[RESOLVED] PC100 Systemboard

[gmitchell]

My company recently purchased a PII 400 that had this motherboard installed. It has sound, LAN, modem and I think video integrated on the motherboard chip set. We've been having random problems such as getting a "blue screen of death" when the screen saver comes on, or when various users log on to the Windows Family Log-on.

Is anyone familiar with this type of board or problems? It's kind of difficult to run a business when you've got such random problems that pop up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Greg

[kgmz]

It sounds like PCChips board, hard to tell what the problem is without knowing what the errors are. Checl the link below to see if that is your board.

http://www.pcchips.com/748lmr.html

[Darren Wilson]

I have sold a number of these boards ( not by choice ) and would never recommend on eof these to a business user. The boards are built using the cheapest available materials and they are not upgradable in any number apart from the shared single PCI/ISA slot.

If you have had the system for a short period of time ( such as a couple of weeks ) take it back to the supplier and demand a board change or another system using a different configuration of components.

Let us know how you get on.

------------------
why are our jobs so interesting??????
visit me @ http://www.ace-computers.co.uk

[HiFiDock]

It may help to disable your screen savers and any power saving features, e.g. HD spin down, in Windows. You might check out the Alton m/b website at www.pcware.com for patches and updates. I think the VIA chipset has patches for ACPI, PCI bridge, etc. Good luck!.

[format c:]

I would back up my files format the drive and reinstall windows 98 manuely I found that some of thes proprietory installers written by the major over the counter PC retaliers mess up with windows
Just format the drive and toss the cd into the drive and run setup from the cd rom. make sure you have the MS boot disk that comes with windows or make a startup disk before you format
You may have a buggy windows install so reinstalling shoudl help ya

[gmitchell]

Thanks to everyone who has replied to my initial post.

Greg

[gmitchell]

Okay so, I do in fact have these PC Chips mobo. I hope that someone out there can help me get past the random blue screen crashes. The shop that we purchased these from said that it's most likely a "network" issue if we're getting VXD errors, however I've seen quite a bit of OE errors. Another problem is with the Windows Family Logon screen - sometimes a password goes bad (the system crashes and I get a blue screen) so, I delete the user password in the INI file and remove the user in the control panel and start over. This works for a while, but seems rather random to get so many blue screens.
Does anyone have any idea what causes these errors? One more problem, not major, but irritating one machine will sometimes default back to its original window display settings (800X600 256 colors). Any idea?

Again, thanks for any help on these issues.

Greg

[JeanneD]

the first thing I would do is go in in SAFE mode, check device manager, each catergory (except "system dev" - normal to have duplicates), take out any duplicate or wrong devices (if there are multiple of like floppy disk or something take out ALL, let windows put a new one in)I guarantee you will be surprised what you see if you do device manager in safe mode that you don't see in regular mode. While there, take out the display, monitor, and network card too and let windows redect it. I think you have a resource conflict somewhere. Is USB support enabled in the cmos (even if you don't use USB)? That might help too. Good Luck



[This message has been edited by JeanneD (edited October 01, 1999).]

[b_fleury]

These errors sound like they are coming from your memory. Blue screens are often caused by either memory or a driver problem.

[kgmz]

I worked on one of these motherboards for a customer. And it also had some similar problems. Go to PCChips website and download sisirq.exe which is a IRQ Routing & MINI Port driver. This should cure your problems.

[rubes1]

I have this same board.Lots of memory fixed my prob,96 megs to be exact,board has to have 64 minimum.Also,use windows hard drive controller,do not use driver on cd that came with motherboard.It only took me 2 weeks and 10 formats to figure it out.