System just a little unstable

[marmasatt]

Hi Gents,

I have a few questions about my system becoming increasingly unstable. I built my first box about a month ago. About every 15 - 20 times I used to start it up, it would either a) try to boot up in safe mode or b) give me a blue screen indicating the system was not shut down properly (error 0167: BFF8AB97 for what it's worth). Now it seems to be happening increasingly more often. Still not really time to worry, but I want to be proactive. I would say it does one of the two processes' above about 1 out of every 10 times that I power up. It's almost like it's not really enough to have me taking the thing apart and testing but I want to be a little proactive.

FYI, I have an Asus A7N266-VM AA Mobo, Amd 2200+, 768 Ram (512 Crucial, 256 K-byte), 60 Gig WD HD, a no name 350 Watt power supply, and a Ti4200 VC. I am running Windows 98.

Generally, I was pretty happy with the build. Went pretty smoothly. Just like every other board, some people say it is a hunk of crap and others (mechbgon,etc) will write a 10 page essay describing how cheap and stable it is for an Nforce 2 choice.

Is there a place to look up this error code? Does that even help me? Any help would be appreciated. You guys really helped me with the build. Thanks alot.

Fools

 

[marmasatt]

Incidentally, I failed to mention that I do have Asusprobe. My mobo and cpu temps seem fine. mobo at 25 C and Cpu idle at about 41 C and as high as 46 C for a frag fest. Thanks again.

 

[loup garou]

Here is a thread with alot of people with the exact same error. Looks like disabling the onboard sound or rem emm386.exe in your autoexec may work.

Also, note that the board is mentioned as not being suitable for use under Win98. Perhaps an OS upgrade?

 

[amdskip]

Originally posted by: werk
Here is a thread with alot of people with the exact same error. Looks like disabling the onboard sound or rem emm386.exe in your autoexec may work.

Also, note that the board is mentioned as not being suitable for use under Win98. Perhaps an OS upgrade?

Yeah, exactly what I was going to suggest. Windows XP or 2k is in order here. It's well worth it too for all the extra features.

 

[marmasatt]

Wow. Thanks very much. I guess I'm not alone huh? Maybe I should count my blessings that I'm not getting it 33% of the time either?