AMD Athlon 500 / GA-71X and Win9x MAJOR probs

[Pure Gold]

I have just purchased an AMD K7-500, a Gigabyte GA-71X mobo, 128Mb PC100 SDRAM.
I have a Diamond Savage4 PCI graphics card, 13.5Gb UDMA33 HDD, 3.2GB UDMA33 HDD.
I installed two (relatively small) air extraction fans.

My problem is with Windows 9x. I first tried Win 98 second edition, and everything ran fine until my first reboot when I started getting the error "Windows Protection Error. You must restart your computer." Occasionally, it would boot, but then it would be extremely unstable. I managed to get along with DX7 (despite other people's rumours) and play cool games like Commandos and Unreal with no problems.
After a day though, the protection error kept coming up and hardly ever letting me into Windows in normal mode. In safe mode, it worked perfectly.
Since I could no longer use Win98, I reverted back to Win95B. Everything was as with Win98. I looked to find a patch on the WWWait, and only found the K6 patch. I gave it a go, and the protection error became less frequent (so I'm presuming a speed problem).
I know that the problem always occurs at a certain point in the booting of the OPSYS, but trying to obtain a bootlog deemed itself pointless as it apparently doesn't log VXD inits until they're all loaded - so I can't even tell where it's crashing.
I've managed to get this thing stable for 30mins now, but only because I running with no optimisations, used a switch on Win (I can't remember which a.t.m.). Everything seems fine, but I don't want to push it.

Can anyone out there shed any light on the situation??

Any assistance is greatly appreciated..

Pure Gold

P.S I just tried logging startup again, and it actually did it this time - turns out it halts whilst trying to initialise the AMD E-IDE stuff. I have also found out that my graphics card doesn't really like me. The boot problem seems less frequent when acceleration is turned down (it's on basic funcs at the mo). Now I can't even play Hidden & Dangerous :0(

[This message has been edited by Pure Gold (edited 01-09-2000).]

[jonathankeeping]

I haven't really got any first hand experience with an Athlon, but I'll give you one or two tips that have helped me getting a new system working.

Firstly, check the settings in the BIOS and set them all to their defaults or standard settings. (eg AGP X 1 60-70ns etc...) This will help to make your system more stable. Also check the Front Side Bus Memory speed. Your RAM should fuction properly at 100MHz.


Your unstablity may also be due to a faulty RAM DIMM. If you boot to a floppy which has the line "DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:ON" in the config.sys, this should pop-up with an error if you RAM is indeed faulty. Also you may want to check for a BIOS update. It maybe that a device in you computer isn't fully suppprted by your current BIOS version.

Finaly, if none of the above work, remove all unnessacary devices and try and replace the video card, RAM with that you know works (if you can!!!) Then though a process of ilumination you can see whats causing you greaf.

I hope this is of help and good luck

[This message has been edited by jonathankeeping (edited 01-10-2000).]

[CMonster]

First off, do you have a 300w power supply?

Power supply aside, my next bet is on marginal or marginally compatible memory. It may pass all the POST tests and himem checks and still choke on actual applications.

The hard disk could also be a contender here, if the problems occur mainly when booting. See if it is possible to lower memory and hard disk settings in BIOS. You may try PIO3 if that is an option for your hard disk.

[Pure Gold]

Ok.. Thanks for the advice..

The memory check turned out okay, but I can't take out my graphics card.

[Pure Gold]

Thanks for the advice, CMonster...

..unfortunately it hasn't made a difference changing the HDD mode to PIO3... ..or 4..

I guess I shall just have to wait until AMD release a new driver for their 756 chipset..
..I've just been looking at the System Properties, and it looks as though even though Windows is trying to load the driver, it doesn't play any specific part. Whether this is the case or not, who knows.. maybe someone out there knows more about how it works.

Have decided that it's definately the chipset driver that crashes 'cos Windows works fine without 32-bit access.

AND my graphics card is causing big probs, so it's accelerator functions must stay disabled :*(

[Shane Reese]

Try putting your ram stick in differnt slots and then see if it is any better!!

I have a K7-500 on a Asus K7M and was having some strange things going on! Then I moved the ram around and that fixed the problems!
It seems to actually matter were the ram is placed!!!

Good luck!!!

[OuTpaTienT]

The most important question of the bunch, and you didn't answer it Pure Gold. Do you have a 300w power supply?

If not, then I'd make that step no. one in the troubleshooting project. Get 300w power supply. Preferably one on AMD's "approved" list of power supplies.

In fact, after re-reading your original message, my very first assumption would be inadequete power supply.

[Pure Gold]

Don't got one of them unfortunately - and it'll be at least a month until I can get my greasy mits on one..


...lousy stinking power supplies...