Athlon users: Need a little troubleshooting help.

[Jammrock]

My System:

Biostar M7MKA motherboard
Athlon 650
Carter Well (??) 250 W power
128 MB SDRAM, by LGS
G400 32 MB DH
WD hard drive
Win98 (nothing else installed right now)


I was trying to get my new Athlon system running last night, but encountered quite a few errors. I am almost positive that the problem lies with my 250 W power supply, but I would like some additional input from experienced Athlon users.

When I first booted the system Win98 reported that there were a bunch or corrupt system files, so I re-installed (can't format until I backup the data). Wiped the Windows directory, ran re-install. On occasion I would get SUWIN errors and the install would crash. Or it would say DLL's were missing and the occasional VxD error would pop up. I thought it may have been a hard drive problem, but when I got windows working I could copy and move data around with no trouble.

Right now I have Win98 running (after 15 reboots during install), but I get explorer, msgsrv32 and rundll errors at boot up and randomly throughout my session. Windows constantly reports that the registry is corrupt at boot and "fixes" it every other time.

Windows will boot fine AFTER I power down the system for a few minutes, but once I reboot the problems return. This makes me think it is one of 2 things:

1) My power supply (250 W and not an approved one) is unable to power the system properly. Most possible problem, IMO.

2) My memory is not functioning properly with the Athlon board. I doubt it is this one since LGS PC100 RAM is on the approved memory list. It could still be the problem, but not as likely as the power supply.

Any suggestiond would be a big help.

Jammrock

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My computer was working great until my brand new "top-of-the-line" power supply committed ritual suicide, after only 24 hours of use, and took out 2 motherboard (mine and a test board), 2 hard drives, a floppy drive and possibly more...a moment of silence please, in rememberance of a valiant computer that served me well.

Sorry, had to vent.

[Wombat]

I think, unfortunately, that your hunch is correct. I'll vote in favor of the PS. Might want a 3rd opinion, though.

I'm not at all familiar w/ the Biostar board, any jumpers on there? Also, have you tried relaxing your RAM timings in the BIOS?

[Jammrock]

That's the odd thing about the Biostar, there are no user changable RAM settings (at least none that I could find). Maybe I need to flash the BIOS, too.

I should be getting my replacement power supply next week. Assuming this one doesn't blow up my computer, too, I will be in good shape (rassa frack'n power supply). BTW, the only jumper is for the CMOS clear.

Jammrock

[Ghydda]

Sorry to hear about the death off your P3B-F...

...But welcome to the world of AMD...

I just wan't to point out that if think you have a faulty stick of RAM. Those SUWIN errrrrrrrorrss give it away, well at least that is my experience on the matter.

Ghydda

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A slowly desintegrating nobody running this...