First lets start off with my system specs.
Abit kt7-Raid with Athlon 1ghz cpu w/FOP38 cooler
Corsair PC133 CAS2 memory 128mb
Geforce 32mb SDR (guliemot)
Adaptec 3200s Raid controller
Sblive 1024
Intel 10/100 Nic
two 9.1gb dmvs09 u160 hdd's
toshiba 10x dvd
300w amd approved power supply
The problem.
For all purposes I removed the sblive and nic card to eliminate any irq conflicts. I also tried using an IDE drive on the ATA66 contoller for my hdd.
Win2000 locks up randomly. Sometimes I can run for 2 hours with no lockups, other times for only 2 minutes. This lockup can happen in IE, file browsing, anywhere. 3dmark 2000 will lockup within the second helicopter test consistently. Especially if I bump the agp aperature to 64mb in the bios. I have the latest bios, the latest via 4in1 driver, using 6.31 det. driver (also tried 5.32 for more stability), Win2000 pro with Sp1.
What drives me really crazy is that I can install win98SE, using the same drivers as mentioned above (obviously their win98 counterparts though) and the machine will loop 3dmark for HOURS!!!! Rock stable in win98se. However I myself fell in love with Win2000 after using it and am hoping to find someone else out there who knows of a good way to get this machine to run stable.
So far I have tried to turn all bios settings to safe defaults. turning agp aperature to 32mb, setting my pc133 ram to pc100 with a cas3 latency. also set ram to 10ns. tried another video card, tried another power supply, tried different memory, tried another cpu etc etc. I called abit, they deemed it a bad board. but if its bad, why would it run stable in win98? The only explanation that I can come to, along with a little reading of many forums, is that the drivers for win2k are very very poor on via's part. Anyone else have this problem and found a way to fix it? I saw on tomshardware an article about the kx133 chipset and its instability with win2000. he had an updated agp driver to replace windows 2000's driver but it does not say if it will help out on kt133 boards as well. Has anyone tried this driver on a kt133? Is anyone running this board using win2000 stable?
On a side note...has anyone out there been able to install win98se on a raid0 scsi setup with it being the boot drive? How about raid0 on the highpoint card on the kt7-raid as the boot drive?
One last thing, sorry this post is so long, abits customer support. I am very dissatisfied with abits customer support. I called tech support last monday, they were busy so i left a msg. never recieved a callback. sent an email on monday as well, still have not recieved an email back. Called yesterday and talked to a technician at their facility, he had no idea about any issues with via drivers and win2000. Although he may not of been able to tell me even if he did know. After he deemed my mb bad, he sent me to the rma department who said they are going to charge me $25 to repair my board!!! WHAT!!! First this is a brand new board, i do not want it repaired if you think its bad I want a new one. second why do i have to pay $25 for a board that you manufactured badly? Please keep in mind that I was polite about the whole thing and did not raise my voice once. I asked to speak to a manager. I know its not the smartest thing, but i needed answers that the lady could not give me. after putting me on hold for 25 minutes they hung up on me. I called back, got to the rma department, asked for a supervisor, they sent me to the voicemail system!!! Called back again, again they sent me to the voicemail system. I have not recieved a callback as of yet, but i figure they are closed on the weekends even though my problem still persists. I also want to point out one other thing again because I know many of you are thinking it. I never raised my voice or used any sort of bad behavior/language when talking to anyone at abit. I myself work for an oem computer manufacturer (as a tech) and know what its like when a client calls in and uses an abrassive tone. That is why I kept myself to being as polite as possible and still recieved the above treatment. If this is abits idea of customer support, I will never by an abit board again and am still trying to decide if i should return the one i have now for a different brand.
Maybe I am in the wrong, but I dont see why I would have to pay a dime for a board that is shipped bad. If anyone has any comments about this situation, either about my win2000 problem especially, or about what you think of abits tech support, please post. I am intrested in knowing if anyone else finds this absurd or if anyone else has had a pleasant experience with abits support.
Thank you.
Abit kt7-Raid with Athlon 1ghz cpu w/FOP38 cooler
Corsair PC133 CAS2 memory 128mb
Geforce 32mb SDR (guliemot)
Adaptec 3200s Raid controller
Sblive 1024
Intel 10/100 Nic
two 9.1gb dmvs09 u160 hdd's
toshiba 10x dvd
300w amd approved power supply
The problem.
For all purposes I removed the sblive and nic card to eliminate any irq conflicts. I also tried using an IDE drive on the ATA66 contoller for my hdd.
Win2000 locks up randomly. Sometimes I can run for 2 hours with no lockups, other times for only 2 minutes. This lockup can happen in IE, file browsing, anywhere. 3dmark 2000 will lockup within the second helicopter test consistently. Especially if I bump the agp aperature to 64mb in the bios. I have the latest bios, the latest via 4in1 driver, using 6.31 det. driver (also tried 5.32 for more stability), Win2000 pro with Sp1.
What drives me really crazy is that I can install win98SE, using the same drivers as mentioned above (obviously their win98 counterparts though) and the machine will loop 3dmark for HOURS!!!! Rock stable in win98se. However I myself fell in love with Win2000 after using it and am hoping to find someone else out there who knows of a good way to get this machine to run stable.
So far I have tried to turn all bios settings to safe defaults. turning agp aperature to 32mb, setting my pc133 ram to pc100 with a cas3 latency. also set ram to 10ns. tried another video card, tried another power supply, tried different memory, tried another cpu etc etc. I called abit, they deemed it a bad board. but if its bad, why would it run stable in win98? The only explanation that I can come to, along with a little reading of many forums, is that the drivers for win2k are very very poor on via's part. Anyone else have this problem and found a way to fix it? I saw on tomshardware an article about the kx133 chipset and its instability with win2000. he had an updated agp driver to replace windows 2000's driver but it does not say if it will help out on kt133 boards as well. Has anyone tried this driver on a kt133? Is anyone running this board using win2000 stable?
On a side note...has anyone out there been able to install win98se on a raid0 scsi setup with it being the boot drive? How about raid0 on the highpoint card on the kt7-raid as the boot drive?
One last thing, sorry this post is so long, abits customer support. I am very dissatisfied with abits customer support. I called tech support last monday, they were busy so i left a msg. never recieved a callback. sent an email on monday as well, still have not recieved an email back. Called yesterday and talked to a technician at their facility, he had no idea about any issues with via drivers and win2000. Although he may not of been able to tell me even if he did know. After he deemed my mb bad, he sent me to the rma department who said they are going to charge me $25 to repair my board!!! WHAT!!! First this is a brand new board, i do not want it repaired if you think its bad I want a new one. second why do i have to pay $25 for a board that you manufactured badly? Please keep in mind that I was polite about the whole thing and did not raise my voice once. I asked to speak to a manager. I know its not the smartest thing, but i needed answers that the lady could not give me. after putting me on hold for 25 minutes they hung up on me. I called back, got to the rma department, asked for a supervisor, they sent me to the voicemail system!!! Called back again, again they sent me to the voicemail system. I have not recieved a callback as of yet, but i figure they are closed on the weekends even though my problem still persists. I also want to point out one other thing again because I know many of you are thinking it. I never raised my voice or used any sort of bad behavior/language when talking to anyone at abit. I myself work for an oem computer manufacturer (as a tech) and know what its like when a client calls in and uses an abrassive tone. That is why I kept myself to being as polite as possible and still recieved the above treatment. If this is abits idea of customer support, I will never by an abit board again and am still trying to decide if i should return the one i have now for a different brand.
Maybe I am in the wrong, but I dont see why I would have to pay a dime for a board that is shipped bad. If anyone has any comments about this situation, either about my win2000 problem especially, or about what you think of abits tech support, please post. I am intrested in knowing if anyone else finds this absurd or if anyone else has had a pleasant experience with abits support.
Thank you.
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