GF3/KT266A/WinXP Pro problems

[Neo_Geo]

A friend of mine recently purchased a new computer which he is building.

Problem is after he installs everything, the screen just goes blank or displays colored lines whenever he seems to access some 3D software.

Here is what I know of the system:
AthlonXP 1600+
MSI KT266A MB (can't remember the model, but it has the promise raid on it which we have disabled for the moment)
Gainward GF3 Ti 450 (I think... I know it is a Gainward GF3 Ti 200 model)
SB Audigy
384 MB RAM in the 2 banks closest to the cpu

Another odd thing that may or may not be related is that after installing WinXP, he cannot boot from the CD. A message saying press any key to bood from cd displays, but it continues to boot from hd (yes we did hit keys).

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[krystalogik]

at what point does it go blank? During startup?, after loading? after which driver installs?

 

[daveybrat]

sorry man, sounds like hes' another victim of the KT266A chipset and GF3 video cards. I had the same thing happen and so have many people.
Try using a GF2 MX card or an ATI Radeon card. Otherwise he'll continue to lock up in 3d games, but windows usually runs solid.

 

[Neo_Geo]

Well, I think he got it working.

I told him to reinstall WinXP Pro and FIRST THING after that to install the 4-in-1 drivers. Aftrer that, he said it was working great.

I also told him to disable some things in his bios (NEC usb 2.0 was sharing IRQ with his videa). But I am not sure if he did all that.

I know he also kept the onboard sound enabled even though he is using a SB Audigy. I saw something about this on the MSI website.

Anyway, whatever it was... it works now.

Before, what was actually happening is when entering a 3d app, the screen wouldn't necessarily go blank, but it would go all screwy with colored lines and the sort.

 

[ianbergman]

I always had this problem with the KT266, but now that I have a KT266a board, it works perfectly... along with the latest 4-in-1s, of course 🙂