SoA Board recommendation please

  • Thread starter Thread starter Coolasblu
  • Start date Start date
C

Coolasblu

Need:

PC2100 compatability
1 Firewire
USB 2.0
4xIDE sockets UDMA
1 Ethernet slot
Can use my Athon XP 2400+
AGP 4 min

I have a A7V266-E but find its not as reliable as hoped. Memory issues and
dodgy AGP slot. No USB 2 either

Any ideas ?
 
Hi,

I would get it fixed. Perhaps post back here and state clearly what problems
you experience and get on the track on resolving the problems. Read through
how others post: note that including detailed information on the OS,
motherboard, bios version, etc is always an a helpful place to start. If you
machine BSOD's then details on the error message on the first line is
necessary.

Be specific about the probelms - separate them and document / address each
one in turn. You say Memory issues and dodgy AGP slot...

Modern computers should be rock solid reliable and run for years without a
single glitch. You may have software issues, hardware problems, driver
problems or other problems. If you are running XP you should expect XP to
run for years without glitch too.

If you went out and purchased say an A7N8X family board, converted things
and retained much of your hardware, you may find the problems persist.

- Tim
 
OK Here goes:

Asus A7V266-E Bios 1011
1 x Crucial 512Mb PC2100 in slot furthest from CPU
2 x Crucial 256MB PC2100 in other 2 slots
Athlon XP 2400+ never overclocked
Asus 9600XT 128MB AGP using drivers on CD
2 x Western Digital 120GB drives on 2 x Promise UDMA slots
1 x Samsung CDROM on IDE slot
1 x Phillips 228 DVDRW on other IDE slot
Creative Audigy with firewire
Belkin Wireless ADSL/Cable router - connected via ethernet slot. (Wireless
for laptop)
Epson 2100SP Printer connected via Firewire
Epson 1200U Perfection scanner
WINXP Home SP1 with all critical updates to date
Direct X 9

History:

I have had 2 main problems with this board.

1. Dodgy AGP slot

Eversince I had this board the slot was very sensitive to the position of my
original graphics card the AIW Radeon. The slightest move of the card e.g.
if the keyboard cord tanglend with the graphics cable, would result in the
system not being able to boot i.e. 3 beeps at POST. Then when seated
properly, if I used catalyst drivers sometimes the log on screen would be
squashed into a screen as wide as my monitor but only 1 cm high!!! This
could be corrected by reverting back to original driver on CD in Safe Mode.
Is this a dodgy card or AGP slot ?

2. Memory issues

I originally had the 2 Crucial 256Mb PC2100 slots in the sockets furthest
from the cpu. No problems at all with them. I then added a 512Mb slot, same
make, in the available slot. I then expereienced random booting while
running WinXP Pro (at the time). This would happen either at log on or while
copying large directories between hard drives or at random other times, but
mostly while copying. The reboots eventually corryupted my hives and WinXP
couldn't boot. I had to do a reinstall as my ghost images were too
old.(lesson learnt). A clean install, ghost imaged was performed. Same thing
happened. So I removed the 512M stick and stability returned.

Up until the last 2 weeks I haven't dared adding more memory. I have now
installed my asus 9600xt card running cd drivers. I also ordered a 1024stick
as it was going cheap on ebuyer and only 512 was recognised so this has been
RMA'd. After advice from Paul, I have memtest86'd the memory and after 15
cycles no erros were found. I also ran Prime95 without problems. I Also ran
3dMark2001Se with no problems. So I assume my hardware is OK.

However, I get BSOD or reboots on the following occaisions:

1. At inital login screen when I click my name
2. During copying large files
3. During Photoshop CS editing
4. randomly.

The BSOD gave various messages:

1. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
2. mxnic.sys
3. F7BA94D9 base at F7BA7000 Datestamp 3b7d8357 etc etc ect and a memory
dump

What doI do now then ?
 
"Coolasblu" said:
OK Here goes:

Asus A7V266-E Bios 1011
1 x Crucial 512Mb PC2100 in slot furthest from CPU
2 x Crucial 256MB PC2100 in other 2 slots
Athlon XP 2400+ never overclocked
Asus 9600XT 128MB AGP using drivers on CD
2 x Western Digital 120GB drives on 2 x Promise UDMA slots
1 x Samsung CDROM on IDE slot
1 x Phillips 228 DVDRW on other IDE slot
Creative Audigy with firewire
Belkin Wireless ADSL/Cable router - connected via ethernet slot. (Wireless
for laptop)
Epson 2100SP Printer connected via Firewire
Epson 1200U Perfection scanner
WINXP Home SP1 with all critical updates to date
Direct X 9

History:

I have had 2 main problems with this board.

1. Dodgy AGP slot

Eversince I had this board the slot was very sensitive to the position of my
original graphics card the AIW Radeon. The slightest move of the card e.g.
if the keyboard cord tanglend with the graphics cable, would result in the
system not being able to boot i.e. 3 beeps at POST. Then when seated
properly, if I used catalyst drivers sometimes the log on screen would be
squashed into a screen as wide as my monitor but only 1 cm high!!! This
could be corrected by reverting back to original driver on CD in Safe Mode.
Is this a dodgy card or AGP slot ?

2. Memory issues

I originally had the 2 Crucial 256Mb PC2100 slots in the sockets furthest
from the cpu. No problems at all with them. I then added a 512Mb slot, same
make, in the available slot. I then expereienced random booting while
running WinXP Pro (at the time). This would happen either at log on or while
copying large directories between hard drives or at random other times, but
mostly while copying. The reboots eventually corryupted my hives and WinXP
couldn't boot. I had to do a reinstall as my ghost images were too
old.(lesson learnt). A clean install, ghost imaged was performed. Same thing
happened. So I removed the 512M stick and stability returned.

Up until the last 2 weeks I haven't dared adding more memory. I have now
installed my asus 9600xt card running cd drivers. I also ordered a 1024stick
as it was going cheap on ebuyer and only 512 was recognised so this has been
RMA'd. After advice from Paul, I have memtest86'd the memory and after 15
cycles no erros were found. I also ran Prime95 without problems. I Also ran
3dMark2001Se with no problems. So I assume my hardware is OK.

However, I get BSOD or reboots on the following occaisions:

1. At inital login screen when I click my name
2. During copying large files
3. During Photoshop CS editing
4. randomly.

The BSOD gave various messages:

1. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
2. mxnic.sys
3. F7BA94D9 base at F7BA7000 Datestamp 3b7d8357 etc etc ect and a memory
dump

What doI do now then ?
Click to expand...

Was your OS a clean install, or is the disk migrated from another
machine ?

You don't show the Ethernet card type in your inventory. What chip
type is on the card ? Perhaps you can also indicate what PCI cards
you've got and what PCI slots they are currently in (for the purposes
of analysing interrupt line sharing). PCI slot 1 is nearest the
processor.

Paul
 
Coolasblue,

Hi,

Whatever your network card is, please check the drivers for later versions.
A driver rated WHQL tested / certified is best.

If you can, try removing the network card and run the system without it to
test for stability.

The IRQL error indicates either bad hardware, or bad NIC - this is assuming
the mxnic.sys reported is actually for a network card.

Try and get 1 issue at a time sorted IE work on only 1 issue changing only 1
thing at a time and devising / running a specific test to see if the change
has fixed the problem.

Is your AGP card still sensitive to movement? If not this is now irrelevant
and the remaining issue you may have there is the stability / quality of the
drivers.



- Tim
 
BTW, it is the stop number that is most important, next is the mention of
any .sys files, followed by any parameters after the stop message.

The remainder of the screen is of lesser importance. Most errors are due to
hardware / drivers / memory - but not always of course.

- Tim
 
STOP:0:0000000D1

PCI SLOT 2 = CREATIVE AUDIGY
PCI SLOT 4 = NIC CARD SOHOware10/100
Click to expand...

The NIC card has its own interrupt signal, according to the table
in the manual, so it isn't a sharing problem. If it was my machine,
I would put the Audigy in slot 4, and the NIC in slot 5. Since
slot 1 and slot 5 share, if there is no card in slot 1, then slot 5
ends up being unique.

Other than that trivia, I would suggest changing out the NIC and
try another one. For example, in my local computer stores, you
can get a Realtek NIC for $10 in the bargain bin, and it would
be worth it, just to see if the NIC driver is at fault. (Note that
Realtek cards are low performance, due to the need to copy the
received packets into system memory with a block copy - Realtek
cheap cards don't use a standard ring buffer like everyone else.)
The only question I would have about the Sohoware (tulip) card, is
whether the drivers are maintained by the vendor or not, to be
compatible with WinXP.

Otherwise, try to capture more crash events and the names of
any drivers that are involved. Your MXNIC thing is related to the
NIC card, as it would show up as a Macronix chip, according to
this page:

http://www.sohoware.com/span/new_sohoware/newfiles/consumerpages/downloadcenter.htm

HTH,
Paul
 
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