Riva 128 Problem

Ok after all the following and another day wasted it still locks up.
I downloaded docmem and ran it. No problems.
Downloaded Powermax by Maxtor to check the HD
no problems.
Swapped out the memory.
Swapped out the CPU.
Swapped out the CPU Fan.
Erased the HD.
Put a HD Cooler in.
Swapped out Video Cards.
Moved the Modem to a new slot.
Disabled Onboard sound.
Reset the Bios.
Upgraded the Bios.

The only things remaining for me to do is to buy a new MB and change out the power supply.

I don't get it.

-Eric

Oh and when I left windows gave me a blue screen of death. Probably from all the lock ups and windows not shutting down properly.

According to the AOpen website, the AX34 uses the Via Apollo133 chipset. Have you installed the latest 4in1 chipset drivers? You'll get horrendous lock-ups without these drivers installed.

Also, the AGP slot might be one of Via's earlier ones that can't handle a video card with more than 16MB of RAM (32MB or more = you guessed it, lock-ups!).

The usual Via stuff:
USB ports = enabled
AGP frame buffer = 1/2 of system RAM
ACPI = disabled
APM (power management) = enabled
no cards allowed in the first PCI slot under the AGP slot
AGP slot may have to be set to 1X for stability
fast writes (if available) = disabled

Hope I've provided some useful information. Good luck. :)

Yes I downloaded the latest drivers for the via chipset from Aopen. The AGP card is a Riva 128 with 4mb ram. The only PCI card in the system is the modem which was in the second slot but I since moved it to the bottom slot.

The weird thing is that the computer was working fine until a few weeks before she moved it started doing these lockups but not very often. After she moved it happened daily, and slowly worked its way up to every hour it locks up at least once.

However, when I was running the Powermax (Caldera)program and the DocMem (Free-Dos) programs in dos mode they both ran for more than an hour and neither locked up.

Thanks,
Eric

This one's still 'busted' apparently .... so BUMP !!

I have to agree with Confus-ed, lock-ups that start slow and become more frequent combined with locking during OS installation say (to me at least) that the motherboard is dying a slow, horrible death.

I've been faced with a few systems like this, and I finally end up telling the owner "time to upgrade!".
You'll lose your mind trying to make it work, and when you finally do.....the performance and stability aren't worth the trouble you went through.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Zerotech
I have to agree with Confus-ed ...

---

At the risk of compounding any confus-ed-ness ... what are you agreeing with ? 'Bump' ? ... eedmond started another thread to draw attention to this one ... so I just put 'bump' on this one to save confus-ion ... that worked well, not! :rolleyes: ;) ... but I like folk agreeing with me ! so :) ... :D ...even when I never said a word !...

I think I will get her a new MB. Switch her over to a MSI K7T Turbo board at overstock for $30. I have a spare Duron 950 lying around. I think it still uses PC100/PC133 ram.

Thanks everybody for your help.

-Eric

I was referring to the "this one's still 'busted'.." part, I thought you were talking about the motherboard. :o

Wonder if a pci video card would do the trick... But after being moved it could be anything - perhaps a hairline crack?

OK. I bought a MSI K7T Turbo board and put it in with a AMD Duron 950. Was installing ME last night. ME pops up Error Loading Explorer reinstall windows. So I reformat and reinstall again. Hour later same message. Do it again. Remember that ME had a shutdown patch on microsofts website. Downloaded the IDE HD patch. Seemed to solve things. Got most things loaded was about 98% done when I rebooted after downloading a patch. Error Loading Explorer popped up again. I Screamed! 2 AM now. Figure I would try ME one last time. Reinstalled. Froze during Installation. Rebooted. Finished Installation. Started downloading patches again. Froze again. Rebooted. Froze on startup. Finally got fed up with it. The only thing I have not replaced in this machine by now is the power supply. Pull out the LC 300W power supply. Drop in a Sparkle 250W from an old Celeron 500 System. No lockups since. Switched to 98SE. No Error loading explorer messages so far. Finally went to bed at 5am.

This computer has to be directly from hell. Worked on it from 3pm till 5am just to install windows.

-Eric