AMD froze

[hoang201]

It's<BR>
a K6-2 333 64Sdram Win95b, when I bought the machine I heard that 64 ram is plenty<BR>
for the guys like me, just go online and don't run any big software or graphics, but after<BR>
turn on machine and open AOL, system info1.8 report that Mem load is 85% , Physical<BR>
Ram used 99% (Total Physical ram is 64.524MB, Free Physical ram is 0.52MB) so does that mean I don't have enough ram? also sys info1.8 report that my paging mem<BR>
used is only 2% and still have 1997.58MB of paging mem free ?<BR>
Also the system freeze a lot when I'm on line and a lot of time have to shut power off<BR>
to reset the machine. Even when I'm on suspend mode 9 out of 10 after couple hours<BR>
of idle, when touch the mouse the screen will come back on like it supposed to but<BR>
then after the screen come up the system froze and have to shut the power off to <BR>
reboot because Alt-Ctrl-Del won't do it.<BR>
So I came to the conclusion that's not the browser hang that up because it's even<BR>
froze in sleep mode, not the CPU heat that kill it because I can play on computer for<BR>
hours, (record CD music to MP3) no problem then it's either the CPU it self or the<BR>
Mother board (it's a Pro AGP 1MB cache 100mhz). Any ideas guy ...TIA...HN</HTML>

[GVolosky]

Man you have a WIP ( Work in progress)
Software may not be the culprit but you're going to spend time finding this one.....
What was the last piece of software or hardware that you added ?????
G.

[hoang201]

I bought the system new, all the software &
OS I loaded myself, so I just have to back-steps trace on trial & errors. Just want to know if it's a bad M/B or CPU or even bad ram
module...HN

[Sammy]

Hi,

You have almost perfectly described the problem I have neen having with my PC.

I have a 400Mhz K6-2, with a 128Mb Dimm,CL Riva TNT graphics card and CL Live soundcard running Win95 OSR2.

I have also had some strange lockups, but I am not sure if they are Video Card/Driver Related, since they became more pronounced and frequent when I updated the driver to version .048

This manifested itself in screen corruption, mainly in Internet Explorer, but occasional at other times too. The picture would gradually become covered in blocks of pixels in a single colour, particularly when I moved a window around or selected a drop down list box.

I am going to be trying a Diamond Stealth AGP card and my old Orchid 3D accelerator tonight, so I will let you know how that goes.

[Dex]

Well, I have a Celeron 300a that isn't clocked at 450. I do fine on Windows98, I sometimes get a system lockup and idle a.k.a Windows ****ty Lockups. Its really Not a surprise that computers freeze. I average 1 a day, so what? I'm already acustomed to it. There is really nothing you can do. Its not hardware related. Lets just say their are still lots of bugs that Microsoft didn't fix. I have Win98 and it seems a little better than 95. I still get the seldom "Blue screen of Death" but who cares, just hit the Reset button and hope it doesn't happen again. If your running browsers, I noticed that IE and Netscape freezes the computer alot reading java scripts. You can blame those that Wrote those scripts using new or complex variables. Those cause a lot of problems. Try to avoid them. Other than that, just get used to it.

Dex

Oops.. posted on the wrong place. Man I'm not used to the new page. Looks nice though!
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Paulie B]

I also have this problem running the nVidia TNT with the K6 2 300.
I was advised to up grade the Bios.

Still doesn't work properly.

[Ewen]

I have a k6-266 and i can't even get my STB TNT card to install at all... where can i get this bios upgrade?

[brucef6328]

sounds like your cpu's are bad. Amd is notorious with their amd k6-2 333 mhz cpu's and higher mhz having problems. The heat production is very great, usually these cpu's should't have been sold at their speed, they should be 33 mhz lower than your current setting. Lower your cpu speed 33 mhz and the problem should go away. It isn;t your fault, amd is **** compared to intel

[CMonster]

Hoang - ni how ma? - ann yeong ha se yo? - i kagga deska? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

I have had several Intel and AMD CPUs, and both manufacturers make a great product. Only now am I getting into the 400 - 450mhz (although I don't know why -I personally don't need that kind of speed) Intel has a slight edge on raw processing power and product compatibility - of course - after all, they make most of chipsets they run in, and most programs are tailored toward Intel. The Celeron is an awesome bargain, and I hope it holds up as well because I do not plan on upgrading again for a while.

But AMD, especially with their K6 product line, has marvelous technical innovation and design. Anyone who has done just a little research into the history of CPUs 8086 architechture and RISC vs CISC sort of thing will be able to appreciate what AMD and Cyrix (yes Cyrix) have done.

This is a great site on CPU history and some more recent advances, although the site is updated infrequently: infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/ (http://infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/)

George

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 02-10-99).]

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 02-10-99).]

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 02-10-99).]

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 02-10-99).]

[Bud]

I think bruce has given you excellent advice I had pretty much the same problem with a friends machine and we just backed off a little on processor speed and problems went away. I believe that it is a Java Script error causing the problems. The errors happening in the browser. Netscape is really bad for this it seems.
Bud

[hoang201]

so how do you slower CPU speed down, care to give me instruction so I'll give a try..HN

[bighammer]

to tell the truth I would add a .1 of a volt and not back down the clock.
Bruce may have mistyped, but if he didn't he is dead wrong, there is no heat issue with the AMD chips after the 233.
Out of trays and trays of AMD processors I have found that there are (was} a batch that needed 2.3 instead of 2.2 to run stable.
DEX, If I were you, I would back up whatever you need for info and do a Format C: and reload my box.
I have 9 going right now and the only time I get locks{generally} is with kids gaming programs loaded.
In general, you should have no lockups at all. Definitely not 1 a day.
have fun

[hoang201]

OK, now I need infomation how to add .1v to
my k6-333, also how to reduce speed of my CPU
just so I could be more dangerous (I hope)...
HN

[MickW]

In reply to bighammer's sugestion (increse cpu voltage by .1 volt) do you thin this could also eleviate the problem of boot up messages of 'cant find/load vmm32.vxd please restart' and very unstable win95 that I am experiencing ?

[CMonster]

Hoang201,

You are going to have to give your specific motherboard model identification in order to obtain instruction on how to raise the core voltage or set the speed in mhz.

If you supply this information accurately in a reply or better yet email, I will be glad to help you by looking up your motherboard on the manufacturer's website (if there is one)and giving you specific information on jumper or BIOS settings. -- OR You Could Do This Yourself because most motherboard mfgrs. have a website that includes detailed support and online access to manuals. Speaking of which, didn't you get a manual or CDROM with this motherboard? You should have almost all the information you need right there at your fingertips.

Yes, sometimes you can increase the stability of your system by raising the CPU core voltage by one tenth of a volt, but I would take a thorough look at all the other factors involved, especially the memory settings - TRY BACKING THE MEMORY SETTINGS DOWN, especially if you know that the CPU settings are correct.

By the way, I have several K6 systems- all stable, and a K6-2 300 overclocked to 360mhz on an early version FIC503+ (4x90mhz bus)core voltage is 2.4 -and the heatsink never even gets past warm to the touch. I have assisted or built about a dozen other K6-2 systems with no trouble, and the only (one)report of a stone-dead chip was on this forum about 6 months ago.

Personally, I have leaned back toward intel, but the K6/K6-2 is a pretty good chip.

George

[hoang201]

Now, you keep throw in new things that I have to ask you to explain about "backing the memory setting", all I know is I got 64
SDRam for the system, and I trade in for the 128Meger and look like the system still starving for memory and I don't play any games no graphics programs, and sometime the system monitor show that my physical ram used
100%, the only thing I got a lot unused is paging memory...TIA...HN

[Sammy]

Mick,

Is that Mick Wynne my good fireman buddy...

How did that PCI DS graphics card go ? was it any help ?

Give me a call and let me know.

[emsavesu]

Oh my gosh, I am so excited to find other with my same problem! I have an Asus P5a-b m/b with an AMD K6-2/300 chip and it runs slower than my 8086 used to! It even has problems with scandisk & defrag ... it is SO SLOW! I have verified settings in the BIOS; I only have the usual installed; Office Pro97, LapLink, and PCAnywhere. Then I tried to install a tape backup and the BIOS saw it, but Win98 and the HP tape software did not. Please help before I chuck this computer off Aspen Mountain!

[Jake]

I've got the AMD 300 mhz. and it runs OK but I'm getting a few lock ups too. I think I've got it traced down to a conflict with the C-Media sound card driver. The bue screens are not as frequent. I used to have the AMD 133 with an old 486 board and I can tell you that system was more stable. It's a new computer for me so just getting started. I think it has a lot to do with whatinstalled on the computer. I've also heard some bad things about the power management feature.

[cmacd]

Another AMD with win 98 freezes. I run the asus tx97e motherboard with amd 233 chip and 96 ram. The symptoms are sytem freezes art any time, especially when in sleep, the screen returns, mouse moves but no keyboard or mouse click response. Is it time to go back to win 95. At least 1 boot up every hour is driving me nuts. Any suggestions gratefully received

Campbell

[SunRa]

MickW-
Do you by any chance have an UMAX 1200S Scanner. I was getting the same 'can't find/load vmm32.vxd please restart' message at bootup until I found a fix at the UMAX website. Hope this helps.

[DavidX]

I'd just like to say something positive rather than negative about this poor little chip. I recently built an AMD K6-2 300MHz system and it runs far more stable than one or two Intel Pentium systems I've had. The AMD is running just fine under Windows98. It's fast and never freezes with ANY programs (apart from an old diagnostic) - ever - at all! Mind you, it's not overclocked (although that may not make any difference to its stability anyway) and I don't use Power Management.

It may be all too tempting to blame the CPU when in fact the problems might be caused by other factors. I suspect this particularly applies to your system, Emsavesu.

Come on, let's face it, an Intel system is by-and-large just as likely to freeze as an AMD. God knows, one Intel Pentium system I had used to freeze at the drop of a hat! You only had to look at it the wrong way and it'd sulk for hours. Eventually found it was a software problem - absolutely nothing to do with the CPU.

Talking to one guy the other day and he puts every problem he has down to his hard drive. Total fixation with it! Turned out his problems were actually software-related too.

David