UDMA100 Motherboards
Maybe it is just me, but I am having terrible problems with Socket A UDMA motherboards.
I am trying to build a new machine and decided to try a socket A with an Athlon CPU and, on the reviews, bought an ASUS A7V motherboard.
Put it together, put in a Matrox G400 video card and a Soundblaster Live Platinum sound card - locked up.
I have played around with it switching PCI slots, setting IRQs etc but it is still tempermental as hell. The following is the list of suggestions, would you believe, from their own site:
Flash upgrade the BIOS to version 1004a or c.
Upgrade the Promise ATA100 driver (U160b25).
Reserve IRQ 5 (and DMA) exclusively for SB.
Upgrade the creative SB driver (37MB download).
I also bought an ABIT KT-7 RAID motherboard. Same sort of problem with the SB but I got through it by using WIN2000. Then I decided to attach my USB devices and the fun started. Just trying to attach a USB printer, network adaptor and ZIP250 I can, by changing the sockets I plug them into get BSDs, missing devices, reboots or devices loading then dropping out.
The ABIT site gave me a link to an enthiusiasts site with a few "solutions".
These include:
Flash upgrade the BIOS for the latest HotRod drivers.
Download and use the latest matching HighPoint drivers.
Download the latest VIA 4in1 (V4.25) drivers.
It went as far as suggesting people had had success by decreasing the CPU voltage by .oo5V.
Now, looking at these sites it looks like it is not just me being unlucky. At the same time, these 2 boards are the ones being selected as the best with nothing between them by PCW and are used by almost all the fastest machines to the mags for review.
Now, am I missing something here? I am using the most standard off the shelf components available with the 2 (Win98/ME and WIN2000) OS available and I cannot get a stable system. Or are the UDMA boards just still as buggy as hell and I would be better off staying with a DMA66/100 bus machine or going back to an Intel 820E/840 solution?
The reason I ask is that, giving up, I am thinking of buying a new system from Dell/Dan etc with a soundcard/network card/firefire card/SCSI card as standard and attaching all accessories.
(At which stage I will then have 4 machines again! My old one, a full server with the ASUS, a midi-tower with the ABIT and the new one. As I only have a two bedroom apartment I was wondering whether to fit the 4th one in the kitchen or the bathroom?)
[This message has been edited by ORAC (edited 04 November 2000).]