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Biggest load of shit ever
Well thats my Abit KT7a 133a raid and my biggest mistake yet.
The history some crashing and trashing left out.
1) Installed the new motherboard rebooted Windows 2k died.
2) Inserted rescue disk corrupt hard disk.
3) Reformatted and re-installed.
4) Rebooted corrupt hard disk
5) Bios fail safe selected.
6) re-installed rebooted corrupt hard disk.
7) Hard disk wouldn't reformat now fdisk or anything.
8) Since drive looked knackered ordered new drive and pissed around in 98 on the other drive.
9) Downloaded IBMS disk tool at work.
10) Tried it on the old drive yep a bad sector and used the tool to fix it. Still wouldn't format or fdisk.
11) Take old hard disk to work since I've read about the crappy 686b bug.
12) Hard drive fdisks and formats striaght away. Mmm. New hard drive arrives.
13) Do the card shuffle three times before win2k installs on new drive. Can now install the patches.
14) System still unstable juggle the cards around and get a more stable system but still likes to crash.
15) Email Overclockers asking for a rma number suggested trying another config. Instant blue screen.
16) Asked for another rma no reply another rummage in the slots and play with wpcedit. Ah the system runs.
17) DVD's don't play on either win98 or win2k.
18) Tried different versions of via 4.1's no go.
19) Ditched 4.1 ide drivers and set the Bios for non for the dvd. DVD's now work but crackles badly.
20) Moved the DVD to the Primary on the via drive and IBM to the highpoint. Crackling gone DVD happy.
21) NDD insists that the partion on drive C is corrupt when running 98. Under win2k no errors reported. Move to Via controller the problem goes away. Ignore the error.
22) Works happily for four weeks then replying to message on how I got my system stable and the machine freezes.
23) Check the event viewer time outs on the highpoint controller.
24) Swap things around putting the dvd on the highpoint and ibm drives on the via controller event viewer still shows errors.
25) Put everything back on the via controller and everything is okay again.
26) Flash the bios of the highpoint and install the latest drivers. Win98 dies horribly. Win2k fills the event viewer with timeout messages. Disable the highpint and forget it for now.
27) Since things arn't quite happy on the via controller buy a promise ultra tx2 and slap everything on there.
28) Everything happy for nine days until two nights ago when theres a blue screen shutting down just make out a message about sysman before the machine reboots.
29) Runs okay last night for two hours and then blue screens with irq not less than or equal message.
30) Some have reported that the 3c Bios has had good results for them so I try that. Clear the cmos and reset the settings.
31) Machine reboots and freezes on desktop.
32) Reboot again starts and runs. Run virus checker just in case something has sneaked in. Machine freezes so I think piss that and go to sleep.
So I'm going to pull the sblive and see what happens. If that cures it I look for a new card. If it doesn't it's a long slow process or going through the hardware memory etc but for me I reckon it's a crap motherboard.
I look longingly at my Bx overclocked board running happily in the corner.
The history some crashing and trashing left out.
1) Installed the new motherboard rebooted Windows 2k died.
2) Inserted rescue disk corrupt hard disk.
3) Reformatted and re-installed.
4) Rebooted corrupt hard disk
5) Bios fail safe selected.
6) re-installed rebooted corrupt hard disk.
7) Hard disk wouldn't reformat now fdisk or anything.
8) Since drive looked knackered ordered new drive and pissed around in 98 on the other drive.
9) Downloaded IBMS disk tool at work.
10) Tried it on the old drive yep a bad sector and used the tool to fix it. Still wouldn't format or fdisk.
11) Take old hard disk to work since I've read about the crappy 686b bug.
12) Hard drive fdisks and formats striaght away. Mmm. New hard drive arrives.
13) Do the card shuffle three times before win2k installs on new drive. Can now install the patches.
14) System still unstable juggle the cards around and get a more stable system but still likes to crash.
15) Email Overclockers asking for a rma number suggested trying another config. Instant blue screen.
16) Asked for another rma no reply another rummage in the slots and play with wpcedit. Ah the system runs.
17) DVD's don't play on either win98 or win2k.
18) Tried different versions of via 4.1's no go.
19) Ditched 4.1 ide drivers and set the Bios for non for the dvd. DVD's now work but crackles badly.
20) Moved the DVD to the Primary on the via drive and IBM to the highpoint. Crackling gone DVD happy.
21) NDD insists that the partion on drive C is corrupt when running 98. Under win2k no errors reported. Move to Via controller the problem goes away. Ignore the error.
22) Works happily for four weeks then replying to message on how I got my system stable and the machine freezes.
23) Check the event viewer time outs on the highpoint controller.
24) Swap things around putting the dvd on the highpoint and ibm drives on the via controller event viewer still shows errors.
25) Put everything back on the via controller and everything is okay again.
26) Flash the bios of the highpoint and install the latest drivers. Win98 dies horribly. Win2k fills the event viewer with timeout messages. Disable the highpint and forget it for now.
27) Since things arn't quite happy on the via controller buy a promise ultra tx2 and slap everything on there.
28) Everything happy for nine days until two nights ago when theres a blue screen shutting down just make out a message about sysman before the machine reboots.
29) Runs okay last night for two hours and then blue screens with irq not less than or equal message.
30) Some have reported that the 3c Bios has had good results for them so I try that. Clear the cmos and reset the settings.
31) Machine reboots and freezes on desktop.
32) Reboot again starts and runs. Run virus checker just in case something has sneaked in. Machine freezes so I think piss that and go to sleep.
So I'm going to pull the sblive and see what happens. If that cures it I look for a new card. If it doesn't it's a long slow process or going through the hardware memory etc but for me I reckon it's a crap motherboard.
I look longingly at my Bx overclocked board running happily in the corner.
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