Abit KA7-100 rebooting

[martinm]

I have an ABIT KA7-100 board that worked great for much of the past year. However, in early to mid-June, it began rebooting randomly. At first, this wasn't a huge problem, however, it has now escalated to the point where the system wont even make it into Win2K without rebooting. When first powered up, it makes it almost to the login, then it reboots more and more frequently, to the point that I can't even get into the BIOS. Any suggestions? My setup is as follows:

Abit KA7-100
AMD Athlon 800
128MB Mushkin High Perf. Rev 2 PC133
Video Card: I have two, and this happens with either of them individually installed:
Guillemot/Hercules 3d ProphetII 64MB
Cirrus Logic 5446 based PCI card
Hard drive: Western Digital 20GB 7200rpm (attached to the IDE 0 port)
reboots happen even without the hard drive attached

I have various other peripherals, which are not currently in the system. Please help!

 

[Dually]

I only had this problem in the following situations with my KA7.

fast writes enabled - I have a Prophet2 GTS 32MB and since you have the 64MB version this could be it.
bad or finiky memory
no or bad instal of via drivers

Make sure you have the latest bios and video bios. The reboots and alck of getting into bios suggest memory or cpu over heating. What OS are u using? Try lowering memory settings and see if stability increases. Also the KA7 has a odd feature with its overclocking bios capibility. You have to hard power it off and on a few times and supposedly hold down a certain key for it to go to bios defaults, then enter bios and resetup, if you don't at the next reboot it goes back to your previous settings you set and your prob will occur.

 

[martinm]

I have a dual boot win98/2k system setup. I have thought about overheating, but this occurs even with an open case with good airflow. As for bios settings, I have reflashed the bios with the latest official Abit release (TY) and its running at failsafe defaults. The only change I have made is to the CPU speed, to change it from the default 500MHZ to my 800MHZ. I do wonder about memory, as I have tested it with different memory sticks, and I do remember that that did have an effect on it (I remember it wouldnt even POST with one stick, and I dont remember the other.) I may try playing with that again, as it's a whole lot cheaper to replace RAM rather than motherboard (though I am eyeing the KG7-RAID with a 1.33GHZ Thunderbird...any thoughts on that?) Anyways, thanks for the help, and any other suggestions you have are most welcome.

 

[Dually]

Nothing is wrong with the KA7, it just won't take tbirds above 800. I suggest looking at the memory.

 

[martinm]

I don't have a TBird, I purchased the system before they were released, unfortunately. But I will try playing with some different memory options and see if that helps.

 

[ukDave]

i had a similar problem with my KA7, where it would restart or freeze just as you see the logon screen in Win98. After much fiddling it has resolved itself and all is now fine. Just make sure you have the latest VIA 4 in 1's and fast-writes is disabled. By the way, setting the CPU speed from 500 to 800Mhz does nothing because the Athlon is locked. This only works if you have a goldfinger device.

dave

 

[martinm]

Yeah, i know the athlon's multiplier locked but I set it to 800 anyways for the pure aesthetic value of it. What fast-writes in particular are you talking about? I seem to recallseveral, some dealing with RAM, others with the PCI bus. Maybe I'm thinking fast R-W turnaround (i dont have the comp here in front of me). Anyways, I hope mine starts working like yours did! Thanks,

 

[ukDave]

do you have the latest BIOS? I think its 'TY'.

fast writes is all about the video card. My TNT2 hates it on.

dave

 

[martinm]

Well, thanks for the help, but I'm pretty sure its not a BIOS issue. I don't think its the RAM, either. I pulled the motherboard out of the case, and was rather disappointed to discover the several capacitors and one of the nearby MOSFET's had exploded. I'm trying to get in touch with Abit now, for an RMA, but that's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. Once again, thanks for the help.

 

[cflatt]

I would like to know if you get a response from abit, i am having the same problem.

abit ka7
athlon 750
768 meg cas 2
sblive value
viper 2 32 meg
maxtor 20 gig 7200 ata 100

 

[martinm]

Well, I jsut talked to Abit. After assuring them that I had talked to the original vendor, I was able to get them to email me an RMA form. Fill it out, send it in, and $25 of shipping and handling later, I'll have a new mobo. The number I contacted them at was (510) 623-0500. Good luck, and lemme know how it turns out.

 

[cflatt]

Thanks for the info. I am trying to find someone nearby with a slot A MB so I can make sure it didnt take out the processor in the death of the MB

 

[martinm]

Good plan, I'm trying to do the same thing. My cousin had one, but unfortunately, he doesnt anymore. Anyways, are there components visibly fried on your board?

 

[cflatt]

it looks as if 2 of the caps are popped on the bottom but it could be the epoxy to hold them in place, i will meter them tomorrow

 

[martinm]

Yeah, I dont think that's the epoxy. Most of the caps are clean around the bottom (and theyre thru-hole, whic sorta alleviates the need for epoxy as well). The caps that have gunk I'm pretty sure are blown...especially since theres some of that gunk around one of the MOSFET's as well, and not around the other three like it. Oh well, sucks to be us, eh? Later