SICK AND TIRED OF THIS F$@#@$ A&V !

[Krap]

The A7V has got to be the most buggy product I have ever used ! I bought a new system a month and a half ago, and I still have to see it run a game or a demo for more than 10 minutes without crashing...

This is my system..

Duron 650@650 (temperature never over 50, so not a heat problem!)
Asus A7V (with every bios imaginable 1003, 1004a, 1004c, 1004d)
256Mb Ram PC133
IBM Deskstar 20Gigs ATA100
D-Link ethernet card (on slot 5)
Ati Radeon 64 Vivo (166Mhz)

The system can run perfectly for hours, but as soon as I run a game or anything 3D, it crashes after 10 minutes... I've tried everything.. every version of the bios.. every possible variation in the bios options (fast writes, agp aperture...).. I've tried upping the core voltage and the IO voltage...I've tried the 4.24 and 4.25 VIA 4in1 drivers...I even took out every other card I had inside (the SbLive and the DVD Encore Decoder card).. I reformatted both my C and D and reinstalled Win2000 (with and without ACPI) and Win98.. What am I missing ??????????????????????????

But most importantly... How come I've never seen a review of this BAD product which talks about it's compatibility and stability problems ??? I can't beleive that all the people that have problems with this card are just unlucky or idiots! All of the reviews I've read describe this board as EXTREMELY stable !!!:|

 

[paulip88]

Two things you should definitely try:

1) update the drivers for both the SBLive and the vid card. If it only dies on games, it sounds like the culprit is one of the above. Its also well known that the SBLive has driver issues, esp with Win2k.

2) check IRQ assignments with the sound and AGP. There might be some minor conflict that causes trouble when you run games. Turn PnP off since windows does a retarded job assigning IRQs and see what you get. Still doesn't run? Assign them yourself.

 

[Krap]

Thanx, but I took off the sound card a week after a bought the system... still nothing !

 

[Mem]

I think it is your graphics card some one (can`t remember whom) did say there was a problem with Radeon & KT133 chipset.Try another graphics card borrow one from a mate see what happens.I`m sure that if the problem is the Radeon card a later driver update will solve the problem.

 

[Vpham97]

Try this link to the A7v Trouble Shooting board

 

[osage]

Nice link Vpham, good stuff there.

 

[Jmman]

I will have to admit it, this board is really frustrating!! This is my first leap into AMD land, and it has really been a rough road. My system was locking up all of the time(the old IE 5.5 stuff) and I tried just about everything!! I just solved the problem last night though, and I haven't had a single lock up since. In the BIOS it has a performance setting of optimal as the default, but when you read the notes it says that setting it at Normal will probably be more stable..... That is an understatement!!!!... I have run every test imaginable since I set it to Normal and it is ROCK solid. The only drawback is that the Normal setting is only 2x AGP instead of 4x, but I can get around that with Powerstrip or something. IMO there is something in the Optimal setting that causes these lockups, maybe the AGP setting or possibly something else. From talking to other people this seems to be the best fix, but I am hoping for a BIOS revision that will solve this problem altogether......

 

[FastEddie]

With your install of W2K, have you installed SP1, which fixes a few d3d problems.