A7V + SBlive +NIC = loss of hair

[Freddie_P]

Please help...I just installed a A7V with Tbird 1ghz I have a sblive value, aopen modem, asus v6800 ddr, and I have tried 3 nics 3com 905c, SMC 1211 and realtek 8139 and things are just not working out. Meaning my other two computers on the lan canot see the new machine. Sometimes the A7V can access the others. If I remove the SBLIVE card everything works fine. I figure its an IRQ issue or some other conflict but when I check the resources everything appears OK. Same deal with shutting down w98. Without the SBlive card all is fine when I put it in it freezes at the Locating Free PCi resources line. I'm at my wits end. My Lan was fine until I upgraded. My guess it is the addition of the PCI modem too that may be a problem since I had a ISA modem on my P3V4X that I upgraded from. ANy help would be greatly appreciated...FP

 

[SilencerAZ]

Okay, here is some important information that can be found in the manual for the A7V:

__________|INT-A |INT-B |INT-C |INT-D |
PCI Slot 1|shared|______|______|______|
PCI Slot 2|______|shared|______|______|
PCI Slot 3|______|______|shared|______|
PCI Slot 4|______|______|______|shared|
PCI Slot 5|______|______|______|shared|
AGP Slot__|shared|shared|______|______|
USB_______|______|______|______|shared|
AMR_______|______|______|shared|______|

NIC cards really hate sharing IRQ's, I almost always have problems when my NIC shares an IRQ with another device, so you want to place it in a slot where it won't share with another device. Like putting it in slot 4 or 5, but leaving the other spot free.

Also, disable everything you don't use in the BIOS, I have both my COM ports disabled and USB disabled, this frees up 3 IRQ's.

Another thing that the A7V hates is setting the devices on the Ultra66 controller to AUTO. If you have something on there, make sure you specify what it is, whether it's CDROM or something else, just make sure it's not on AUTO. I also had to put my ZIP-100 drive on the Ultra66 controller, if it was on the Promise Ultra 100 controller I would get system instability, and for the ZIP drive I actually set it to NONE and the system seems much more stable. Windows still sees the ZIP drive fine. It will take some trial and error to get the system running stable, but it's well worth it.

Also, drivers, I would load them in this order - via4in1 (4in1425a.zip), ultra100 (u160b25.zip), usb filter driver (usbf108.exe), win9x usb driver (240075up.exe). After this I would load sound, video, etc. I'm using the 1004D bios btw. Hope some of this helps, email with questions.

 

[Freddie_P]

Thanks a bunch. I looked in the manual before and tried to make some sense of that chart but everything looked shared to me. Anyways while I was waiting for posts to come back I plunked the nic into slot5 moved teh sb back to slot three and then the modem in slot 1 and everything worked just like you knew it would. I have downloaded al of the latest drivers and I hope everything will be smooth sailing. I had com2 disabled already and I may indeed disable com1. I have USB devices so I think I need that to be enabled. So far I haven't had problems with my cd on primary ide 66 controller leaving it to auto. One more question if I were to add a cd/rw drive at some point would you make it master on the secondary 66 controller....FP

 

[GaryTcs]

Most cd-rw's really want to be master on whatever channel they are on. My Hp8100i is an absolute dictator, it wont hardly do anything if it is the slave. Buffer underruns abound. Move it to master, no problems.

 

[Regalk]

Here is my setup:
AGP - GF2 MX
PCI 1 - blocked by GORB (useless)
PCI 2 - NIC (shared with ATA 100)
PCI 3 - SB PCI 128 (Live is more picky)
PCI 4 - ATI TV Wonder
PCI 5 - Voodoo 3 3000 PCI
Works like a charm with dual monitors. I inserted all cards AT THE SAME TIME and installed WINME (not for the faint of heart).