K7S5A Pro XP Install problem

[PartsGuy19]

I have been talking with BipolarBill and he suggested I move this discussion to the boards so here we go.

I have a K7S5A Pro w/ XP2000 chip. I was having problems getting the mother board to recognize the XP2000 but fixed it by removing one stick of memory and adjusting the bios (133/133)

The MAIN problem I can't overcome is while installing XP Pro, the system hangs while "installing devices" with 35 minutes left to go. The drive is a new W/D 20gig ATA100 7200rpm. As Bill suggested, I did a low-level format on the drive writting to "0's". This was no help.

I have gone into the bios and disabled LAN, USB, and AUDIO. After doing this I deleted the partition and reformated. Still no luck.. Freezes in the exact same spot.

Some Info Bill wanted.. CPU Temp after 5-7 minutes of running is 45c/113d. Power supply is a 300w "generic". Video card is a basic S3 Savage 64mb AGP. Memory is a single stick of 64mb PC100.

I have built many systems with the K7S5A with little to no problems. This is my second "Pro" version and first problem.

Thanks for any help!!

[Peter M]

Generic 300W would be marginal with half as much CPU power. I know - that's what I'm typing this on. In BIOS setup, check the voltages. If any one voltage is noticeably off (high or low!), it's no good.

Next, a RAM test. www.memtest86.com. Overnight zero errors good, everything else bad.

[causticVapor]

Eventually your ATX connector will yellow, then brown, and eventually your 5v will go down to 4.45v and even less. By then all 5v lines on the connector are burnt and you have to do some significant rewiring to get the system back up and running again.

Been there, done that...twice. Trust me, it's best to get a good PSU instead of having to live with the (dangerous and time-consuming) consequences later.

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by PartsGuy19
...while installing XP Pro...Memory is a single stick of 64mb PC100. Besides the other responses, this does not really meet requirements:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/sysreqs.asp

128MB is the minimum that I (and most others here) would recommend.

[fishybawb]

Hang on, you're running PC100 at 133MHz? That could be the problem.

[Peter M]

Sure is. High performance chipsets like SiS 735 require the RAM to be absolutely compliant to the standards of the speed you're running it at.

By the pile of presumed "PC133" stuff that proved not really up to the job ont those boards, I think it is safe to say PC100 RAM at 133 MHz is an absolutely lost cause.

So is a generic 300W power supply.

[causticVapor]

64MB of RAM on an NT OS can make the system really sluggish. It's slightly abated when the motherboard has a lot of cache - like my old ss7 board with 2MB of it. However, these days, especially with 256L2-only systems, at least 256MB is imperative. Use 256MB, for your own health.

Overclocking PC100 to 133MHz has caused problems for me. On the P3BF, I was able to raise the VIO, and that fixed it - but unfortunately the K7S5A has no such option.

I'd recommend PC2100 (at minimum) from a reputable brand like Crucial or Kingston. And please, a 256MB stick.

With DDR prices so ridiculously low these days, it's foolish not to. :rolleyes:

[BipolarBill]

Now you see why I wanted to move the discussion out of Private Messaging, PartsGuy19. There was just too much stuff to cover in 500 words or less.

BTW - it's considered newbie-ish to not respond to suggestions.