ABIT nf7-s problems... tons of them :(

[kakac]

Hi, been lurking here for a while.. just finally decided to join up but here it goes
I got my board a few weeks ago and finally was able to install it. Everything was going all fine and well until i booted up with my serial ata hdd in place and tried to install the drivers onto my os when it froze. I rebooted to realize that it wouldnt get past the "Win2k" loading screen. I reformatted immedetly and tried again, same thing happened. Froze then rebooted (however this time i made a backup hardware config ). It doesnt detect the drive that is in place and ive tried every possible jumper setting (cs/slave/master) it is a maxtor 120 8mb cache 7200 rpm. That is problem #1. Problem #2 is that my computer "idles" at around 70-100% (cpu resources being used). I have no clue why this is so... ive done many adaware searches and scaned my computer for viruses (after a format now...) expecting nothing and finding nothing. When i go into the nvidia utility area it tells me that the onboard sound is using 4 2d channels (whatever that means) and it is using 41% of the system resources. I have an amd 2100+ tempratures around 50ishC (would this cause many errors and high cpu resources). And recently ive noticed a huge performance drop (encoding speeds were formerly 30+ fps and they have suddenly droped to 10-5fps). And on top of that random interment crashes/restarts. What might cause these things?

Video Card: Hercules GeForce 2
Sound: onboard ABIT nf7-s
NIC: Linksys LNE100TX 10/100
HDD's: 30.4 WD 5400 rpm (unknown cache)
20 IBM 5400 (unknown cache) (REAL REAL SLOW!)
75 WD 7200 rpm 8meg(i think)
120 Maxtor 7200 rpm 8meg
Raid Controlers: Silicon image SiI 0680 ATA/133 Pci Controller
CD Drives: Samsung 48/16/48 (broken atm not in computer)
Hitachi DVD-ROM GD-2500
USB mouse


Thanks for all your help

 

[foofoo]

hi,
i'm running that mb and have a few problems, but they seem to be related to the nforce drivers, not the board itself (and xp).
for problem # 1 - have you updated the bios? as i recall, there was an issue about boot problems with a sata disk attached that is addressed in the latest bios.
for problem # 2 - this sounds like drivers. are you getting any errors reported in your event viewer? did you install the latest nforce drivers? (new ones out today). have you checked device manager and seen any devices with problems? out of curiosity, why are you using a ethernet card instead of the built it?
as for the heat, yes, it appears that the abitnf7-s seems to be reading about 6-8 degrees high. this is addressed in a beta bios that s floating around if you want to install it. so your temps arent as bad as they seem.
you might want to try a fresh install on one disk and add devices one at a time looknig at the performance to see where you get a problem.
good luck

 

[mechBgon]

Is that Maxtor natively a SATA drive, or are you using Abit's SATA adapter on it? (if it is SATA, where did you get it? Enquiring minds want to know ). Also, what is your power supply's brand and model?

In Windows Task Manager, you might be able to pin down what's sucking the CPU time. Right-click the Taskbar and click Task Manager, then hit the Processes tab and look for what's using the CPU %.

 

[kakac]

antec 400 watt powersupply (clean volts i think...) 4.89(stable doesnt move) for the 5v and anywhere between 11.8-12.4 for the 12 volt. I used abits serial adapter for the ide but.. as for the processor usage, i have no coue whats doing it, ive checked hndreds of times and all it says is "system idle processes" (79-100) right as of now my computer is lagging while typing . later on tonight ill try a fresh install and see what happens . bios has been updated to v 1.2

errors:
tons of them... except i dont believe that any of them have to do with drivers (internet explorer and warcraft mainly)

 

[przero]

Just flashed mine with the latest BIOS. Temp under load dropped to 46.5 under full load, down from 52. Plus I turned the fan on my TT Volcano 9 down to below 50%. Boot times better. Stable with 1800XP 151@11.5. Gonna run it for 24 hrs. before increasing FSB. Memory @ 6-2-2-2.5

 

[blcjr]

I too flashed with the new bios. Seems to give more realistic temp readings, but now my cpu fan isn't being read correctly.