ASUS A7N266-C strange behaviour and problem.

[Valis]

Anyone that runs Win98 / Win98SE on this mobo, I can't find a driver for the IDE controller. I'm not
sure that is a problem, but Win98(SE) is acting very strangely on this motherboard.

The main problem is that the real time clock isn't working, when I play movies or music they
go full out, I mean they play in 70 - 100 fps. I don't know what to do about it really.
The movies seem to be in normal speed in XP, but I have only managed to get XP going
in safe mode so far.

What's the best OS for this mobo / chipset anyway? WinXP?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The MS standard IDE controllers work fine so chipset specific controllers in most cases aren't necessary. XP should be great with that board, did you do a clean install or upgrade?

 

[Valis]

Clean install, I ran the install from Win98, and did a dual boot thingy. I have thought a bit about
what to do with the common "Program Files". But that's another story. After that I'm installing
some linux on other partitions, I guess I'll use Debian or Gentoo, XFS or Ext3.

The first time I did an install XP worked for a while and ran perfectly, then suddenly it failed to
boot, even into safe mode, so I removed it. I install them on FAT32 of course.

I will fiddle a bit with this and try and install WinME and Win2K pro too, see which works best for me,
othervise I'm dumping this mobo and buying a SIS746 (coming soon). The only good thing about this
new setup is the watercooling system I have for it, Dangerden and Eheim 1048 pump.

But I have the experience, must have done somewhere between 1000 - 5000 installments over the years.
From Win 3.x to Win9x, WinNT, etc.

I just think it's sad that a new mobo and chipset isn't working as good as my old BX did. :-/
(As we say in Sweden: Det va bättre för!)

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Yeah, I have to agree that this is a buggy chipset, I'm now having issues with the A7N266-VM. The LAN stopped working all of a sudden for the internet although it'll access PCs on my home network. Still haven't resolved it, so I'm doing a clean reinstall as I type this. I don't know what you said in Swedish? but I suspect it's along the lines of "that's what returns are for" or am I wrong? BTW what kind of overclock are you getting with that water cooling setup?

 

[Valis]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I don't know what you said in Swedish? but I suspect it's along the lines of "that's what returns are for" or am I wrong? BTW what kind of overclock are you getting with that water cooling setup?

WARNING!!! OFF TOPIC

No. The Swedish was refering to the BX chipset, since it is an old and stable product I kinda used the saying old people use here.
Which is "It was better in the old days" or "When I was young, we had real.....". Not to be confused with the old Swedish saying
"When I was a kid I had to walk 7 miles to school, in a snowstorm", and as time goes by, those 7 miles tend to become 8,9 or even
15 miles. Originally it was only 3 miles and just snow, no blizzard or even a little windy.

The water cooling setup isn't runing on full speed just yet, I have to get the OS to work before I do any kind of high frequences. But
I can get 200 - 300 Mhz extra without heating up the CPU much. With cold water the CPU runs at 35C, from 1533 to ~ 1610Mhz.
I might not get there, since the mobo isn't working very well :frown:

 

[tuan121]

i think its time u upgraded OSes. The nforce were intended to be used w/ Windows Xp or Win2k. Win98 is sooo old anyhow. 2k or Xp is way more stable. =D Upgrade OS buddy!!!!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

LOL Valis BTW, I wasn't able to get the integrated MAC controller to play nice with my router so I put a 10/100 card in it and now no worries but it's little things like that which disenchant me with a chipset. It's working well with XP pro otherwise and I will put another stick of DDR in it and overclock the FSB to get some bandwidth performance out of it as it's abismal right now! Hopefully the Nforce2 will renew our faith in Nvidia's ability to produce a stable, high performing chipset for AMD.

 

[Valis]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Hopefully the Nforce2 will renew our faith in Nvidia's ability to produce a stable, high performing chipset for AMD.

Ugh, I have just finished my fault track and search, trial and error. :frown: I have found out what is causing the worst problems. I have now installed and
tried Win98SE, WinME, Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro. Most of them wont even boot the second time around unless I get into SAFE mode and disable the
IDE controller, othervise they hang and never make it to logon screen. :Q After many days of testing and sleepless nights I'm ready to throw this mobo
on the nearest Socialdemokrat or activist. I'm so fed up with it. This is by far the worst mobo I've worked with, random lockups, and bluescreens in any
OS. *Big sigh*

Originally posted by: tuan121Win98 is sooo old anyhow. 2k or Xp is way more stable. =D Upgrade OS buddy!!!!

I did, I am now runing the bulky sheeet of M$ XP Pro. Same errors, just a bit more extravagant.


Anyone that wants this? I'll send it to ya. I don't know who I should blame, ASUS or Nvidia. Or M$ for not writing me a working IDE driver. More buggy
than the old 640 chip that HP used in their 486 and 586s.

 

[Noid]

Dunno If I have any better input , but I just installed the A7N266-C.

Check out my post in Technical form. I had to use a different HD on a clean instal of W2K SP3.

Wouldnt even boot from CD at first either.