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So, I guess it's a BAD thing to run the memory faster than the CPU bus.

M

MWink

Diamond Member
To make a long story short. I upgraded my Uncle's system with a Shuttle AK31A, Duron 950, and 256MB Crucial PC2100. Well, when I went through the BIOS I set the memory speed to set by SPD instead of by CPU bus. Well, the system completely destabilized! Windows got totally destroyed. It seems to have restabilized when I put it back.

On the plus side, I took out the awful Creative Ensoniq Audio PCI and am now using the onboard sound which is MUCH better.

On the down side, I hit it so hard I am waiting for Scandisk to find bad sectors on the HD. Also, the video is completely scrambled every few reboots. 😱

/MWink is not a happy camper!
 
You sholdnt have a problem, is your memory cas2 or 2.5 ? if it is 2.5 perhaps it just isnt capable of running at cas2. Their is little reason running the memory faster than the fsb as the processor is limited by the fsb bandwidth not the memory.
 

If you haven't done so already, reformat the hard drive and install Windows from scratch. Unless the new motherboard is very similar to the old one, Windows will have a difficult time reconfiguring itself. If you still have problems after doing this then your hardware is at fault.

SPD or Serial Presence Detect is a setting that allows the motherboard to use information from the memorys ROM to set memory timings, not the speed the memory bus is running at. It's a default setting that works in 99% of most systems, most people disable SPD to allow faster memory timings to be selected or allow memory without a ROM to be used.
You might have a bad memory module or something wrong with the motherboard or processor. The fact that the hard drive is reporting bad sectors points to possible hardware instability. Can't really understand why you think the AC97 onboard sound would be better than the Ensoniq card. I've used many of these cards in the past and the sound output is good enough for any mid range speaker setup. If you download the lastest software/drivers from Creative, the card will have some of the features that the Live' series of cards have. One of these features is a software graphic equalizer that will help that "awful" sound from the card sound better. I also think the Ensoniq card will use less system resources.
 
First of all, yes I did do a clean install of Windows. I had it all done and working when I changed the setting in the BIOS. That is when it died.

About the sound card. The awful sound is not referring to the quality but the fact that it constantly crackles and pops. In fact when I run 3D Mark 200X the music does not even keep up it is so bad. I had this problem with his old MB as well but fixed it with some weird programs (that did not work this time). The onboard sound seems to be working much better so I'm just going to use it.
 
Had similar problems with an Ak31 based system I put together for a friend. Everything worked fine for a few minutes until it just randomly locked up. Boom.

Once the memory clock was set back to 100 MHz (AFAIR the BIOS setting is called something like "CPU host clock") the lockups disappeared and everything ran fine. The problem is apparently with the AK31 (or the KT266 chipset) - it's just not stable as soon as memory speed and FSB are differing. BTW the board does switch to a 133 MHz memory clock if you use a 133 stick and set "mem timing by SPD" in BIOS. I wondered why the default on that board was not to use SPD but "memory clock = CPU fsb". Now I know...

For reference, MWink, here's my friend's setup:

AK31 2.0 (KT266)
Duron 900 (ANDA)
128 MByte Micron PC2100 RAM (original Micron module MT8VDDT1664AG-265A1)
Abit Siluro T200
AMD Certified PSU (Enlight , don't have the # handy)
Windows 2000 Pro SP2

PS: agreed about the soundcard, mschell. Especially the early Ensoniqs based on the 1370 chip had very tidy line in sound and worked nicely for analog recording. Never had a problem with any of those cards either. Haven't tried one on an AK31 or with the creative drivers, though. PPS: there's a nice little hack here to add S/PDIF input to those cards 😉.
 
I'm not disputing that the EAPCI is a good card. In fact I had one of the first ones back when they first came out (from Ensoniq, not Creative). The card originally had major driver issues. Just before Creative took over Ensoniq, it was a really good card. Creative just made it worse. Now I can't even download drivers that install. Creative is suck! 🙁

This thread is bringing back memories of my first night with my first EAPCI. You would not believe how impressed I was with the MIDI sound. 🙂 Ahh, those were the days.
 


<< You're talking about the board based on the KT266 chipset or the KT266A? >>



I'm talking about the board based on the KT266A chipset.



<< maybe it has something to do with you changing cases with that system eleventy billion times >>



Just shut up now! I don't want to think about that anymore. :frown:
 
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