sblive value, a7v board, via chipset = problems

[iamsoden]

I thought I was in the Twilight Zone for a minute after reading blubomber's post...and this post is more for me getting **** off my chest than help, because I'm sure I can find a solution in other posts. I don't know the details of my bios, but I bought a new Athlon 900 with an Asus A7V MB (I believe) and of course, the culprit, the stupid Sound Blaster Live Value card and drivers. I almost put my fist through my monitor last night. Everything has been running smoothly for a week because I did not install the Liveware software (Win98SE) since I tried when I first got the computer and had nothing but freeze ups. So last night after everything had been reformatted and reinstalled, I tried the updated liveware 3.0 and guess what...FREEZE. Even before it gets to the POST so I can't start in safe mode. It gave me a message something about setting the external CPU speed higher than it should (I've read something about the VIA chipset sucking?) 133mghz 100 mghz...it's all a mess to me. I know my SDRAM is capable of 133mghz, but runs at 100mghz because of the Athlon limiations and maybe the VIA drivers have screwed with it? Anyway, finally somehow got to safe mode, uninstalled liveware and I'm back to my windows. I know sb16 emulation is a problem because of what I've read and experienced. IRQ steering conflicts too? How many problems can one sound card have for crying out loud? Any advice would be great. I just want sound.
I'll try moving my card to another pci slot tonight...Should I just follow my instincts and remove the card and bite it in half?
Maybe I'll just put it away in the same box as my old hard drive that has 6 gigs of data my new computer couldn't see...
whew. thanks, I needed that.

[This message has been edited by iamsoden (edited 11-21-2000).]

[Tincup]

I've had the same **** problems with the newer Soundblaster Live! soundcards. Get a windows blue screen error after installing the drivers for the Soundblaster LIVE soundcard.

[nunyadam]

i guess i will stick with my original drivers . i have a duron 600@800(backed it down from 900)a7v mb,geforceII mx,soundblaster live value.128meg memory,ibm ata100 30gig hdd.and have never had your problem's. i was about to update but now i will really have to think about it.

[Iron Man]

Not sure if this applies in your case(s) but I just recently read that a PCI Soundblaster card and some AGP video cards do not mix well on a via chipset board. PCI/PCI are fine, though.

[CavScout]

I have the exact same setup. My PC is always locking up everytime I run a 3D game. I have all of the latest drivers, etc. I have the latest games. I have a TNT2 PCI video card. This **** Athlon or Via chipset has something to do with all of this I know! I replaced the Video card with a GeForce2 AGP and same thing! **** this thing!

[iamsoden]

MY videocard is an ASUS GeForce 7100...is that where my VIA chipset comes into play? I forgot...I guess it does. Nothing but trouble so far.

[CavScout]

IronMan, where did you read that??? I am looking everywhere for some solution. I have 2 AMD Athlon systems, both 900's and both Asus A7V with Geforce 2 MX AGP and SBLive and I have stupid lockups everytime I play a 3d game. Drivers were not the problem. Games lock up randomly. Perhaps the RAM is ****ty? But if that were the case I would expect problems even in Windows 2d mode. I never have problems in Windows it is only when I go into my 3d games dang it!

[iamsoden]

Ironman - something about what you said makes sense. My problems come after I've loaded my sblive drivers which enable some pci devices. The bios defaults to pci videocard start-up, so to get by the frozen screen, I have to manually change the bios to use AGP, then it will boot to windows.
That probably doesn't make sense to anyway that hasn't seen/done it...but I'm going to look into it.