GA - 8KNXP problems

[sritri]

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Model Name :GA-8KNXP
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M/B ver : 1.0
BIOS : F9

Genuine Intel 2.4C, GEIL 512 Mb DDR 3200, Intel 400W power supply, Windows 2000 SP 4 with all critical updates.

I have 200 Gb Western Digital HDD and 160 Gb Maxtor HDDs connected to IDE1 and DVD RAM & CDRW connected to IDE2. Onboard SATA Auido disabled. Audio is Created Audigy 2


I bought thsi board after reading several reviews on this site.

Now the computer hangs everytime I open Windows Explorer. If I leave it for sometime I get the control back. Another Explorer windows, the same thing happens. The PC freezes. If I disable Hyper Threading it is just better but problem is continuous.

I cannot restart from windows. Tried XP Home, XP Professional...all the same result. On XP Professional with SP1, I have totally power off everytime I open explorer.

It the same with other applications too. I cannot play ANY...ANY game. It just freezes. No help still from Giga-byte..

Pls help

Shreeni

 

[gigadude]

hmm....a couple of questions;

what memory timings are you running ?
have tried running memtest to see if your memory runs ok ?
have you tried increasing the vdimm to (+0.2)

how did you flash your bios ? did you use the q-flash or @bios utility ?
have you had similar issues with other bioses ?

did you clean install your os ?


Lots of people had issues with bios upgrades with this board. I currently run f7b or f6 as the most stable bios.
My memory timings are 2-2-2-6 (very rare), but most people run 2-6-3-2 with an increased vdimm of +0.2 (+2.75V).....

 

[sritri]

Everything is a default. I have not touched any of the default settings. Giga answered today to say GEIL is incompatibe and to use Corsair. I dont know if NewEgg will replace after 3 months ???

I flashed the bios both thru @BIOS and QFlash. But the end result is the same.

I will try to see if the timings u have given works.

Thx for the help...

I'll update this after I try the new settings

Shreeni

 

[gigadude]

Overall, I haven't found Gigabyte's tech support to be that helpful.

Just because they say that the memory isn't compatible doesn't mean that it won't work.
A good way to find out is to run memtest (http://www.memtest86.com/). Just install it on a floppy, make sure that boot up on floppy seek is enabled in bios and run it for a while to see if you get any errors. If you do, don't freak out, that just means you might have to increase the vdimm (+0.2V) or possibly tweak your memory timings. Dunno, if you have performance mode (in bios) enabled or not, but you might want to try disabling that as well.....

You might have to fiddle around with memtest as well as your timings in order to get it to run ok.

Personally, I run Mushkin's dual channel PC3500 memory sticks....and I was able to run 2-2-2-5 & 6 with memtest clean but after Sandra's memory benchmark decided to relax my timings to 2-6-3-2.
The 875 chipset does have quite a bit of memory compatibility issues.....so if your memory problems (assuming that it is a memory problem) aren't solved I'd suggest you try either Mushkin or OZC memory......

Another great forum is the: http://www.abxzone.com/forums/index.php?s=f2ecccfc3a686875d757597a7e704643 (http://www.abxzone.com)

 

[sritri]

U r right on dot. Ur earlier post was also extremely useful and I d/led both memtest and other tools u and other members suggested to verify if the HT was enabled or not. Memtest came out clean as also the SiSoft Sandra benchmarks.

However I will try to increase the voltage level and see if this will help. But what I cant understand among other things are, why does the system fail to restart if it can shutdown (Power off) and start. If restart does not happen from Windows then I know I need to search MSDN or somesuch thing to get info but the m/b fails to restart even before o/s level.

 

[gigadude]

hmm....dunno....I don't that that increasing the vdimm will help your shutdown issue. If you ran memtest a couple of cycles (or overnight) and it came out clean then your memory is fine.

The reason I had you check that issue is because in most 875 chipsets, memory is the culprit.

From here on, it could be variety of issues such as bios settings, hardware configuration or possibly any of the windows updates you might have made.

Did you have this issue all the time ? Or can you track it back to a specific windows-update that you might have made ? (some of them actually cause this kind of things)

Did you have these issues with previous bios revisions, and if not you might want to consider using previous bios versions.......

 

[sritri]

The board came with F5 when I got it from NewEgg. Everything worked fine right out of the box for several days and later I flased the BIOS twice to F7.

Then the day after Thanksgiving ( ) ) I installed my new LiteOn DVD burner and life has become a mess. First XP SP1 crashed and kept crashing for unknown reason. I could never re-install XP again even after clean booting and formatting my 160 G Maxtor. I tried Windows 2003 server, was even worse. BSOD if I move the mouse. )

Then finally I installed 2000 SP4 and upgraded till the latest available patch. But all thru this pain I had to endure this new problem of no-restarts. It just refuses to restart on such a simple step like save new BIOS settings. I have to Power down and then power up. I removed the DVD Burner, HDDs, even then this new problem never went away. I even restored the Backup BIOS to the Main bios (F5) but then nothing changed.

Do u know anything about these LiteOn DVD Burners ?? though at the BIOS level they shud have not have any negative impact ??

:|

 

[gigadude]

you might want to see if there is a firmware update for you lite-on burner.....and if that doesn't help, try posting your issue at the 8KNXP forum with ABXFORUM, there's lots of people there with related issues that might have some more ideas than what I have at the moment.....

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=45508&goto=newpost (this post didn't work a fex minutes ago but give it a shot, it rocks)

:0

 

[sumrtym]

Power specs? Maybe your burner pushed you past your PSU abilities to provide power and made your system unstable? Also, try the install guide at abxzone....it's indispensible for good, clean installs when building a computer to eliminate problems.