AMD K6III 450 / FIC PA-2013 - system lockups - why?

[Rob G]

I've just put together a new system comprising the following:

FIC PA2013 (1mb) motherboard
AMD K6III 450
128mb PC100 (64x2)
IBM Deskstar GXP34 20g drive
Tosh x40 CD
then existing components...

HP 8000i CD-Writer
Creative Graphics Blaster Riva TNT 16mb (PCI)
US Robotics modem (ISA)
Creative PCI 16 sound card

Everything came on first time and I've had no reported hardware failures. Win98 installed OK and I applied the mobo patches that FIC recommend on their website (IRQ assign patch 1.1, VIA chipset driver). After the graphics card was installed, I applied the GART.vxd patch for Apollo chipset. I've been told that the .vxd patch isn't needed as the card is PCI, BUT without the patch all I get is a blank screen.

Office runs fine. Corel stuff runs fine. IE4 & 5 locks the system up intermittently, Star Wars Rogue Squadron locks up every time it runs but in different places (usually within the first two mins of play). The lock-ups require power-off.

Win98 is the original version ('For PCs without Windows'). I've also tried installing the 2nd Edition Updates, but it made no difference.

Could this be a problem with the jumper and/or bios settings? This is the first system I've put together myself so I'm inexperienced and a bit unsure about it all. The jumper settings are correct according to the FIC manual.

Are there any bios or jumper settings I should be aware of that aren't covered in the FIC manual? Is there anything else I should be doing to get this thing running correctly? btw- there seems to be no excess heat from inside the cabinet. Also, the graphics card driver is the latest version as supplied by Creative on their website.

Any help would be very welcome.
Thanks
Rob

[M1pilot]

Well, I don't have the PA2013, but I do have a K6-III/450 on a VA503+. Had no problems whatsoever with it until I installed a C/L Webcam3. I ended up disabling "write cache pipeline" in the BIOS, and everythings cool now. I've heard of some people having to disable the L2 cache (L3 in your case) entirely on that m/b to get it to work properly. Give it a try.

-M1pilot

[daveleau]

Hi there. I had the PA2013 until I flashed the bios with their flashing tools and it blew my IRQ mapping and I had to dump the board. Anyway, it was a good board until then. True, you shouldn't need the vxd patch unless you are using an AGP card. That was what I was doing when I got a bad flash. It does sound like something that could be related to your video. Try disabling shadowing of the video in the BIOS and palette snooping. Disabling those may help. I don't think your system would have too many problems if the jumpers were set incorrectly. I guess the easiest way to tell would be by the processor it reports. If it reports anything but the 450 then you have either set the fsb (front side bus) incorrectly or the multiplier. Good luck and keep us posted.
Dave

[scotter]

how cool is your chip running ? if you dont have sytem monitering program with that board try poping the cover off the case and setting up a fan to add to the cooling and see what happens ?

[Rob G]

Fixed!

Disabled the mobo's onboard 1mb cache and the problem just disappeared. Have run through a couple of levels of Rogue Squadron, given IE a good run through and all seems fine.

If anybody can explain why I've had to do this then I'd be grateful. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions.

Rob

[scotter]

if you havent yet check for a bios update ?

[Rob G]

VIA state that the 4 in 1 patch is not needed on Win98SE.

Already tried moving to a different PCI slot - no change.

I will try the new Detonator driver, but I need to take a dump of the entire system first before in case it all goes ****-up. I'll try it this weekend.

Thanks
Rob

[cracker009]

Hi, im having the same problem too, but im using a fic 503+, same video card (pci). The system seems to lock up during games, any that uses hardware acceleration. ie5 use to lockup all the time but not as often since i changed back to the 2.08 reference driver but games locks up or pauses for awhile then starts again. please help.

amdk2-400
fic 503+ (all recent patch applied)
cl riva tnt (2.08)
win 98

[buitenb]

download the latest 4 in 1 driver from via
that should do the trick ! or move the pci
vgacard to a other slot

[buitenb]

and ofcourse use the dtonator drivers from nvidia !