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Questions to get T-Bird/KT7/Win2K system stable!

V

VinY

Senior member
Before my replacement KT7 comes in tomorrow and I rebuild my computer, I would like answers to these lingering questions in order to get my system stable in Windows 2000! My system specs:
____________________________________________
Antec SX1030B Case
AMD Thunderbird 1000 (Blue Core)
Taisol CGK742092 Heatsink
Abit KT7 Motherboard
Crucial 512mb PC133 CAS2 (Two 256mb sticks)
IBM 75GXP 45gb 7200 RPM HDD
Seagate 13gb Backup Drive
TDK 12/10/32 VeloCD CD-RW
Teac 40x CD-ROM
Hercules Prophet II MX Video Card
SB Live! X-Gamer (non 5.1) Sound Card
Netgear FA310TX Network Card
____________________________________________

1. Should I flash my KT7 with the WZ Final Bios before I install anything?

2. Once I get into Windows 2000, I plan on installing the Via drivers first. Now I've been reading and hearing all the talk about the 4.28 FINAL's. I planned on installing every driver in the 4.28 Final package EXCEPT the Via Busmaster Driver. Should I do this? Meaning I install the AGP VxD Driver, the IRQ Routing Miniport Driver, and the Via INF Driver 1.20. Should I do this and just change my drives to "DMA if Available" in device manager? I really have seen mixed ideas on this and would like to know what is the correct routine. And do I lose performance by not installing it?

3. I found Service Pack 2 Beta at a site. Should I install this instead of Service Pack 1?

4. This is a little off topic, but does anyone know if my TDK CD-RW (master) is NOT supposed to run in Ultra DMA mode? I set "DMA if available" in device manager last install, and my Teac 40x CD-ROM (slave) was running at Ultra DMA mode while my CD-RW was running in some other mode aside from DMA (not PIO). I had Via IDEtool installed and it reported the CD-RW running in Multiword DMA 2. Any insight on this?

Thanks in advance!
 
I can answer Two questions...

generally beta=evil and if you are looking for stability i would personally use SP 1 which has been publically released.


I have been using the 4.28 4 in one drivers with Win2K with no probs at all


Ausm
 
Install the 4.28 via drivers w/o the bus master driver, they have a suppliment driver for win2k. It should be at viahardware.com but I am not sure. BTW I read about the problem form hardocp.com so you might want to check there as well.

I cant find the links right now but if you need some I will try to find them
 
Well, I don't know about the busmaster driver included in the 4.28 package but at Viahardware it says the 3.11 "Improves performance in Win2K. Supports 686B southbridge and ATA100. Includes both a VSD and a Miniport driver. Miniport recommended. Also includes new IDE utility. Now integrated into 4.27 4-in-1 driver". Should I install this? Also, do I need to install that Microsoft ATA100 hotfix even though I am not running on an ATA100 motherboard? Thanks..
 
I would install the 4.28 drivers W/O the bus mastering drivers, and install the MS hotfix that enables DMA in w2k with a 686B southbridge. I think the hotfix is the exact same one that comes in Sp2. You can get the hotfix at viahardware.com.
 
But is the hotfix only for ATA 100 users? My KT7 only supports ATA 66, but my 75gxp does ATA100 I know. So if the motherboard doesn't do ATA100, should I install it?
 
hey i got pretty much the same system you have, i wouldn't suggest you flash to new BIOS, i've heard bad things about it especially with the fan check they have. if the fan doesn't meet a certain rpm it will not boot at all. Just stick with the BIOS you got and it should be able to do what you need to do. I'm also running win2k, one thing is don't install the Ultra DMA bus mastering. Use the hotfix provided by microsoft which i heard gives better performance and reliability. That is pretty much what you need to know. Hope that helps. Also i have the same exact cd-rw and if you install the Bus mastering you will have problems running CloneCD. I run it with DMA on and it runs flawlessly. I have another CD-ROM on the same channel but i did not enable DMA. I'm not sure if you have two DMA CD-ROM drives at the same time enabled, I could be wrong.
 
This hotfix...isn't it for ATA100 ONLY? I am only running ATA66 so do I need to install this? Thanks!
 
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