Bad May, 2001 IWILL KK266-R motherboard

iwillbedamn3d

Junior Member
Dec 6, 2001
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Subj : Bad May, 2001 IWILL KK266-R motherboard


Anyone else have a May, 2001 IWILL KK266-R motherboard that has been used a lot and is still running stable?

I was running stable for 3 THREE months with extensive usage. Needless to say, it is damned now. Extremely Intermittent freezes (from 5min to 10hours), regardless of operating system or hardware attached. NEVER installed any 4in1/bios in this time or touched/moved ANYTHING inside the case or plugs (no power surges either ;)


Here's how I concluded this is so:

- Swapped & tested from a working AMD PC:
CPU, Memory, Video Card, PSU

Both of our AMD PC's have the SAME specs; Duron 800, PC133 256MB memory, GeForce 2 MX/400, 300watt PSU

Each was tested individually. When these were tested on my machine, the board continued to have intermittent freezes.


- Disconnected/removed everything except the PSU, Mobo, CPU, Memory, & PC speaker. Disconnected and reconnected these to make sure they were seated properly/firmly.

With this setup, sometimes a long continuous beep "memory inset error" would occur, and other times, w/o changing anything except powering it on again, no beeps. And still other times, the POST would succeed (1 short beep).

It seems to be a pattern, when I finally do succeed on POST, subsequent power off/on events will work; however, when I get long continuous beeping (or no beeping), this will happen repeatedly on subsequent power off/on's too.

When it finally does switch between these modes, it does so without me ever changing a SINGLE setting/device. Clearing the CMOS does nothing to help cure this.

To clear up some questions, here are some things I think are important to know:

- I never OC'd this box.

- My PSU, Mobo, CPU/heatsink, Memory and the rest of my PC are all new components that worked/ran flawlessly for about 3 months (averaging maybe? 4 hours a day of it being on in that time)

NEVER did I have these weird random POST errors, nor did I mess with inside of the case in that time.

- When HARD Freezes and random POST errors began, I had NOT installed any system driver update (4in1/bios) in that time.

- I have tested the PSU with a very minimal setup (as told above), and also with MANY devices connected to it. The variability of POST succeeding does not increase either way.

- When POST does succeed, I can boot into win2k and every device will work/function normally, up to the point it HARD freezes (no BSOD).

This freeze can occur while booting (rare), within 5 minutes after booted into OS (not so common), within 20-90 minutes (quite common), and sometimes around 3 hours (more common than not so common, but still not as common as common

- I also had a few freezes just idling in the BIOS (having changed or inputting NOTHING) - it doesn't matter where. This is an important distinction.

- It's not a weak board nor a heat prob, it's just defective. I have run all sorts of benchmarking utilities on this board. 3DMark 2001, SANDRA, Prime95, Quake3demo -- freezes would NOT occur more often than just leaving the PC idle.

- Originally when my PC began to randomly fail while in win2k, they were all BSOD's (Paging memory errors in NTOSKRNL.EXE) and not HARD freezes. Also, to note, after powering off/on, POST would always succeed and I could boot into win2k again.

This happened between 4-7 days, and shortly thereafter, I was getting memory inset errors (a long continuous beep in POST) after a HARD freeze. So, I removed & reseated the memory and tried all 3 dimm slots, but to no avail. When I finally did get the PC to POST successfully, it was when I had not touched/changed a thing.


- Sometimes, though not too often, I get no beeps when booting, and when it occurs, it usually happens repeatedly. The other 80-90% of the time, it's a long continuous beep (memory inset errors).

- RMA is not an option


btw, this is the first PC I ever bought, or built. maybe i'm just one of the very few iwill_be_damned users.

I updated the BIOS to October, 22, 2001; than updated to VIA v4.35
Tested individually, random freezes still occured.

My only hope is that someone out there can tell me I'm not alone; and hopefully tell me there is a fix for this. mobo mod, special bios?? Yeah, right, IWILL_be_damned is dreaming again.. ;)
 

BreakApart

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2000
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I have (2) fully functional running almost 24/7 KK266-r systems.

Both systems have:
1.2G Athlons--not overclocked
300watt PSU
other basics

The ONLY posting problems i have had were related to my Geforce3-(normal not Ti model)
It appears the Geforce3 pulls too much power, either the AGP slot can't handle it, or the 300watt PSU is barely enough.
I can get the Geforce3 to boot 50% of the time, once it's running though it runs for hours no-sweat. Same EXACT same system with a Kyro2 it boots 100% week after week.

I have seen the MX400 cards do this exact thing in other systems. It seems those cards are also power hogs.
Testing on that system showed that the original MX card booted fine, but with the MX400 installed it refused to boot.

Try your system with either a PCI card, or an ATI, or Kyro2 card.
If it posts just fine, then you fall into the Geforce wants too much DARN power it messes up my system club!

 

iwillbedamn3d

Junior Member
Dec 6, 2001
8
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no, i'm afraid we aren't understanding eachother. I have never changed any physical hardware on this system. it worked flawlessly for 3 months. i have also done a minimal setup without any video card, and i still get random POST errors.

Let's put it this way: i know for a FACT it's not any device incompatibility with the motherboard that is causing this problem.

thanks for trying to help. i can appreciate that.
 

iwillbedamn3d

Junior Member
Dec 6, 2001
8
0
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FYI: RMA is not a option due to a little accidental cosmetic change - i cracked the board in one of my earlier bouts with it placing a memory stick in.

it still works, however, as it always has: intermittenly


I ordered a K7N420 MSI nForce a week ago.

Motherboard manufacturers, chipset makers, third party hardware. I think it's to be expected to get a bad board given the sometimes bad quality control; or for one party, for one reason or another, not implementing by the specs.

Though, I read the most good experiences with AMD,Tyan and Intel boards. (word: 'read')
 

Viper22

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,607
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Well seeing as you just said you cracked the board at one point it wouldnt surprise me that its having problems. As for mine the one im using is in the system in my Sig line has been running 24/7 Since May except for a week when i was in Atlanta and have had no problems with it so far.

Viper22
 

iwillbedamn3d

Junior Member
Dec 6, 2001
8
0
0
it still works, however, as it always has: intermittenly

That is to say, it worked intermittenly before I even cracked the board.
 

Viper22

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,607
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Well only thing i can think of is that you got a bad board to begin with. The one im running was worked flawless since i picked it up at the end of may when i got back from E3.

Viper22
 

iwillbedamn3d

Junior Member
Dec 6, 2001
8
0
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Someone at the http://www.forumoc.com/ forum suggested it may be bad memory.

I concluded it is highly unlikely the case since I swapped two generic PC133 256MB DIMM's and the intermittent freezes on this IWILL KK266-R machine persisted; while the memory I had in the non-IWILL mobo (Compaq OEM - unsure of the mobo model) NEVER froze in over 12 hours of uptime.

I ran the Memtest-86 v2.8 http://www.memtest86.com/ on a bootdisk, and it validated this even further. I ran it for exactly 12 hours without a single memory error. Needless to say, I would have been happy to see that it was bad memory.


On a related note, it appears the BIOS upgrade to Oct 22, 2001 does indeed make the intermittent freezes less. It now can often functionally work without a freeze for 10-12 hours in the last week since I upgraded to it. Previously, before this upgrade, 3 hours of uptime without a freeze was rare. I will see if this uptime continues in the future.

It appears that this is possibly not a new issue at all for the May, 2001 IWILL KK266 motherboard BIOS.

From:
http://www.x-faqtor.com/KK266.htm


<< 8/31/01: New KK266 & R Bios,only change appears to be to add support for Palomino, but reports are coming in saying it fixes the shutdown/endless reboot problem of the May bios;" >>




Hmm, if this is true, it would appear IWILL does not state this for one reason or another. I will remain neutral on this and not speculate into more detail, despite the extreme frustrations I've had with this board.
 

AkumaBao

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2001
1,438
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<< Hmm, if this is true, it would appear IWILL does not state this for one reason or another. >>



They're actually pretty good about stating their mistakes. Have you tryed any other RAM chip in it? It might be compatible with a Compaq, but it doesn't mean it's compatible with an Iwill.

Wait. You cracked the board when you put a RAM chip in? Just because it didn't pose to be a problem then, doesn't mean that it can't be the problem now. Just something to consider.
 

Raincity

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2000
4,477
12
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I have this board on my secodary machine and its chugging along just fine 24/7 doing Seti when not in use since June. Only problems I had whas the dreaded Video card problem also when I swapped a GF 2 GTS to a GF 3 and had the power at post problems and also had to flash to the May bios release to get the SB LIVE 5.1 to run right.

Rain