Motherboard cd keeps corrupting OS

[iowaguy12]

First of all I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!

If you need any turkey let me know because I've got tons of leftovers!! hehe.

Okay, I have an ECS k7s5a mb v3.1 with amd 650cpu/128mb/15gb hdd/52x cd-rom/16mb ATI PCI video card/56k PCI modem.

Original problem - user somehow corrupted 98 - booted with multiple errors. I fdisked /mbr, formatted and reloaded 98se from the original 98se cd-rom. Upon loading the motherboard cd it comes up with an error saying "registry corrupt". After I reboot I notice that the cd-rom drive does not appear in my computer although it is listed in the bios?!?!?!

I started over following the same steps and received the same results.

I tried Winme and received the same error message upon loading the motherboard cd.

Downloaded the latest via 4-in-1 drivers from the viaarena site and I get the same error message!!!

My question is, since I'm using a PCI video card and a pci modem, do I really need the via 4-in-1 loaded? I'm not using an AGP video card so I don't think I need the "agp" gart thing or whatever it is - do I?

I'm about to toss this board and go buy a new one but I don't understand why it won't work. Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

[geoscomp]

Since the original install corrupted, you might want to look at running a mem test and a hard drive diagnostic. You also need to run DMA98.EXE which is contained in directory \win9x\sisfiles of the agp driver package, to make sure that all of the drives are in the correct DMA mode. Dma98.exe does not produce any output when executed. Be aware that It's not enough to set "DMA if Available" in the device manager, you need to use the utility. Also, check the motherboard for physical damage like blown capacitors, etc.

[iowaguy12]

Any idea where I can get a mem test proggie? Are there any free ones?

Also, I disconnected the power from the mainboard and reset the bios jumper. After I powered on and reset all the settings and booted into 98 it came up with a fatal exception error. I'm starting to wonder if something might have happened to this motherboard?

Not sure what DMA would have to do with any of this but I'll look into it. I thought DMA just enabled the drives to work at a faster speed?

[geoscomp]

http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp

is a link for one of the free memory testers out there..there are a few more.

The response about dma98.exe is from the ecs motherboards faq for your product and was in respons to if you have to load motherboard drivers after win98.

Do you get error messages if you leave all the bios settings at default?

I've had a lot of ECS boards with bad capacitors lately..you can usually see either bulging tops or leakage.

[iowaguy12]

Luckily this board is from Jan of 2002 so it's been around for awhile.

I changed the ACPI back to enabled and the fatal exception error doesn't appear when I shut windows down now. I ran my "troubleshooter" diskette on the computer and the motherboard, cpu and ram all check out good with no errors. I will run this ram test also though just to be sure and am running the maxtor diags now.

thanks

[iowaguy12]

Ran the ram test - no errors. No errors on the hdd test either. I decided just to go into dev mgr, highlight the yellow excl mark drivers there and then do update driver and go to the extracted drivers I pulled off of their website. Worked for the NIC and I'm pulling off the windows updates now. My only question is, will I need the via 4-in-1 drivers or not? I was able to right click the motherboard cd and explore it and I see the folders for NIC, audio and sound but there isn't a folder for the via!! Since I'm not using an AGP card, will I even need them?

Thanks.

[Silverman]

Since the K7S5a uses a SiS chipset the VIA drivers will be useless.

[confus-ed]

Since the K7S5a uses a SiS chipset the VIA drivers will be useless.

... not to say you mighn't need some chipset patches, however looking at the downloads for that board here @ECS (not matter which revision you have, & there are a few!) there doesn't appear to be any appropriate.

My googling however says this is an Sis 735 board, so I went there for you, no agp gart required as we have pci, no revised '.inf' for windows, & no 98 redirector '.inf' (3 out of the four bits of the 4-in-1 'erroneously' refered to earlier - however most chipsets may/may not want these revised bits from the right manufacturer ), but I did find you an updated IDE driver, which though probably not required ought to speed things up - look here @Sis for 'enhanced' IDE driver (can't link direct you'll need to fill in some boxes!).

So to directly answer the questions posed by iowaguy12, nope you don't need the via 4-in-1 not for sis chipsets, you don't need any 'agp gart' (graphics Address Relocation Table) because pci works different!, & if you look on my first link, you can find your sound etc drivers there.

[Windowscrash]

All you have to do is install the sound drivers, Don't use the auto install utility because it sucks