Installing Radeon8500 drivers in my K7S5A system causes data corruption.

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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I've been having problems browsing the internet since I upgraded my computer's hardware. A few programs failed to install properly as well. After windows crashed and ran chkdsk, I found out why. Alot of my files needed to be repaired...mostly temp internet files.

My system: ECS K7S5A, 512MB PC2100 Mushkin Basic, Radeon 8500, Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB, XP1700+ cpu....winXP with NTFS

All parts are new except for the motherboard which had been working fine for the past 6 months. While waiting for new parts, I used an old PCI videocard and SDRAM. The Seagate harddrive was brand new, and the first time I tried installing windows, I received an error when the files began copying. I figured the old memory didn't like the 133MHz FSB, so I ran my 1700+ at 1100MHz, and all was fine. I ran WinXP like that for a few days, and all was well.

When my Radeon and Mushkin ram arrived, I reformatted and installed winXP again. That is when I started having the web browsing problems. What would happen is certain pages would start to load, but before they finished I'd receive the standard IE message, as if I wasn't connected to the internet.

Chkdsk has never found a bad sector on the harddrive...only problems with the filesystem and certain files. Because of that, I was hesitant to blame the harddrive, so I went out and bought another motherboard thinking it might be the IDE controller. Unfortunately, it seems that the newest revision of the K7S5A using some tall capacitors near the cpu socket and my Alpha 8045 heatsink won't fit on the board. I was unable to try out the new board, but I did try the IDE cable on my old one.

With a fresh install of windows, and the new cable, WinXP installed fine. I was able to browse the internet, and windows update completed without any errors for the first time with this new setup. When I installed the latest Radeon8500 drivers (6037, i believe), the computer rebooted and took a long time to start windows. Once inside windows, my internet browsing problems popped up again, and chkdsk showed more corrupt files.

I just removed the ATi drivers a little while ago, and everything seems fine. I installed a ton of programs, including Homesite and Office which both failed before, and I've gone to every website I can think of. I've also rebooted a couple times thinking that would trigger an error.

After all my testing, it seems like the videocard drivers are causing the problems, but I can't imagine how they can affect the harddrive in this way. I'm going to go searching for the 6043 Radeon drivers right now and see if they mess things up when I install them.

If you've read this whole post, thanks alot. Any advice is welcome. I've assumed that since CHKDSK finds no bad sectors on the harddrive, the harddrive is not the problem. If this is a false assumption, please tell me how I can check it more thoroughly.
 

Duvie

Elite Member
Feb 5, 2001
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Hmmm....what bios are you running on the ecs??? I remember some conflicts awhile back with radeon cards noted in some threads....

Have you tried making sure fast writes were disabled in bios???


I also would recommend when installing windows with the ecs board that you do not oc anything and keep memory timings at safe or normal modes...

why you are at it run that memory at current timings and settings through memtest86 for awhile....


Corruption of data usually seems to be associated with bad ram or bad harddrives...are you ocing anything right now????
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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I'm using the latest official bios for the motherboard.

I haven't changed the fastwrites setting...I'll go check it after I finish replying.

Nothing is overclocked, and all bios settings are set to normal/by SPD.

...just downloaded memtest. I'll run that after i check on fastwrites.
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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Update:

There is no fastwrites setting in the latest K7S5A bios.

I ran memtest86 for 30 minutes....it ran through all the tests with no errors.

It's been about 5 hours of constant use without any more problems. It's also been 5 hours since I uninstalled the drivers for my Radeon8500, which leads me to the conclusion that it must be a problem between my motherboard and videocard. Gonna try the drivers that came on the videocard CD now, while I look for a place to download the 6043 betas.

Thanks for the help, and if anyone else has something for me to try, throw it out there and I'll do it...
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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As soon as I installed the driver off of the cd that came with my 8500, CHKDSK found errors. =(

I guess there's a hardware incompatibility here, and I'll have to get a new motherboard because when I can avoid the errors, the 8500 works great.
 

AA0

Golden Member
Sep 5, 2001
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have you tried setting the AGP to 2x instead of 4x?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. ECS sucks, they don't even have a fast write option.
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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I don't know if there's a BIOS setting for AGP 4X/2X, either. I'll check in a minute.

I'm looking for the least expensive compatible motherboard I can find. I need to be able to fit my Alpha 8045 on it, so that eliminates alot of them. So far, the MSI K7T266 Pro2 looks like the board for me.



EDIT: There is a setting for AGP4x control. I disabled it, and hope that will help. Thanks for suggesting it...I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier.
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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Disabling AGP4X didn't help, but since I've narrowed the problem down to a conflict between my K7S5A and my Radeon 8500 I'm going to change the title of the thread.

My last test, before I give up is to remove all partitions from my harddrive and start from scratch. I have removed and reformatted the primary NTFS partition every time I've reinstalled WinXP, but I've left the secondary partition alone. Since CHKDSK hasn't found any errors on the second partition, I didn't think I had to reformat it....guess I'll find out of that assumption was correct.
 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
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Check to be sure that the computer does not have any of the following features enabled in CMOS:

Video BIOS shadow or cache
VGA Palette Snoop or DAC Snoop
Hidden Refresh
Byte Merge

Latest beta WinXP driver for the 8500 is version 6052, which can be found on Rage3D forums.
Maybe NTFS is a problem? Try using FAT32 instead & see if the same errors occur?
Try running a disk utility other than CHKDSK, such as Ontrack's System Suite 4 DiskFixer,
McAffee Office Disk Repair, Norton Utility Disk Doctor, etc.
Or run the chosen disk repair utility while running the 2nd OS of a dual-boot system.
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
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vailr: My bios doesn't have any of those settings....the K7S5A bios is extremely bare. I've tried the 6037 official drivers, the ones that were on the cd, and the 6052s...all cause the problem. The problem is definitely with NTFS, but there is something else causing the problem...I don't want to use FAT32 on an 80GB drive. I don't have any of those other programs, but I'll look for them. Thanks for trying. =)

CHKDSK /r seems to fix the problem for a little while....I went a few hours with no problems today, but the problem did popup again. =(
 

PlatinumGold

Lifer
Aug 11, 2000
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<< My system: ECS K7S5A, 512MB PC2100 Mushkin Basic, Radeon 8500, Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB, XP1700+ cpu....winXP with NTFS
>>



wow, that could be my system exactly, except i have WD instead of Seagate 7200 rpm ata100 HD. No problems.
 

Tol

Senior member
May 12, 2000
285
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Well...unless there's something wrong with my Mushkin ram that memtest86 can't detect in 7 hours running time, I got a bad Radeon8500. First I got a new harddrive...same problem. I bought a new motherboard, MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU...same problem.

I'm going to try a new Radeon8500 tonight and see how that goes...