Just built new Athlon system and it keeps rebooting...

[gregdee]

I just built a new Athlon system with a 1 GHz retail athlon on a Soyo K7VTA-B board and it keeps rebooting at random intervals - even when doing nothing. I swapped out my power supply for an AMD approved 400W, I've tried every setting in the BIOS, upgradded the BIOS to the latest one and I even have my RAM running at 100 MHz, CAS 3 now and still it reboots. I've tried both the AMD retail heat sink and fan and a Chrome Orb to no avail.

Any other sugestions??

Thanks!

 

[Electric Amish]

Maybe try some different RAM??

amish

 

[gregdee]

I tried other RAM that I have already and I just ordered a 128MB PC133 Cas 2 DIMM from Crucial. Would RAM just make it run fine and then randomly reboot back into Windows? I haven't experienced any lockups or BSOD or anthing?

Thanks again.

 

[AmdEmAll]

Athlons are quite picky with ram. That definatly sounds like it could be your ram. If the crucial ram doesnt fix it then im not sure what the problem is.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

install the via 4in1 drivers. set your ram to the slowest timings.

 

[gregdee]

The 4 in 1 drivers are installed and the RAM is set at 100 MHz CAS 3 (which is the slowest setting available)

 

[gregdee]

Has anyone ever experienced this problem due to memory where the system just randomly rebooted but otherwise ran perfectly? I hope it is the memory and that the new high quality memory will solve this problem.

This is my first experience with a VIA chipset. My other computer is a K6III+ running on an ASUS P5A (ALi Alladin 5) and it's been incredibly stable for two plus years - probably more so than and Intel chipset I've experienced. I hope the VIA proves to be decent - I'm think I should have waited for an ALI Magik based board.

 

[JimMc]

It's not an inherent flaw in the Via chipset, though the MB could still be the culprit. Is your TBird unlocked? Try underclocking it with the jumpers to 7X100 or so and see if your stability problems go away.

 

[*kjm]

I have seen this happen because of bad...(PC66) ram before. The systems I saw would start into windows or get in and just crash. One thing that was odd was the systems would boot into DOS ok but not windows. You could try that??? I would hold out for the ram and see how it goes from there.

 

[Mem]

I also think its the ram ,btw I had a Thunderbird 900 go bad after 6 weeks anyway in my case it would do random reboots & finally got worst with BSOD etc,I sent the Crucial ram back for testing which was tested to be fine,just my luck to have a CPU go bad on me.

 

[ricochet72]

I would suspect Stupid Mistakes (jumpers/shorts), Power Supply, RAM then Processor (since its the 1Ghz model).

 

[gregdee]

I've checked all the connections and obvious stuff and I have the board in auto mode so I haven't tried to change any jumpers - if the RAM doesn't do it then I guess I'll started by RMAing the mobo which I hope I don't have to and finally if that doesn't work I'll try RMAing the processor. Everything else in the system was there before the upgrade and worked fine and yes, I did do a clean install of Windows!

Thanks!

 

[Tripleshot]

It sure sounds like a power problem,a leaky capictor in your power supply circuit somewhere. I would call the mobo manufacturer. I had the same problem with a mobo. It was noted a rash of bad mobos with bad silder joints. The manufacturer could check the batch number for any history that would indicate a problem.

Just an idea

 

[larryim]

I put together two computers with Abit KT7 RAID mobo's and Duron 600's and had the problem of random freezes and reboots. By setting the DRAM TIMING on Advanced Chipset Features to turbo and fast under the BIOS the problem was solved. The more conservative SDRAM 8/10ns settings must have been the problem. Just an idea to consider in your case.

 

[mlumz]

Also you may want to check you bios and change your optimal fun setting to normal. This is what I had to do to stabilize my athlon 750 (asus a7v133 mobo) from rebooting by itself. Your computer is a little slower, but its stable. I am also going to try setting jumpers with dips instead of the bios, I heard this allows your athlon to run better.