Abit KT7 and Geforce 2 incompatible?

[Mark R]

Over the last couple of weeks I've been struggling with my brother's new computer.

It is a KT7-RAID with Athlon 1000 MHz. However, after installing a Creative Geforce2 blaster, it is very unstable. Sometimes it works fine, for days. Other times, it is so unstable it can't even finish POSTing. There appears to be no way of predicting whether or not it will work. Sometimes, it doesn't even boot at all - I just get the 'no video card' error beeps.

Replacing the Geforce2 with either a PCI S3 ViRGE or AGP Matrox G200 makes the computer completely stable. Similarly, transferring the Geforce2 into another computer is also completely stable.

It is not power, as I have now tried 4 PSUs - a 200, 2 300s and a 430 and all do exactly the same thing. It is not the CPU or RAM, as the system is completely stable with other cards.

I've tried every setting in the BIOS, but none make any difference (including I/O voltage and AGP drive control). Repositioning the card makes no difference.

Is this a known problem? What else can I try?

 

[office boy]

But where they AMD approved powersupplys?
What model/brand?

You tried, normal memory settings, and AGPx2 and disabling fastwrites and playing with AGP drive strength?

 

[Mark R]

Well, the latest PSU is an Enermax EG451 (430W). It is AMD approved.

The thing is I've put voltmeters all over the system, and even with the 200W supply, none of the voltages ever go out of spec.

I've tried every BIOS setting, AGP 4x, Fast Writes, PCI concurrency, etc. I've tried the Fail-safe defaults and the optimized defaults - neither makes any difference.

 

[Modeps]

Welp, ive got a winfast geforce2gts-tv64... kt7-raid and my works beautifully (besides some software problems that im having, nothing major) make sure all your bios settings are correct... if need be restore fail-safe settings and just change the cpu clock to what it should be. im not sure what else to tell you on this one.

 

[office boy]

Does the video card work in other systems?
Could it be the drivers?

 

[Mark R]

The graphics card is perfect in other systems, both my own, and friends. I've even sent it back for replacement, only to be told that it is fine.

It cannot possibly be drivers because the system might not even power up.

 

[Adul]

I assume you have the latest VIA 4-1 Drivers installed. and your problem seem to be quite unique. Have you tried a different brand Video card with the geforce 2 chip? I remember someone here on this board has a similiar problem with his Ka7 and a geforce 2 board. He swapped it out for another brand and it worked beautifuly. Oh, this person didn't post on this here about it either. I only knew because it was AIM chat where he told me. Have you tried calling creative labs yet?

 

[Adul]

Mark, it is possible that particular GTS and MB will not work with each other where others will. I seen it happen once or twice at work here. Where two different pieces of hardware would just not work for what ever reason. But move one to another system of the same model, and it would work.

 

[Mem]

I would try a clean install of OS then install Via 4 in 1 drivers straight after,I would make sure nothing is in PCI slot1(next to AGP slot) & no Irq`s are shared with the graphics card like soundcard & take it from there,it should work fine but there have been problems with Abit & Geforce cards in the past however most people do get them working.

My own Geforce2 MX works fine with my MSI K7T PRO board.

 

[tigger80]

i think it could be BIOS settings or drivers. Make sure you have the VIA drivers installed and try the OFFICIAL detonator drivers. What operating systems are you using as well.

 

[Mark R]

I'm using Win98 - with the latest Via 4in1 and AGP drivers, and the latest Nvidia detonator drivers.

I've reformatted close to a dozen times, it makes no difference. Sometimes the system will be almost stable for a couple of days, and then it simply will stop working - the monitor gets no signal or I get 'beeeep-beep-beep' (no graphics card).

However, like I said earlier, OS and drivers are irrelevant - when the system is unstable it won't even start to load the OS, it will crash or restart before then. In fact, when it is in one of its unstable phases I can't even get into the BIOS setup because it will crash or restart.

 

[office boy]

Very weird... must just be a bad combo.

 

[Mark R]

Absolutely, I'm completely baffled by this. Interestingly, a usenet search reveals that this is not a unique problem - its not common, but I have found about 5 or 6 other people who have had exactly the same problem with the same hardware combination.

I'm thinking of just dumping the KT7-RAID and getting a different board like an MSI-K7T Pro2, however, I haven't heard enough about this board yet.