NDC SOHO NIC and G400max- disaster!

[derah]

We need a crying icon for this story. I had the @Home cable internet service installed by @Home tech, with a NDC SOHO Fast ethernet card and its ver2.08 rev9 drivers.During the actual installtion the entire system started to fall apart, lost CD audio sound, computer sounds were diminshed, fatal blue screens. I checked IRQ and found 5! devices at IRQ5 : AOpen Soft PCI modem enumerator, AOpen FM56-8M-Soft PCI Modem, NDC 10/100 Fast Ethernet PCI adapter, Intel 82371 AB/EB PCI to USB, Univrsal Host Controller PCI steering.Techs assured me that this wasn't a problem. Over the next couple of days,only CDaudio sounds were low but even clicking anywhere on the desktop produced more blue screens, checkerboard wallpaper effect , desktop coming up in 16 color with max resolution 640X480x256! Finally, immediately after POST screen, a Windows Fatal Exception OE..... and when "press any key" went to black monitor. Couldn't even stay booted in safe mode. I have formatted the whole disaster. I've read other posts on Matrox boards about 3Dcom/driver issues withthe G400 max but not about SOHO ware from NDC. Has anybody experienced similar problems. @Home is returning tomorrow morning and it's scary.

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ASUS P3BF 440BX MB,Intel PIII 500 Mhz, 128MB RAM,Fujitsu 13 GB HD, Acer 50X CDROM, Matrox G400 Max (ver 5.41/turbo), SB Live MP3+(ver 4.06.711) sound card with Liveware3.0, DX7.0

[Greebe]

derah, I have a NDC SOHOWARE Fast ethernet nic's in two of my systems. It's not currently in my Athlon850/G400max sys, but the Max/NDC were togther (in another sys) at one time and were quite happy together. It's an MX-A (MX987x5) using driver ver 2.06 and never had a problem with it.
My suggestion is to resolve your IRQ conflict and or toss that Aopen softmodem.

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Designer of the first commercial Athlon mod. Currently sold through AZZO.com
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[derah]

You summed it up nicely. After further readings and discussions with NDC and Matrox it sounds like IRQ/AOpen modem conflict were the cause of the crash. Other suggestions I received were to disable COM Port2 OR disable USB in BIOS and device manager AND definitely make sure that the NIC is not installed next to the AGP slot. I look forward to troubleshooting the install tomorrow. Thanks for the advice!

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ASUS P3BF 440BX MB,Intel PIII 500 Mhz, 128MB RAM,Fujitsu 13 GB HD, Acer 50X CDROM, Matrox G400 Max (ver 5.41/turbo), SB Live MP3+(ver 4.06.711) sound card with Liveware3.0, DX7.0

[RAB]

Both of my NIC's actually work fine in the slot next to the AGP slot. And they share IRQ 11 with my G200 and G400 respectively. No problems. The moral of the story is: Don't assume that using a NIC in PCI slot 1 will not work. It could actually be the ONLY slot that works. Most NIC don't use busmastering, so they are the only cards I would put next to the AGP slot. Any SOUND card in slot 1 is inviting disaster because they do use busmastering and this isn't good next to the AGP slot.

RAB

p.s. Others have reported problems with anything next to the AGP slot, so some experimentation is in order.