Serious lock-up problem [ VIA vs SB Live! ]

[Fouv]

Hi,

I'll start off by saying i'm completely desperate. Com-ple-te-ly. I bought a 3000$(can) system 2 months ago and I have a extremely, very, totally, serious lock-up problem.

Let's start off by saying that I have a good idea of what is the problem. Like a lot of people told me, it just HAS to be in relation with the fact VIA south bridge (or something) doesn't like the SB Live! cards. I have flashed my BIOS to the [ KT7-ZT ] release and I have installed the 4.32 version of the VIA 4in1 drivers. The two of them are supposed to end the problem. But it doesn't seems to help at all. I experience frequent lock-ups and I am unable to perform a complete scandisk of my C: drive. It locks-up before it reach the end.

Now, I beg for any help because I start to really HATE my "dream" computer...

 

[WarCon]

What operating system? ME? Have you tried pulling the sound card and running scandisk? If you have isolated it, then a simple solution would be to sell your soundblaster live and buy a turtle beach or other good sound card that doesn't have this issue. I have the same motherboard ( KT7A) that you do and run a soundblaster live value with no problems, but I vaguely remember hearing it was with the cards that had 5.1 and usually only showed up with Raid configured.

 

[Fouv]

I'm using Windows Millenium. And I have a Abit KT7-A-Raid. But my Raid is off.

When I flashed my BIOS and cleared the CMOS, maybe I misplaced a setting or two. Damn. A little thing look strange when I boot : the IRQ allocation. I have three devices on the 10th IRQ : Multimedia Device (SB Live!) and two Serial Bus Controller. What are those? Is that it that make my system buggy? When I boot without my Sound Card, many IRQ allocations are totally different.

And I tried to use Scan Disk w/o my sound card plugged in but no chance, it locks-up before the end too. I will try so do a DOS scandisk and will inform you of the outcome.

I'm thinking to update my system to Win2k as soon as I get the OS, which should be in two weeks maximum. I'm using a AMD processor (AMD Thunderbird 1000) and d/l the little fix available from the official AMD website. Is there any more fixes/hints/tips that I should know before updating. Because the last time I tried to install Win2k, my system rebooted every 10 minutes for no reason.

Screw Microbytes.