ATI deserves an award...

[Gurm]

Yep.

I haven't had a VIA chipset in a while, but when I did I knew EXACTLY which combination of things to use. I used a stable AGP driver, and the IDE filter (to add stability). And that was ALL.

- Gurm

[lindberg]

Yup, now the linked worked fine. I just had a page full of squares an other characters first, the page was i some proxy. When I forced a refresh I the page showed up.

Have thought about the reinstall, I recently swapped mobo-cpu-graphics card (64M -> 128M) and just uninstalled all hw i windows before installing the new hw.

No format c: for me, I won't reinstall all progz. I would have if I still was 16 years and had nothing else to do but I don't have the patience to wait for windows anymore. W2k have a reinstall-repair option where it installs everything but keep user and program settings, I guess it should be enough. Tried once on another computer and it work very fine.

Cpu, by the way, runs at 35C. Perhaps it's freezing Totally agree about via 4-in-1, I lived a long time happily without them before and don't really know why I installed them. I guess I felt lucky..

[Gurm]

Some advice...

Not that we aren't helpful and friendly, but you might want to register on the forums at Sudhian (formerly Via Hardware).

They are really the VIA experts...

http://www.sudhian.com

- Gurm

[Novdid]

Yup, sounds like you need to reset your windows installation.

Good luck.

[lindberg]

I suppose so...

Now, where is that w2k CD

[2Whyzzi]

Wait a sec

Did you try re-installing directx? Don't un-install it, just dbl click on the exe you downloaded from a long time ago.

I recently did wipe/resintall /w my Radeon 32Meg DDR LE. W98, in went vid driver, directx 8.1, and chipset in that order. I couldn't understand why my system was acting so slowly for Neverwinter Nights. I reinstalled Directx and everything has been stable since (using Catylist 2.4).

[lindberg]

I'll keep that in mind.

I tried to make a repair install but the windoze found a partition I only had mounted on ntfs before and assigned it an drive letter. Which resulted in that the system drive letter was pushed one letter upwards (Didn't have it on c:, win 98 is there) and while it was at it it also hanged during this install resulting in having the OS on another drive with program shortcuts to another drive and nothing worked.

So, I finally made a clean install. I thought it was the only thing left to do. But when I had w2k installed, I installed office, winzip and some other progz and took a ghost image of it. Then I installed som mouse-drivers, DX9, via-driver (agp and some usb-filters) and rebooted. There I was again, BSOD!

I though, maybe it was the mouse-drivers (usb-mouse) and via usb-drivers that collided but I decided that it was unneccessary to try to solve it and started to restore the ghost image I just took.

Then the computer made me proud again, while restoring the image and about 26-27% was restored it just clicked and rebooted!!!!!! I was so happy to get rid of the asus-board but what the heck is this? Seems like my epox really dislikes the enermax crap powersupply maybe? I checked the voltages in the bios and I noticed that +5V was only +4.56V.

The enermax has always had a poor +5V. Has always been around +4.6V to max +4.7V, I found a guide in a forum how to add an variable resitor inside the PS to adjust the +5V with and so I have done. The only problem is that the +12V also rises when adjusting this. When I had made this mod a few weeks ago I adjusted the +5V to exactly +5V and the +12V ended up at 12.8V. But after a few days the epox had forced the +5 back down to +4.8 but the +12V remained the same at 12.8V.

Sounds strange? I think it does, got tired of this so I turned down the +5V back down to it's original so I would have a more reasonable +12V (went to 12.3V). But it seem like the +5V ended up even lower than before I suspect that it's the low +5V that is the reason for the sudden reboots but I'm not sure. The Asus board never had this behaviour with the same PS so maybe it's the Epox that is the prob here.

This has gone way to far now, I could almost beat the silly computer to death as soon as I see it! I started with trying to get the computer stable enough to finnish 3D-Mark at first run and now I have reinstalled the whole windows and ended up with a rebooting computer while trying to restore a ghost

It was probably radeons drivers/fault that I couldn't finnish 3D-Mark but the reboots aren't! I thought I bought the best and most overclockable mobo when I ordered the Epox 8K9A, but I am very, very dissapointed. It isn't even stable without OS! Also saw in the PS forum that the enermax low +5V seemed to occur mostly with epox (but I had the same prob with the asus).

I really do not feel for buying more parts, it was expensive enough with the new mobo, cpu and the 512MB of DDR memory. And as if it wasn't enough the waterblock hose had started to leak a little on the first install so the graphicscard and mobo burned! So I had to buy another mobo and a new graphicscard!! Luckily my home insurance covered a bit of the cost but not all.

I also noticed some posts in an Epox forum where they discussed that the epox 8K9A seemed to have compability problems with samsung PC2700 memory sticks. I have PC3200 but I suspect that it has the same incompability. It only clicks when a reboot occurs but it seems like the power is low because the computer doesn't post, and the cdrw drive just ticks and flash with the activity led just as it is trying but cannot spin up. When the computer posts it looks like the led is brighter but maybe that is just something i wish to see. Can these sudden reboots depend on that the power supply is overloaded? Isn't 350W enough for an XP2100 and hercules graphics card (and 3xhdd, 3xcd)?

Phew, this was much.

[lindberg]

Maybe the +5V line is overloaded. But isn't 350W enough for xp2100+ and radeon8500LE?! Just unplugged two CDROM and one HDD but the +5V only rose 0.03V

[Jon P. Inghram]

How about just buying a new PS? If you suspect it's not working properly, it's not worth the risk of toasting everything in your system that uses electricity (I.E. everything) just to save on the price of a replacement PS.

[Kurt]

I second that...from your description the PS is acting weird. It cant' hurt to have a good PS in it anyway... there's an article on Tom's Hardware ( http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html ).

I like the Fortron Source Power a lot -get a good Aopen case and it's in there, or you can buy an Aopen branded version. Easy to spot, the go like FSP300-GT for a 300W one...

The you have the other ones like High Power (Enlight) or Antec or whichever...

Read the article and make your choice

[GNEP]

Or seach for the numerous threads we've had here recently for Recommended by MURC (tm) PSUs...

[Tempest]

There seems to be two kinds of Radeon users, happy and unhappy. The happy ones have no problems whatsoever, the unhappy often can't even run the card @ default speeds.

I find it hard to believe that there would be so many cards with defects out there, so it could definitely be a power supply issue. Good luck!

-Tempest, KT-333 and FDX 8500LE with zero problems (Enermax 431W PSU)

[The PIT]

How you measuring your voltages via software or via a meter under load. I don't really trust software. If I look in the bios the voltages are different from what I would get with MBM for example. Mine basic rules are, if I see the voltage plunge when under load I take it that power supply ain't man enougth to handle it or it's going west.

[lindberg]

I've checked the bios voltages. When w2k has booted I've checked with MBM5 and the voltages have been the same so I take that it shows the same as in the bios. I have ment to measure with an volt meter in order to see if the bios-voltage is ever near actual values but I've always forgot the meter at work, got one of my own though but I don't like it.

I have my doubts that the PS is actually over loaded, I think that the voltage should have dropped more when CPU usage went from 2% to 100%. I started 6 mediaplayers with one divx-movie playing in each and ran it for about 40min with only an voltage drop about 0.1V - 0.15V while cpu usage was mostly at 98-100%.

Couldn't force a crash yesterday but today I feel lucky...

[The PIT]

Funny the latest cat 3.0a won't play ball on my ME system even after clearing out all the files and reg entries. Ikernal errors the setup program hanging unable to open advance settings. Doesn't even like the manuel upgrade either. Thank god for Nortons ghost.
I'm hoping I'm not going to have a problem like I did with my 8500 where I had to miss out one generation of drivers.