$100 TO ANYONE WHO CAN SOLVE THIS PROBLEM!

[KingCheese]

Alright guys I'm a manager at Best Buy and I will mail out a $100 gift card or just send you straight up cash/check/money order to anyone who has a suggestion that fixes this problem...

Bought a 1.1GHz Athlon T-bird and Asus A7Pro motherboard with 512mb PC133 RK-byte memory. BIOS IS LATEST a71005d!
GeForce II GTS video card that was in old Athlon 750 *slot a* system
27GB western digital hd
30gb maxtor hd
sblive!
ethernet card
creative dxr3 decoder board
tdk 12x writer and 5x creative dvd

ANYWAY! Put the system together, it's not hard, all jumpers on motherboard are set to default for jumperless bios settings.

It posts 1.1ghz 512mb ram blah blah...
I install WinME fine, very fast install, works awesome!
I reboot to setup WinME and POOF BSOD "VPOWERD Initilization Failure, You will need to restart your system. System halted" and nothing...

I have tried the following:
1) Swapping hds, installing fresh on both, etc.
2) Swapping video cards from GeForce II to Voodoo3 3000
3) Swapping memory from pc133 rk-byte to pc100 rk-byte to pc100 Kingston *memory worked in older athlon system*
4) Disabling power management in bios
5) Disabling usb
6) setting ram cas settings from 3 to 2 and 2 to 3
7) Made sure cpu/heatsink were properly mounted and working
8) Tried installing win98se only to get a "vcache intilization error"
9) bareboning it with nothing but video card in

WTF? HELP!
$100 to whoever has a suggestion that fixes this! hey that's a free stick of 256 pc133 ram!

Thanks
Cheese

 

[ucdnam]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. You may consider loading default bios settings, in case some settings are incorrect.

 

[KingCheese]

all bios settings were set to default etc. etc.

 

[Aboroth]

This is just a shot in the dark but you could try using a different and perhaps higher wattage power supply. To be safe you could try one on AMD's recommended list.

 

[classy]

It sounds like you have set up something wrong.
Remove everything and check to make sure all your jumpers are at default or setup to use only the bios.
Remove the battery a few seconds to clear any and all settings you may have used.
Now only setup one hard drive with a fresh install of either OS. Your memory is a slight concern but should be okay. You have not stated whether its one dimm or two dimms or three. If you have one more than one dimm only use one dimm to setup.
Now when installing the OS only have the video card installed. If you use 98se after the install, install DX7 and then 4 and 1 via drivers before anything else. If you use ME which I have but not installed install 4 and 1 also before anything.
Then install the video card drivers. Then install each peripheral one at a time and go from there. Those errors sound related to video not sure. That decoder card sounds like a culprit. With that system you don't need it and to be honest shouldn't use it.
Give this try.

 

[Bad Dude]

What is the temperature probe says if you got one? The problem that you are getting is most likely from overheating problem. You installed the OS OK but when you boot up, it stressed the system and cause this kind of errors. What you want to do leave to cool down then reboot after 30 minutes. If it runs OK for a little while then it's your cooling. The cooler is most likely not seated with complete contact to the core. TBirds can have this kind of problem if the clip on the cooler does not produce enough tension to overcome the 4 cushion feet to push down and touch the core with good contact. You should take the board out, if you can, and look from the side to see if this is the problem. I assume that all of your parts are equip to run TBirds to spec.

And finally, from reading your post, you might have a defective CPU that gives you the cache error. You might have fried it a little.

By the way, if you are using the VIA chipset, make sure you install the latest drivers for the board. The AGP drivers can also cause this problem. If you can boot into safe mode then you most likely have a software problem. If you cannot boot into safe mode then it is hardware.

 

[psykohog]

Clear your CMOS and start with one thing at a time ie.memory,graphics card and so on. Good Luck.

 

[Arcane]

I had a very similar problem with my computer. I have a 1GHz, A7V rev 1.02 1005D BIOS setup. What I found was that the virtual memory handling in Windows whether 98, Me, or 2000 doesn't do a good job. My experience was that I could boot up for about 2 min before everything locked up. Try going into Control Panel>System>Performance. You should override the default setting and change the values to half of your physical amount of RAM, so 256 for both values in your case.

You may also want to try booting with 256 megs instead of 512 unless you just have one stick of 512.

After that, run Sisoft Sandra. I used that to test my entire system to realize that one of my sticks of RAM was bad. Once you get your system running smoothly, you can safely switch back to Windows auto adjust virtual memory.

Also if you are running 2000, be sure to install the patch from Microsoft that corrects a problem with the Athlon.

 

[sad]

King Cheese:

Hi, was powermanagement ENABLED before you installed winME? It looks like windows is trying to load APM when it's disabled in bios, so you're getting an initialzation error.

I have 2 things you can try.

Disable Powermanagement totally:

After you disable powermanagement in Bios, install windowsME with the command "setup /p i" that will disable acpi functions. After it finishes, go into controlpanel>powermanagement>always on.

or

Enable Power management in Bios and install winme with "setup /p i"


Also, you may want to unlock your chip and install winME at a lower speed. Maybe 600(6X100). I've had systems where I get weird errors installing windows while oc'ed.

good luck.

 

[rbV5]

uninstall the NIC and the soundcard first, format, fresh install, then install your other cards one at a time after you have winMe setup. You'll be fine.

 

[EY2K]

downgrade the amount of RAM, or install and use Windows 2000.

 

[cisco]

KingCheese,
Its amazing how helpful we are today (or could it be the $$).
Apparently you've already formatted a few times installed 98 and ME with nothing but the video card and still getting the same messages.
I'm a tech (TV,VCR)and I just put together my a7v133 and 1gighz and its working great (so I'm now qualified to participate)!
Questions:
does it go into windows when you just stick a HD from another system in it(OS installed already) if it does it will start loading the motherboard chipset stuff (see if it will work from there) , did you use the 4 in 1 chipset drivers from the asus Cd, how about the AGP drivers is it loaded in turbo mode?

Are the jumpers all set for auto, enabling soft bios settings only?

thats how mine is setup, I'd suspect the MB or a jumper set wrong pertaining to the bus or memory speeds.if you want, Ship it to me and I'll install the chip/MB in my system to verify it is Ok, email me for my phone # if you want..

 

[dman]

Well, the VCACHE error when installing W98SE is very interesting...

You said you swapped the harddrives...

Have you tried the following:

Scanned for virii?
Formatted w/ unconditional? Format C: /U

After that, w/ BAREBONES Components
SET CDROM on Secondary Channel to Master (disconnect any other devices)
SET IDE DRIVE on Primary Channel set to SINGLE DRIVE (disconnect any other devices)
DISABLE DMA Transfers in BIOS
Set Memory to CAS2
Reset PNP settings if available
Install Windows.

If that goes well, enable DMA. Play around.
If that goes well, start adding things one by one.

Don't want your money. Good luck, and let us know if you figure it out!

 

[kw3i]

did you try installing an older bios and using a barebones system? that is another possibility

 

[cisco]

Show me the Money!
Show me the money!
Show me the Money!





(Tom Cruz & Cuba Goodings Jr)

 

[Nikepete]

Does the A7Pro support 1.1 GHz CPU ?

 

[grendelkhan]

It should support it, I mean the chipset itself is certified up to what, 1.5 or something?

I'm leaning towrds the power supply except that even when installing with a bare chassis, he's still getting this error.

Maybe it's yr copy of WinME? Have you tried 98 or another OS to see if the problem is rooted there?

 

[Fermilevel]

The Asus A7Pro is only rated to 1GHz -- probably for good reason (they rate many of their mainboards higher). While some people have probably made it work above 1GHz, there are no guarantees. It's possible that the layout/design of the mainboard or even the BIOS prevents the CPU from operating stable above 1GHz. During install, there aren't really any drivers being loaded that take advantage of system resources so you are unlikely to see the issue you described pop up until system drivers are loaded.

Try another mainboard that is rated for your CPU (example: A7V) or replace the 1.1GHz CPU with a slower model and the problem should go away.

 

[MadRat]

You did make sure the color part of the HD ribbon cable was in facing the right way?

 

[cheche]

You have to much memory for win98 or ME.
You need win 2000 for that amount.

 

[cisco]

Ok, what wattage power supply is it ? needs 350watt really , but should work with even a 250/300watter if it is just barebones. try setting the MB jumpers to 1gighz multiplier (underclock it), if it works then perhaps the Mb doesn't support over 1gighz or the 1.1chip can't handle it over 1gighz..

 

[EY2K]

lol! what a way to grab everyone's attention! you really shouldn't lure ppl to your topic this way. many ppl are already willing to help you solve your pc probs with or without your giftcard offer.

 

[Cybrchaos]

1 In the bios you can not have ata100raid as a boot option AT ALL !!!boot from scsi should be the only boot device.
2 Makesure you have run fdisk to set the active drive and partition.
If either of these arnt followed to a t you will never boot to your scsi device {addin card}.
Send cash to ICQ# 83097928 im waiting.

 

[cisco]

Asus website shows it only supports up to 1gighz:
Link-to-Asus-A7VPro
that could be the reason, underclocking it could prove if thats the problem, to do that look in the manual or website for the auto jumpers, and set them for a 1gighz or less CPU. Good luck!
Also till the problem is solved , run only one HD on the primary IDE channel with its jumper set as master..(you didn't say if you did that yet)

here is another asus link that says 1gighz plus indicating it probably does support the 1.1gighz : new link

???

 

[cisco]

Yo Cheese,
Here is a newer bios update 1006 link: Bios-downloads
be careful, I think this is a leaked bios, because its not on the Asus website yet. read the posts about it here:forums-amdmb/a7v1006