Anyone who knows ANYTHING about SIS620/5595 PLEASE post..

[Deanodarlo]

I have a friend who has the SIS 620/5595 chipset in a computer he picked up from work on the cheap a couple of years ago.

Recently, I re-installed Windows ME (no comments please, it's all I/he has got) but this thing will not stay stable with a USB broadband modem connected to it. It crashed before and it's still crashing.

Without the USB broadband modem, it works fine using it's 56K dialup. I know because I've tested it around my house along with the CPU and RAM with prime95 and memtest - both fine.

What I'm wondering is if I've failed to install some patch for stability. I installed Win ME, all the latest updates, modem and sound drivers.

Have I missed something? Does it require a patch for USB, or special IRQ miniport driver? Can't find anything relating to this on the net.

Very unlikely but, does anyone out there have any experience running a broadband USB modem with this chipset or have any stories about its stability?

Will Windows 98 (NOT SE) have the necessary USB drivers to work with a broadband modem? I might try that next, although something tells me it will probably have the same problem.

Thanks in advance.

 

[pspada]

I'm not sure about the USB aspect, nor if the problem is due to the SiS chipset, but can you not simply add an ethernet connection and utilize that instead of the USB connection?

I did have a client machine on Windows ME that had problems freezing and crashing when connecting to the net. The problem ended up being IE 6, so I used IEraidicator to competely remove it, then installed IE5.5, and the latest patches for that - which are available from www.microsoft.com/ie ONLY for Windows ME. This fixed the connection problems.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Good advice, but this damn cheapo board doesn't have an ethernet connection even though the chipset has it built in.

It's already got IE5.5 running, plus latest patches.

Thanks for trying though!

 

[Peter]

SiS 620 does NOT have ethernet integrated.

Anyhow, general stability problems, particularly on shared-memory VGA architectures, are RAM problems most of the time. www.memtest86.com

 

[pspada]

I actually meant to possibly add a PCI NIC.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Thanks for the replies, but like I explained in my first post already tested the ram and cpu using prime95 and memtest.

This thing has an option in the bios to enable a built in network device???? But no connecter at the back, that's why I thought the chipset may have supported it. Perhaps it has an extra network chip onboard but needs an extra card or connector or something. Oh well, thanks for setting me straight.

If no one has a solution, I'm just going to rip out the POS motherboard and replace it with a second hand intel chipset model, bought dirt cheap off e-bay. That should sort it out.

 

[Peter]

Maybe you should identify the mainboard first? Post the BIOS ID string shown on the bottom of the POST screen.

Most probably it's a PC-Chips mainboard. The later ones did have an onboard PCI LAN chip, and if this is a BAT form factor board, it used a specific LAN slot bracket.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Looks like a PC chips board, even if it had no markings on the PCB.

It's around my friends at the moment, crashing as he's trying to use msn. He claims it's crashing more since the re-install, but I put on EXACTLY the same software as before so can't explain that one.

Anyway, I've just bought an INTEL 810 chipset motherboard (MSI 6178) for £10 and I'm going to transfer everything over. Hopefully this will solve the problem. I'll report back once it's complete.

If not he can just go and buy a flippin second hand pentium III base unit for £70 or something. All he uses it for is Word, msn and net surfing anyway. In fact, a PII for £40 will even do the job.

 

[Peter]

Normally those PC-Chips boards run quite well and reliable, albeit slow (of course, given the RAM speed and the shared-memory-VGA architecture). Pity yours didn't.