a program running called PTSNOOP (PTSNOOP.EXE) in memory when I CNTL-ALT-DEL. A little checking on the 'net mentioned that this program helps insure that the modem drivers are fully loaded, but that you can generally remove it without problems. I hate unneeded programs running in memory, so I removed it.

To remove PTSNOOP, edit the registry and go to HK_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run and remove the entry for PTSNOOP. Edit the WIN.INI and remove the LOAD= or RUN= entry for PTSNOOP (if it exists). Rename C:\Windows\PTSNOOP.EXE to C:\Windows\PTSNOOP.BAK (or similar). Reboot. Verify the modem still works. If so, go live your life. If not, reverse the changes you made before or reload the driver.

Weirdness with modem in Win98 using Zoltrix driver:

I get sound from both the piezo speaker on the modem and from the sound card when I dial out with the modem. The sound from the sound card is 2-3 seconds delayed from the sound coming directly from the modem, so I hear the connection "handshaking" twice. Weird. This happens with or without the PTSNOOP program running.

Curious delay during boot with Win98:

My computer pauses for around 25 seconds during the Win98 boot process. It has done this every time I've booted since I assembled the system. Some may jump to the conclusion that it may be my network interface (USB hub with included ethernet) looking for a DHCP server, but I'm using a static IP address and not DHCP. Plus, it was doing this before I ever connected the USB hub with ethernet. Only option cards I have installed are AGP TNT2 video and the included PCI analog modem. I have tried the modem in all three PCI slots with no differences noted. Curious.

Maybe these tidbits of knowledge will help someone.

E.

-------------------------
Support The Babylon Project - A FreeSpace 2 Total Conversion
Attention: Spearman of Death/Flag of Iron is coming Sept. 11, 2001!!!!!!

Arghhh!!!

Box finally arrived and I installed a fresh Duron 750.

THE THING WILL NOT POST!

I've reseated everything at least 20 times but no go.

Now, how do I know if its the mobo or the CPU that's the problem?

Any suggestions?

What was someone saying about "shorting the bios"? What does that accomplish?

-------------------------

Mine won't post either with a 750. I put my friends' Athlon 900 in and it booted right up!!
I've tried everything.
Has anyone gotten the duron 750 to work?

-------------------------
HEY! Click on the damn banner ads!
Wer das runterläd is total beklopt!!
¨°¨®
¦Ò

Hey guys, Im having some big problems with my setup

i have a 950 tbird, 40gb wd 7200 rpm drive, 256 ram, ge2mx, sb live! oem, linksys network card

I have fans on basically everything, swapped the power supply with a 300 watt antec

and disabled sound via bios.. but I STILL get lockups 30mis to 1 hour after i bootup.. the bootups are almost ALWAYS in win2k.. i even played a heavy heavy game of cs (2hours) and it wont crash in cs.. it waits for me to get back into win2k then it crashes!

ive removed the green chipset fan and installed a more robust heatsink with arctic silver thermal adhesive.. i dont think its a heat issue because i have fans on everything.. and many times it will crash even while idling in win2k.. plus im running it with the components outside of the case while i debug..

furthermore all these components work on my abit kt7 with tbird 1.2.. any help would be appreciated.. anyone know if this could be an conflict or something? i dont have anything in the 3rd pci slot (shared with usb) my sb live is in the 2nd usb slot but i disablled onboard sound.. and my nic is in the first pci slot..

please help guys

Frost

Hey odz,
I'm using a Duron 750 in mine.
Seems to work good, I've got a bad stick of memory
in it that I need to swap out.
I'm not using a copper spacer anymore.
I think that's what was interfering with my installation before.


Hey dcdomain,
I could "zip" those folders and send them to you.
(You "Lucky Dog", T-1 connection)

-------------------------
Why look ?
You can JUST !
My children

 Message edited by: GregANDTCH on 08/02/2001 03:35:08

ODZ

Running duron 750 now with no problems. My first system was DOA - no post - RMA the thing - however I did not try the shorting the bios trick - still don't know if that works for a booting problem or a post problem or both.

Modem works with above mentioned drivers - but very loud in connecting - just the modem - disabled onboard sound and I have no speakers - and the first system I got had no pc speaker that I could find and the one I have now that works fine also has no "beeper" - I hear no post beeps and can find no speaker.

Did anyone get a system that has the case speaker?

Anyway 750 working fine so far.

Hey notzamboni,
I don't have a case speaker either.
There is one of those little cylinder shaped ones
next to the bios battery. I don't remember if I've heard
it beep or not. I wonder if there's supposed to be
a jumper on the speaker connector (one end) to make
it work ?


-------------------------
Why look ?
You can JUST !
My children

<< Mine won't post either with a 750. I put my friends' Athlon 900 in and it booted right up!!
I've tried everything.
Has anyone gotten the duron 750 to work? >>



Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I put my CPU(750) in me friends' system, and it worked. So I know that both my CPU, and my MB work, just not together.

Oh well, thanks for the responses.

-------------------------
HEY! Click on the damn banner ads!
Wer das runterläd is total beklopt!!
¨°¨®
¦Ò

(Forgot we had a troubleshooting thread - posted in the other thread first - sorry about that!)

Ok, guys - this one has me stumped. I got the system, dropped in an Athlon 950 with a 1coolpc hs/fan (arctic silver II, of course), 1 256 meg DIMM, an ATI Xpert 2000 32MB AGP (newegg, $36), and my wifes 10 gig drive from her old machine with NT 4.0/sp6 already installed and running. Had a couple of strange lockups, remembered I forgot to install the 4 in 1 drivers from VIA. Installed those, still lockups.

Finally tracked it down to any network access causes a lockup. Not usually at first access, but a couple of web pages will usually do it.
Outlook checking for mail on server causes it also.

Switched network cards (had netgear, now linksys in different slot), net cable, flashed latest bios into linksys cable router, same problem. Uninstalled networking, rebooted, installed networking, reinstalled service pack 6, same problem.

Ran motherboard monitor, CPU at 114 F running "hot cpu test 2". CPU at 100% for 10 hours straight, no problems as long as I don't hit the network. Both internal network and Internet access cause a lockup. Even trying to access the drive from another machine causes it to lock.

I'm stumped. Any ideas? Power supply, maybe? Motherboard monitor didn't log anything too weird during the 10 hours.

TIA!


-------------------------
--
Lloyd
"Right now even Darwin is convinced."

Some quarks I've found with the system. I'm running:

The Andara case deal from Overstock.com
Duron 750
Volcano 2
extra case intake fan
Adaptec 24xx PCI SCSI card
Yamaha SCSI CDRW (8x)
WD 40 gig 7200 RPM from the recent Dell (20% off -$30)
Matrox G200 Marvel AGP
Linksys PCI Network card
IBM PS/2 keyboard
Logitech Trackball (PS/2)


When I plugged it in first, the system came on, but the monitor did not, and the keyboard did not light up at all. The SCSI card LED was lite all the time.

I then notice that the CPU fan was plugged into the "system fan" plug. I changed
it to the "cpu fan" plug, turned the machine on and it came on. Can't find HD.

Then I realize that I shouldn't use the ATA-100 cable.. (blue interface plug).
Tried again, and got into my Win98 boot disk.

I tried plugging the CPU fan back into the "system fan" plug, but it booted up normally.. so I don't know why the first time, it didn't boot up.

Now, it boots up fine everytime. However.......

My question is: Win98 only see 8gig available! I seem to remember something about
FAT32x (just before I put aside the PC hobby for a real job :-),
How do I get the computer to recognize my HD so I can partition it?

stevenkwong:

Are you saying that you booted from the Win98 boot disk and you only see 8GB and/or you loaded Win98 and it only sees 8GB?

Most hard drives that I've seen (and I've seen SEVERAL) come preformatted with an 8GB FAT32 partition regardless of the hard drive size. In your case, that would mean that you have around 32GB of non-partitioned space left on your hard drive. You need to create some partitions. You will need to run FDISK and either:

(1) delete the existing 8GB partion, create a new primary partion of whatever size you want, create an extended partion to hold whatever addition partions (drive letters) you want, format all partitions, and install operating system...

-Or-

(2) create an extended partion and create additional partitions (drive letters) to use up the other 32GB, format the new partitions (drive letter), leaving intact whatever data you have already put on "C" drive. If you already have Windows installed, it should see the new drives.

-------------------------
Support The Babylon Project - A FreeSpace 2 Total Conversion
Attention: Spearman of Death/Flag of Iron is coming Sept. 11, 2001!!!!!!

LTB, I responded to your post in the other thread ('cause I didn't think to look and see if you had posted here).

did you remove the old audio/video/etc. drivers from the WinNT install before bringing the drive to the new system? That would perhaps minimize the impact of moving from one chipset/mobo to another (assuming you weren't already using a KT133-based motherboard).

If you have a spare hard drive, even 300MB or so, you should put that in and try a fresh NT4 install. you can load the OS, service pack 6a, drivers for hardware, and Internet Explorer or Netscape in less than an hour. You at least verify that the system will be stable with a fresh load.

-------------------------
Support The Babylon Project - A FreeSpace 2 Total Conversion
Attention: Spearman of Death/Flag of Iron is coming Sept. 11, 2001!!!!!!

Hmmm. I guess I just outsmarted myself. I chaged everything HD related in the BIOS setting and FDISK seems to be able to see all 40gig.

Originally, I setup the BIOS as "manual", and had LBA mode enabled. (Also tried "Large", "CHS", and "AUTO"). The hint I got was that when Win98 bootdisk starts, it say that there is an invalid boot sector (or something like that), and the Western Digital HD tool said that my BIOS were not "properly set up to support the full size of the HD". I don't know what is different (both HD option at auto), but it works..

Next, I'll probably try to Overclock using some soft-fsb progy. Currently, with the Volcano2, the heatsink is barely warm (with the case closed for atleast 1 hr). Are there software that check the CPU temperature btw?

Anyone here know how to manually assign IRQs? No matter what PCI slot I use (I tried all 3 slots), My AGP Video Card, Modem, on board sound, VIA USB and the NIC are all using IRQ 11 under Windows 2000.

As for the modem driver for windows 2000, the driver from xyz will install, and when I query it, everything is ok. But when I dial out to my isp, it give me a hardware error. So I just force it to install the beta windows 2000 driver from Zoltrix, and it worked.

EDIT: Ok, I finally got my IRQs straighten out, just have to disable ACPI in Win 2000. Now my PCI & AGP cards are getting their own IRQs. Finally got this system working properly.

-------------------------
Heatware Ref


 Message edited by: llew on 08/03/2001 18:35:57