Asus A7V133 problem solved

[Leo V]

UPDATE: Scroll down for solution.

I'm having a very bad day 🙁

My A7V133 got here (to relieve me of my Pro2A nightmare). Everything is set up correctly, I'm not messing with 133FSB or anything non-default yet. Still using the VIA ATA controller for now. Booting and BIOS work fine.

Now I try booting into Windoze 98SE. Not so fast, VxD error! Subsequent attempts to restart Win98SE produced grotesque registry corruption reports and lurid crashes. What's worse, I couldn't reinstall Win98 on this preexisting partition, because the mandatory ScanDisk would inevitably freeze.

This happens all the time between Intel and VIA chipsets...but I only changed from KT133 to KT133A! It this travesty normal Windoze behavior in my case?

I have a chance to backup my data. Should I then factory-format my 75GXP and start from scratch? Any other suggestions?

 

[osage]

Yes, format then reinstall OS and drivers.

 

[MrGrim]

I'm dual booting, Win2K and Win98. I used to own a BX board and a Celeron 2. I recently upgraded to a Asus A7V133/Duron combo. Win2K refused to load, giving me a Stop Error, but Win98 worked like a charm, reinstalled all the drivers and it's been fine since. Go figure.

 

[Ausm]

Start--->Run-->Regedit

Hklocal machine\Enum erase everything there and it will force the PNP installation of the correct drivers. This procedure has saved my ars many a time

Ausm

 

[XMan]

Leo, ausm has it right. I shifted from KT133 and had the same problems as you. I booted to safe mode, deleted all of the device drivers, and have been humming along ever since.

 

[nortexoid]

personally - would repartition/reformat - clean up teh junk...

early spring cleaning that is...get to it!

 

[Leo V]

By the time you guys suggested the "registry surgery", I had already factory-formatted with IBM's utility. But read on:

The problem is, I'm still seeing rabid lockups and errors, when Windows runs the pre-installation disk check! I had just created a new FAT32 partition with FDISK, and the problems persist! This is starting to feel like CPU or chipset instability. Any ideas? The errors+lockups always occur when running text-mode ScanDisk.

 

[XMan]

Leo, just out of right field here, but I had some problems trying to install the OS where it was doing stuff similar to what you're saying, and the CPU had been overclocked too far. I know you're not overclocking your CPU, but is there a chance your core is chipped or something? Do you have another CPU laying around that you can test? Reason I ask is that it just seems weird that you'd get two dud boards in a row from different manufacturers. Or, your grandfather could have raided the Pharoah's tomb. Perhaps this is Tut's revenge. 😉

 

[Leo V]

OK, I think I've nailed it...damn stupid IRQ conflict involving my nic. Let's see if this works... God I hate the ungodly x86 architecture!!

 

[Leo V]

Xerox Man, we've just posted simultaneously! 🙂 In 5 minutes we'll know if the problem is fixed. Holding what's left of my fingers crossed!! Your heavy-duty advice might come in handy if it didn't help...

 

[Leo V]

Just terrific! Removing the nic allowed ScanDisk to work flawlessly. Now I get an error only once it begins installing system files! How nice! :| I have no other Tbirds around for CPU troubleshooting (though CPU trouble isn't likely IMO). ...

 

[Leo V]

dp

 

[Narse]

I had a simalar problem with this board, it eneded up being a combo of my IDE drive( I am running RAID as well) and sound card, VIA chips are ungodly ruthless about cards in slots

 

[nortexoid]

why don't u jsut pull everything out of the system except one hdd, the optical and video...

and set yoru bios to "fail-safe" settings..i.e. cas2, no shadowing, etc. etc.

 

[Leo V]

I think I got it! 🙂 A weird problem with LED cabled seems to be at fault!!!! :Q I'll verify this in a second...

 

[Leo V]

I've done pretty much that.

I'm re-FDISKing and reformatting to verify whether the problem is solved. If the issues suddenly reappear, I guess I'll just shoot myself.

 

[Leo V]

OK, it's the same old ScanDisk lockup. Just call me an idiot 😕 Please don't even waste your time helping me, at least for the next few hours. I'm going for a 1-on-1 showdown against my computer. Either this POS will work or I'm going to the asylum.

 

[XMan]

Leo, what's your full system config? Are you running an Aureal sound card? - Edit, duh, I just checked it.

Check what voltage your board is giving to your CPU - I know my Epox gives my board a bit more than it's set for for some reason, so I have to jack it down.

 

[Leo V]

Finally solved it for real! I re-tested 10 times to make sure I really solved it!

Here is what really happened:

I was using a crappy (and somewhat stale) thermal compound on the Tbird. By the whim of nature, it decided to lump itself together on the new motherboard. No wonder I got ludicrously high temp readings on the A7V133! And I just attributed it to greater accuracy!

So I lapped the crap off and applied a thin layer of newer compound. Now everything works! Double, triple, 10X re-checked.

This is also definitely a different problem entirely from my Pro2A problems. The first reason is that my CPU temps on the Pro2A were always below 40C (as opposed to 67C just recently). The other reason is the completely different nature of the crashes.

I'll write a new thread w/performance and feature comparisons tonight, if I don't fall asleep.