problem

Xithus

Im having a small problem with the pc I built. It occasionally freezes, or reboots for no reason. It was happening a lot while I was installing Win98SE and I had to move the HD to another pc to get the job done.

I know its not any of the parts in the pc cause Ive tried it with them and without.

I got winxp pro installed but it did reboot the first few times I tried to install it.
It still freezes or reboots every now and again.
Seeing as its none of the parts in the pc or an os problem Im begining to think its either a psu fault or theres something up with the motherboard.
Just wondering if theres any sure way of knowing ? Or if anyones has this prob themselves.

kr7a-raid
GF4 ti4600 (I tried a GF2 aswell same thing)
Athlon 1800Xp

donaloconnor

It could be a low power supply, maybe it can't keep up to the processor.

Topper

My guess is that it has something to do with the memory. If you have more than 1 memory dimm, then make sure they are in decending capacity order. ie. The biggest memory dimm should be in the first socket.

Also on some boards, having memory cards of different sizes is a no no.

My 2c.

b4k4^2

Could be the processor overheating, you did remember to put a heatsink on the thing? Did you overclock it? Dodgy RAM also a possability

Xithus

I forgot about the ram.. I suppose it could be the prob.
I only have 1*256mb pc2100 and its in dimm1.
I dont have any more ddr ram to test in it either.
I was oc, but just the fsb a lil, Just to try it out. the processor never went over 50.

It doesnt seem to crash when Im doing a lot either, I could just be on the desktop and it happens. happened about 20mins ago, all I had was wmp open listen' to music. :mad:

Xithus

gotten worse.. I now cant boot if I set the processor to 1800XP.

KdjaCL

Have you flashed the Bios ?might be a known issue.
there is an AMD forum that has a cracking help forum.
I have the address at home will post it later today.
Kdja

po0k

Install Win2k anyways....

Could be your mobo shorting, though power is an equally plausible possibility.
I don't think it's your ram (though don't rule it out), as that wouldn't give you such intermittent problems.

ensure that your heatsink is properly secured and taht the fan is suitably powerful.

koneko

I'm going with the power aswell. Check your voltage isn't set incorrectly. Check your power supply is decent (not some ****ty 200-something W). Upgrade your BIOS aswell, there's a beta one on the Abit FTP AFAIK.

Had/have the same prob to an extent, but I think it's more related to the voltage mod on it.

zAbbo

I built a couple of ABIT TH7 P4 machines and had this trouble all the time, if you manually set the CPU voltage in the SOFT MENU to as high as it can go 1.825v (i think) it only shows as 1.72 in the bios (just enough to get you by), no matter what you set it to it only gets to around 0.1 less than what you specified. I`m sure there are some guys here who know a lot more than me on reducing voltages so i`ll only tell you what i tried.

Theres a jumper on the board which is reserved for a temp sensor when i placed jumper pin over theses i noticed that the CPU volt increased by0.1>0.4 which helped


Also if I ran the CPU fan from a different connection it also improved

As i said there are guys who will tell you how to reduce voltages in fans etc.

So i`ll sit back and let them do the talking...

donaloconnor

You can Increase the voltage with a pencil or anything that will conduct electricity.

Ok I only can tell you how to do this on AMD Processors.

Its kind of hard to tell through text, You can do it by joining the connections at the L7 Cache on the chip.

You probably won't do this as it is risky. Check out http://www.ocinside.de/html/workshop/socketa/socketa_resistors.html

Ok, a 200W Power Unit is just not good enough. 300W is what you need.

I really belive that your problem is to do with voltage shortage


HOpe this helps you some bit

zAbbo

Donal`s right but his url isn`t exact here`s the one you want:

http://www.ocinside.de/html/workshop/abit_kt7_vcore.html

and the web site is :

http://www.ocinside.de

Some interesting ways to up the vCORE, might even try it with my TH7 machine

Questoin for Donal: have you tried any of this malarky and can you give me advise?

For Xithus: Have you tried manually setting the CPU volt in the SOFT MENU if you put it up as high as it can go is this reflected in the bios(PC HEALTH STATUS).
Does this make a difference at all.

donaloconnor

Hi There,

Umm well I would try it but I hard deficulty taking my big fan and heatsink off. I nearly destroyed my motherboard trying to take it off. I was sweting mad so I decided to give up lol but don't worry i'll try it again someother day I'll tell you how i get on when i do it, I belive it would work allright.


PS: THat link was right, but i think you must just stay on the page for over 10 secs and it forwards to the Overclocking calculator thing.

Gerry

In my experience abit via based boards often come with standard bios settings which are unstable. Off the top of my head I can't remember which ones made the difference on the kg7, but I would definitely mess with the cpu drive strength. Also as the lads say, get the latest bios. Why is everyone talking about increasing the voltage? The bios will let you add 0.3 or whatever, what donal describes will raise the default voltage required by the chip, handy if you are doing extreme overclocking, but not if you want to stabilise a non - overclocked chip.

You say the dimm is in slot 1. I'm not sure what order they are numbered in (this changes a lot between makes and models, but usually it is recommended to start with the slot farthest from the cpu, though that may be counter intuitive.

As for taking the heatsink off, you need to have the motherboard out of the case, on a hard flat surface, so it does not flex. Get a screwdriver which will not slip out of the clip. After that its not too difficult.

Xithus

Its the motherboard

I tried another board with the with the psu, ram, and processor and it booted fine.

I tried messing with the voltage but if I change any setting in the bios now it wont boot at all. I had the latest bios and I tried flashing it again, didnt help.

thanks.

Zab

You could try out this site before you send back the motherboard. You might find something interesting. Even if you get a new motherboard, the site is still excellent.

Zab.

strat

could try installing the latest via 4in1's