Stuttering in 98se on an EP 7KXA

[HedsSpaz]

Sigh, the endless streams of problems goes on, but nevertheless, we keep trying to fix them.

Anyway, so the problem seems to be very similar the the problem that a number of people have/had been reporting with 5.41 PD. However, I'm not using the 5.41 PD. I've got a hybrid of the 5.30 PD and the 5.41 drivers. I don't really think this is a problem with the Matrox stuff, but I'm not really sure. It appears to be a problem with the VIA agp drivers. I've tried the 4.17 4.18 and 4.20 drivers and they all cause that annoying pause. About every 10-15 sec everything just stops for a second or so. It's really annoying. The really strange part of course is that it isn't consistent. Sometimes when I boot my system everything is just fine, other times it pauses, and still other times it will start pausing even though it wasn't at first.
Most of the time it seems to start pausing after I've been playing UT. I've flashed the Mobo bios to 310 and played with bunches of settings in the bios. I'm starting to run out of idea's and it's really begining to irk me.

So, if anybody has some suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Thanks
Ian

------------------
Epox 7KXA, Athlon 650, 256 MB PC133 SDRAM, Matrox Mill G200 AGP PD 5.41/5.30 hybrid, SBLive value LiveWare 3.0,
13.6 GB 7200RPM UDMA33 IBM HD, 15gb 7200 RPM Maxtor, 45X Acer CD-ROM, Win98 se, Mandrake 7.0

"Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke



[This message has been edited by HedsSpaz (edited 10 April 2000).]

[Brian R.]

What are the settings you are using for Virtual Memory?

[HedsSpaz]

A static 192mb swap file. I really don't think that has anything to do with it though. Even running UT doesn't cause my system to start swapping, which is rather impressive for win 98.
Now that I'm home and not at work I can start playing with things again. I just tried nocking the RAM speed back down to 100 so that it's in sync with the FSB. It doesn't seem to have made a difference though. However, do to a rather strange occurance my computer did something goofy with the display which I had to fix, but in the process I noticed that after I changed the resolution the stuttering started. Now, if I remove the VIA agp drivers I don't seem to have this problem, but I take a huge performance hit in UT. I've also rebooted my computer again and the problem hasn't started yet, and I haven't changed any video settings. Hmmm, very strange.

Ian

[Brian R.]

You might try the Via website and see if this, or something like it, is a known problem.

[HedsSpaz]

I already checked Via's site, it's crap, none of their faqs have been updated since last august.

I have verified that the stuttering does start whenever the resolution or refresh rate change. Now since I really don't think this is a Matrox problem it follows that it must be a Via problem.

So, I ask yet again, does anybody out there have any idea's at all. I've tried so many different things and I have no more idea's.

Thanks
Ian

[HedsSpaz]

Well, it looks like I've managed to track down the problem(in case anyone actually reads this and cares). It seems to be related to my 3com Nic(big suprise). So I'm going to play with some bios settings when I get home from work and see what it does. I'll post the results just in case anyone actually IS interested.

Ian

[aiwa501]

Hi HedsSpaz,
I have a 7kxa with an Athlon 700 and a g400 and I also was having that pause every 10-15 seconds, which was driving me crazy. I was also getting lock ups before I was able to see any icons on my desktop. (did you experience that as well?) I removed every pci card in my system and it has stoped. I guess It's also with my 3Com card, so I'm going to try an Intel card to see if that works. As for PD, I really dont have any problems with any except when running Quake 3, which will only work on PD5.30 and turboGL 1.0, any other PD will just crash the game and I have to reboot. My best benchmark score in 3DMark2000 are when I use PD 5.52, but since Quake 3 won't work, I'm stuck with 5.30 which sacrafices about 100+ points on the benchmark. Also with the 5.30 PD drivers the 3dMark2000 flashes some whacked out colors during all the helicopter test. I've been using the 4.20 4-in-1 drivers cause i see no advantages with any other.

Let me know if you get that 3Com card working by messing with the bios setting, I would be interested.

Thanks
aiwa

[paulcs]

I've seen a lot of people fix problems related to 3Comm NIC's by using the "stripped down" drivers from 3Comm's site or the drivers that are built into Windows. Installing the full driver set and software appears to be trouble.

The exception seems to be the 3c905TX. If you're having problems, the solution appears to be to buy a cheap Linksys or Netgear NIC. I honestly don't know what the deal is with this particular board. (The problem with the drivers appear to be a polling issue.) I just see it coming up a lot on the forums.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[aiwa501]

Hello all,
Here's an update on my G400 situation. I went and installed the Intel Network card.
Now the system seems for lock up (freeze) more often than before, It gives me a green line across the top when it locks up. This all happens before win98se fully loads. Sort of right before you see all the icons. When it does boot normally. I am no longer experiencing the pauses every and 10-15 seconds. I'm not sure if this is the intel network card causing this problem. I'm gonna remove it next and kep it off to see if it continues. Will keep you posted.

[HedsSpaz]

Hey guys, I've been busy for the past several days and haven't had time to post.
I did manage to come up with a solution. I found this trick on the EPoX Usenet server.

I'm not quite sure which setting it is that solved the problem, it may have been all of them, but either way the problem has gone away since I changed the BIOS settings to look like this.

1) PCI Delay Transaction disabled
2) CPU to PC Write Buffer disabled

AND

3) PCI Dynamic Burst enabled
4) PCI Master 0 WS Write enabled

Hope that helps you guys.

Ian

[Jammrock]

I had a similar problem with an old Kingston NIC. If you are not connected to a network and have the NIC enabled, it will do a network check or broadcast or something like that. Anyway, to fix it I disabled the NIC in the Device Manager when I was not using it. Then when I connected to a network I re-enabled it and it worked without hicuping.

Now if you are on a network and are still having troubles, I can't help besides tell you to get better drivers for it.

Jammrock

[HedsSpaz]

I agree Jammrock, NIC's unfortunately do silly things like that. I am on a network though, and I'm not willing to give up access to a T1.

But, as I say, those BIOS tweaks did it for me. I've been running 24 since the day after I started this thread... I think. Anyway, it was sometime last week and I haven't had any pausing since then, and I've only rebooted my computer once. So everything seems to be cool. Your other suggestion about the drivers though sounds like a good idea. I've read things from other people fixing similar problems that way. I just happened that I found this trick before I could try that one. And since this one worked, I haven't felt the need to try updating the drivers. Maybe I'll give it a try anyway.

Ian