Lockups w/ A7N266-E

[EvlG]

Hi All,
Being fed up with my previous system configuration, I bought a new motherboard and Hard Disk
yesterday to rebuild the machine. Here is the new setup:

ASUS A7N266-E
Athlon-C 1400Mhz
2x256mb Crucial Cas2.5 DDR
Hercules 3DProphet DDR-DVI AGP as primary video
Kaser TNT2M64 PCI as secondary video
3COM 56k Modem
WD 120gb 7200 rpm HD
IBM 40gb 7200 rpm HD
Lite-On DVDROM (16x)

Right now I am using the A7N266-E's audio and ethernet.

I installed the machine fresh onto a new partition last night, and after a little while it locks up. Just
hard freezes in the middle of what I am doing.

The first time it happened, I was defragging the disk with the Win2k built-in defragger. While it was
running I tried to run a setup file. When the setup file tried to load, the machine hung.

The second time, I was playing MP3s over the network while copying files between the IBM and WD
(they are both masters on their own controller; the WDis sharing with the DVDROM right now on
primary).

The machine is a fresh install of Win2k SP2 with all the security fixes applied. I am using the nforce
drivers that came with the MB on CD, and Hercules' 21.81 video drivers to drive the GeForce DDR and
TNT2. I updated the network drivers to be the most current listed on Windows Update for the RTL8139
controller used in the A7N266-E.

Does anyone know what could be causing this problem? I really want to get it straightened out,
because I desperately want a stable machine again! Thanks.

 

[cholley]

pull out all options for troubleshooting, might be a simple irq issue

 

[chucky2]

EvlG- Not having an A7N266-E motherboard, there's not much detailed support I can give you.

But I can offer a few suggestions:

1. Like cholley said, try and reduce the machine to its most basic components and run it like that for a day or so to see if it fixes the problem.

2. Maybe you could try and bump the CPU Vcore up 1 step. I don't even know if you can do this, but it works for us Super-7 users a lot.

Other than that, I don't know what to say. I mean, if its locking up with the most basic components, then something is really wrong with either the motherboard, RAM, power supply, CPU, or video card. Possibly one of the hard drives?

There's really not much else that could lock the system up, is there?

You could also try and run with the onboard video for a while and see if that solves your problems. Maybe its video driver related?

Hope this helps! (and that you get it fixed)

Chuck

P.S. The first crash that you mention could be unrelated to the machine. Running a defrag and a setup file is sort of asking for trouble.

 

[MaxImuM]

i just built a new rig with an a7n266-e, 1.4 tbird, 256 ddr, 60g maxtor, and an integrated cdrw/dvd from lge. i too was using the onboard lan and audio, but i was using the graphics. at first i put on windows 2k, but i had the SAME THING happen! same drivers from the cd, and it would just freeze. mine would also handle audio just fine most of the time, but it would pause briefly while switching to fullscreen video and the audio was silent when i played an audio cd! the timer would elapse, but no sound. and yes, i made sure it wasn't muted, etc. the REALLY odd thing about it, when i pushed the play button on the cdrom, THE SOUND WOULD COME THROUGH!!!!!!!

so i too have found this board annoyingly quirky. but i have found some fixes. i downloaded the newest drivers from asus, but found their website annoyingly quiry as well! it took 3 days of 404 errors before i finally got them...

however, after i did this, it was cool for less than a week before it went nuts again! now, any video i play goes into some kind of super-speed mode! it happened first on a dvd, and now any video at all i play, using any codec, even off the harddrive, does this. the video and audio stay sync'ed, just very fast and kinda skippy. i even went down to win98se, which did elleviate the freezes, but i have the same video problems with the new drivers! i think it is some kind of timing problem with this board and the current drivers, and i find this totally unacceptable since i have NO hardware installed on this system outside of disk drives. for an integrated solution, this board is showing me some very odd compatability issues!!!

i'm just shy of rma-ing it, so if anyone has anything to add to this thread i'm sure we'd both appreciate it!!

MaxImuM