Unstable KA7

[Gatzbar]

My KA7 is giving me fits. It's got a 700 classic Athlon, 256 meg of Infineon (2 128 sticks), a yamaha 8/8/24 burner and an ATI rage fury pro. The OS is win ME. Not overclocked or tweaked at all. Box stock.
Most Bios is set at defaults.

It was just locking up and seemed to be related to changing screens. I lose the keyboard when it locks and can't reset. I have to hit the power switch and then wait for scandisk. It's newest trick is to just lose the video completly. Bang, and I have a black screen. This happens in my Video editing app. The lockups just happen "whenever" but usually when I change screens.

I thought it was a video problem. I tried using a different Video Card (Voodoo 4500) and the result was the system slowed to a crawl and finally stopped.
So I put the ATI back in.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the Via 4 in drivers. I had a hell of a time bringing this system up. I had to spend hours poking around in various websites (ATI, VIA and Abit) to finally learn about GART drivers and no AGP 4X support for this ATI card. Anybody else encountered this? There are so many things that could be wrong I'm not sure what to try next. This kind of crap really sucks. This system is supposed to be a video editor not a science project!

 

[madthumbs]

You needed to manually remove all residual video card drivers before you tried the Voodoo card.

 

[RPB]

Gatzbar my KA7 is very stable with win2000 or win98se but when tried winme it became very unstable. all installs were clean and as for the 4in1 drivers i found that i have been better off with the default drivers from ms

 

[Gatzbar]

I thought I "Had to have" the gart drivers to get the ATI to run.
It was locking under 98se too. The video dropout is a new thing. I'm wondering if I am having a thermal cutout -- maybe the processor. The heat sensor is on the heatsink --but if the contact was poor the chip might overheat and reset while the heatsink stays cool. Sound like a possibility? I suppose it is also possible that the ATI is crapping out.
My friend bought one (KA7) at the same time and installed an ATI all in wonder. He is also getting random lockups but not as many. He is running 98se and has the 750 Athlon. I'm just wondering if there are "issues" with these boards.
Also, I'm pretty sure I unistalled the ATI before I tried the Voodoo.