ECS K7S5A IRQ's? 100/133 ??? & Temp Checker

[ericlp]

I built a few of these for friends and thought I'd keep one for a 3rd machine. Anyway... This is a fry's deal, ECS K7S5A 950 80.00 combo and I've put 6 of these together for others with no problems as of yet 'KNOCK ON WOOD'... I never did have a problem... I do have a few questions...

Is a duron 950 suppose to run at 133/133??? I thought it would. But all the boards I've built I've tried and they fail. This is using Kingston ddr 2100 RAM.

Last Question. I've heard of lot's of people that when they are playing games the NIC or the Built in Sound card dies... I haven't gotten around to testing this out. A bit further reading and.... People are saying check IRQ, is 5 being shared with the LAN? Seems that was the problem... Well, Here is my question.

My Sound card isn't even taking up IRQ 5. But is sharing just about everything off of IRQ 11...
This is what WIN 2K reports....

I've got 5 devices on IRQ 11...

1 Nvdia Riva TNT2
2 SIS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host
3 Ditto Another USB Open Host
4 SIS 7012 Audio Driver
5 Sis 900 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter


Normally I'd want the sound card to be on IRQ 5. Since IRQ 5 is free... But, when going into device manager seems it is locked. Anyone know of a way to change the IRQ to 5?

I find it strange that on IRQ 9 it states Microsoft ACPI Compliant System... Why is that? Shouldn't IRQ 9 be for video? And IRQ 11 be for the NIC?

If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatful!


Lastly a recomendation....


I just downloaded speed fan 4.02 from hotfiles.com

Maybe I just got lucky. But it is a pretty cool program for free. Displays both CPU and System Temps and Fan Speed. Also shows what Temp you want in the System Tray...

I also got it to do a report. But, know for some reason after I deleted it and put it in a diffrent directory it thinks I have an Assus board. Oh well, All I wanted it for was to check CPU/Temp Speeds works good for that...


MY CPU temp reports at 36C idle. And up to 39 with full SETI running in the back Ground...
Using a Cooler Master EP5-6I11
In an Antec Case running super stable on a PP-303XP 300Watt PS.

 

[AndyHui]

Please read the FAQ: Why are all my devices using one IRQ in Win2K/WinXP?

All Durons run at 100/200MHz FSB, not 133/266MHz FSB.

 

[cr4pz0r]

I've ditched my K7S5A; though Win XP isn't reporting that notorious IRQ sharing (all PCI devices sharing the same IRQ) even with ACPI enabled, I've found a different IRQ sharing problem that crops up even with Win 98 and Win Me: Even when I disabled the onboard NIC and the onboard sound, there are NO unshared PCI slots at all whatsoever. In fact, all of the PCI slots on that mobo share the same IRQ as the AGP slot or the USB controller - and the USB controller itself uses two IRQs (the AGP slot uses IRQ 11, and the USB controller uses both IRQ 5 and IRQ 10)! And I have a PS2 mouse connected to it (nope, I was leery of buying a USB mouse for fear that the mouse wouldn't work at all during Windows installation - only after Windows is up and running), to boot! And I was (am) using a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card instead of the mobo's built-in sound - and it and all other sound cards with built-in 3D hardware acceleration don't like shared IRQs at all! And there's no way whatsoever to change or fix IRQ assignments of specific PCI slots in either ECS's or PC Chips' officially released BIOSes for their SiS735 motherboards! WTF has AMI done to its newer BIOSes? :|:Q

 

[Peter]

Folks, read the FAQ. PCI and AGP devices may (and do) share IRQ just fine. All that "manual IRQ assigning and "unshared slot" thing has been hyped till it hurts - in real life, it's a useless waste of time. If you have standard compliant PCI and AGP cards with well behaved drivers, then you don't have a problem even if all the devices pile up on one single IRQ line. Period. Heck, the PCI 2.0 standard that made this mandatory is NINE years old now.

Also, ericlp, fixed IRQ assignments for sound, graphics, and whatnot have departed ever since we're on PCI. It's all dynamic, BIOS assigned, end of story.

No, not quite end of story. I have a K7S5A, and I have an AGP graphics card, another VGA on PCI, dual channel SCSI, dual function TV card, two NICs (onboard and PCI) and both onboard USB controllers running. Of course IRQ sharing is massive, but so what? System works fine.

regards, Peter

 

[cr4pz0r]

And I also gave up on the K7S5A because during the summertime (or when outside temperatures get hot), the room temperature climbs to near 80 degrees F even with the A/C on - and the BIOS will have trouble initializing and Windows XP will have trouble soft-rebooting (it will just sit at a blank screen and hangs) until I shut down the system, let the system cool for a little bit, and then turn the power back on. And for some reason these things happen when the CPU temperature as reported in the BIOS climbs above 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

 

[Peter]

Well at high ambient temperatures the first thing to bail out is the HDD ... provided you have adequate CPU cooling.

If you have 40°C under the CPU, you might very easily exceed the 50°C limit for the HDD surface temperature. A board with a different CPU or HDD connector placement may by accident have allowed more airflow toward the HDD, but that's something that could also be resolved by improving cable installation or using a HDD fan.

regards, Peter

 

[cr4pz0r]

I think it's the BIOS that slows down when the temperature's high. I have a case speaker, and it beeps twice (once before the BIOS screen shows up, the second just before the OS starts to boot). But when the temperature is very warm (as in summertime), it takes noticeably longer between the second beep (and the BIOS screen stays displayed longer than normal after the second beep) and the time the OS starts booting - and when that happens during a soft reboot, Windows XP bootup will hang.

 

[Peter]

Yes, that's the BIOS pulling the "throttling" emergency brakes when the CPU gets too hot.
This means your CPU cooling has been inadequate for the given ambient temperature (and it means
your new board doesn't have that kind of protection). You'd be surprised about how fast the effort
in keeping a CPU cool grows with ambient temperature.

regards, Peter

 

[Peter]

btw, with throttling active, the CPU will cool down substantially in a couple of seconds, so chances are
that your CPU temperature reading of 40°C was _after_ that happened?

And yes, many device drivers don't work properly anymore with CPU throttling active. They just can't
handle the stop-and-go nature of CPU throttling. This affects all x86 platforms.

regards, Peter

 

[cr4pz0r]

Peter, in the beginning I had a cheap CoolerMaster fan/heatsink on my Athlon XP CPU, which doesn't do an adequate job of cooling. So I replaced my CPU fan/heatsink twice - once with an Antec JetCool unit (which doesn't perform all that much better than the CoolerMaster), and then an Antec Reference series (significantly better, but also very noisy).

OK, given the bad floppy controller on my new KR7A-133, maybe you can recommend a replacement board - or have me go back to that K7S5A.

 

[Peter]

Well any mainboard will do if you get the cooling right. Keep an eye on having a proper case airstream
too, else your fine CPU cooler will just heat the air inside the box to the point of making itself useless.

You want an intaking case fan at the front bottom, the exhaust fan in the PSU, and maybe even an
extra exhaust fan on top.

regards, Peter