Looking for old-school BIOS--help needed

**Garak** · October 4th, 2002, 02:52 AM

Originally posted by merlinsghost

Cash splashed...

I've updated all of my drivers, etc.

I'll keep you posted...

Okey doke, hope all goes well.

**merlinsghost** · October 4th, 2002, 02:57 AM

Well, about five minutes into playing Half-Life, my computer decided to go into sleep mode. It didn't reboot, it didn't give me a blue screen of death, it just turned the monitor off as though it had gone into sleep mode.

Oh, did I mention that it takes between five and ten seconds for my computer to open a simple Internet Explorer Browser window? It is an "about:blank" page, so there isn't any content to load, just the browser window. In fact, now that I think about it, this XP1900+ takes longer to open programs than my Athlon 1.33Ghz computer.

As I said, I now have all of the driver/software updates now--including IE 6's Service Pack 1.

I downloaded the latest ATI drivers from my video card (the Catalyst Radeon 02.3 (7.76) Display Drivers), which are supposed to be extremely compatable with Windows XP, Service Pack 1. Do you suggest that I go back to one of the previous versions of the drivers as you suggested before?

Thanks. =)

**Garak** · October 4th, 2002, 03:06 AM

did you do a clean install or a "repair?"

Try a roll back to the previous drivers, see how it runs then, What model motherboard are you using and what chipset is it?

What version AGP slot are you using? AGP.1 AGP.2 or which speed is it? If your using a x4 on a x2 slot. that may be your problem

**merlinsghost** · October 4th, 2002, 03:51 AM

I'm using an ASUS A7V333

The video card supports AGP 1x, 2x, and 4x.

I'll do as you suggest, and "roll back" to a previous version of drivers. =)

I think I'll also check the motherboard's BIOS and see if it's set to 2x or 4x. If it's set to 4x, I think I'll set it to 2x and see what happens...Worth a try anyway. =)

Thanks for your help and suggetions. You've been a GREAT help.

**merlinsghost** · October 4th, 2002, 04:07 AM

Well, it IS an AGP 4x board, and the card is set to 4x mode in Windows...

(edit2):VIA Chipset... BIOS 1011(end edit 2)

(edit): And I suppose this is a good time to tell you that this isn't MY computer, it's my girlfriend's. She bought it from a private computer building company, and they claim it was a clean installation. Whether or not it really was is anybody's guess. (end edit)

I rebooted and enabled "AGP Fastwrite Control," "AGP Performance Control," and "PCI 2.1 Latency Compliant"-- which seems to have sped the computer up a bit. Explorer now only takes a second or four to open now! =D But it's STILL slower than my Athlon 1.33Ghz computer (that computer has Window 2000 Pro and Windows XP and has a GeForce 2Ultra Video card--Oh, my 1.33 Ghz computer has 768 megs of PC133 RAM, this computer has 512 megs of PC2700 DDR RAM).

Oh, here's another problem I forgot to mention: Windows seems to think that one of my drives is running out of space (not my primary/boot drive). It SAYS I have 78 megs of space (and change), but I know for a fact I have well over 500 megs free.

This happened tonight after I did a system backup and saved the file (just over 300 megs) to that drive. I moved the file (backup.bkf) to my other HDD, and it STILL said I had low disk space. I've run MS Scandisk on it, and it seems to think there is only 78.6 megs of free space too.

Bleh...

Oh, there was one more AGP feature than I enabled, but I can't remember what it was. One sec, I'll reboot, check out what it was, then come back and edit this post with the relevant information.

Edit: Oh yeah, the Graphics Aperature Size is set to 64 megs.

Anything else in the BIOS I can look for/at to see if it's configured incorrectly or set wrong?

**Ruslan** · October 4th, 2002, 09:05 AM

Just only quick thought - did you check for viruses? (I'm sorry, if someone have already asked about it)...

**merlinsghost** · October 4th, 2002, 05:24 PM

I don't think anyone suggested it, and Norton is on auto scan (for every day), but I scanned again just in case--there weren't any viruses detected on the system.

Thanks for the suggestion. =)

**merlinsghost** · October 8th, 2002, 03:46 PM

I have "rolled back" to the previous version of ATI's drivers, and the problem persists--only less frequently.

I thought that it might be a chip-set/agp issue, similar to that encountered with Windows 2000 and VIA Chipsets, but I haven't been able to find anything to indicate that that is indeed the case.

Any ideas?

**Garak** · October 8th, 2002, 06:31 PM

have you installed the latest VIA 4in1's?

they can be downloaded from http://www.viaarena.com

**merlinsghost** · October 9th, 2002, 05:48 PM

Great idea. I just downloaded them and installed the [updated] drivers; but it crashed a few mintes later while playing Half-Life.

Also, I figured out why it kept telling me my backup drive was low on disk space; four words--Norton Protected Recycle Bin...

I had to empty/purge the "protected" files.

Could it be that Half-Life just isn't meant to be played in Windows XP? I have problems with Half-Life in Windows 2000 Professional too, and I'm wondering if it's just a Half-Life fluke. I have the most up-to-date version of HL, so I'm sure it isn't THAT...

My USB 2.0 driver date is January of 2002. I haven't been able to find any updated drivers for it (either on the ASUS website or elsewhere). The ASUS site says the [USB 2.0] drivers are for Windows 98/ME.

(Edit: Here's
the link for that Windows 2000/AMD problem I was describing a few posts back.)

**Garak** · October 10th, 2002, 02:59 AM

installing hl on my machine - i'll tll you if it crashes or not.

**Garak** · October 10th, 2002, 04:18 AM

installing Half-life, installed the latest patch, worked a charm, though I don't know why I actually bought this game (eBay time

)

I'm very puzzled by this problem Merlin's Ghost..

You ay 10mins of playtime and thats in,, it bombs out?

What about any other games?

**merlinsghost** · October 10th, 2002, 01:49 PM

Well, the actual time varies. Sometimes I can play for several hours with no problems, and other times it crashes after only a few minutes. In Windows 2000, I hardly EVER get errors with Half-Life, but that's a different computer all together.

I came across an MS
knowledge base article that I believe describes my problem. I simply searched for the error that I've been receiving (instead of the file name which seemed pointless). It seems that MS is still looking into the problem, and hasn't really released a solution--aside from advising that updated drivers be installed.

It describes what happened to me when I updated XP with SP1, and I think I'm just going to have to wait util ATI releases new, better, drivers. The ironic thing is, when I received that error after I installed Service Pack 1, I was already running ATI's most recent drivers. The past few days I've been downloading basically every version of their archived drivers (for XP), installed them, and testing them out.

I usually get the same end result, just different amounts of time for the problem to occur.

So anyway, after reading that article, I followed its instructions and updated to the most recent ATI drivers (again). I don't think it has crashed since; my girlfriend used the computer some today, so I don't know yet whether or not she has had any problems today.

(edit) As far as other games go, I haven't really had time to test out others. Half-Life and Half-Life: Opposing Force are seeing the most gaming time. My girlfriend doesn't have many games here (at University) with her. I'll test out her other games though, and let you know what happens. (/edit)

And the saga continues...

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it immensely.

(edit2) Okay, it just gave me another BSOD, but while I was browsing the internet. I'm going to search for this error message in the knowledge base, and see what turns up...(/edit2)