I implore you to read this one

[Helevitia]

GD,

Please don't mis-understand what I am telling you. I am not telling you to permanantly disable your cache, just as a troubleshooting measure to determine the problem.

Dave

[Chucky Cheese]

GD,

TIPS;

1) agp apreture - 128

2 power management on...make sure and disable the countdown timers. set these up within the os.

3) plug and play os - yes

4) acpi aware os - yes

5) get the usb controller off of irq 9, if your not using your serial ports, disable them and put the usb irq on either 3 or 4. you can find usb-to-whatever adapters now almost anywhere.

6) in device manager >system devices >PCI bus >irq steering tab; check mark "use irq steering" and "get irq table from acpi bios", uncheck everything else...this effectively disables irq steering...i know it sounds wrong but thats the way it works on this board..do it, and you tell me what it says in irq steering status window!

the "high performance" is the "optimal" defaults, the question comes up during the confirmation dialouge. i have all versions of the bios for this board, e-mail me from my profile and i'll send them. basically the last two were for running PIIIs'.

IMHO a 300 watt ps is on the low end of the requirements for this board. i have a 400 watt and it is very adequate, on top of all the periphials my system has i have 6 ball bearing case fans.

one last thing, if you subscibe to turning your pc off every day, remember this...the highest chance of anything "failing" is during a power cycle, trust me..i work on electronics every day. if security is an issue then i would look at a biometric solution, like a finger print id(USB).
i have mine plugged into 1400 VA ups and leave it on all the time.

later

chucky


[This message has been edited by Chucky Cheese (edited 16 February 2000).]

[The PIT]

Irq steering twice on irq9. You should only have one. This could indicate a device incorrectly installed or uninstalled. Boot into safe mode and check that you haven't got any extra dupclicate or old hardware still lingering.
This solved someone elses problem some time back.

[GD]

Guys I think I've found the solution!

Well it sounds kinda funny (actually it is funny). I had pluged many devices in the same electrical socket so I think the problem was in feeding the computer with enough power. Well I know it doesn't make much sense but since I connected the scanner, printer, hi-fi and ISDN TA to another socket, the system seems to be rock stable.

Well it might be just a coincidence. Anyway I did manage to run 3DMark2000 (both the demo and the benchmark) and Quake 3 at a resolution of 1600x1200 pixels. This would be destructive in other cases!

Tomorrow I will run some tests to verify that the lockups have been reduced.

Helevitia, don't worry I did not misunderstand anything. I apologise if I gave that impression which is mainly due to my bad english :-)

Chucky, I have BIOS revision 774092399. Isn't this the latest version?

About that IRQ thing, It even appears after a clean install. I don't think it is a twice-installed-device issue. Should I contact AMI about this?

I want to thank everyone for their support! You've been all more than helpful!

Cya all!
GD

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PC Power and Cooling Deluxe Chrome Tower case and 300W ATX Power Supply, Dual Slot1 440GX AMI MegaRUM II motherboard, 128MB of ECC 100 MHz SDRAM, PII 450 MHz, Matrox G400 MAX, Seagate Cheetah 9,1GB @ primary SCSI Ultra2 Wide controller, Hitachi 4x DVD-ROM, Panasonic (Matsushita) LS-120 Drive, Terratec EWS64XL sound card.



[This message has been edited by GD (edited 16 February 2000).]

[GrimHippi]

If you are getting lockups involving sound looping I would suggest resetting IRQ's by using "force ESC Update" in the BIOS or by pulling the sound card out, rebooting and then shutting down and reinserting it.

Does the system lock up without the sound card???? The problem reminds me of the early plug and play days when there were no PCI sound cards. If there was a conflict you usually found out about it when Windows booted and promptly destabilized the first time the sound card was accessed to play a wav. The most common manifestation of IRQ conflicts is the sound appearing to get caught in a loop. Although the video card does not utilize the IRQ very much, the sound card utilizes it extensively.

BTW, Have you re-installed Win98??? Did the apparition of Bill Gates stop haunting you???

Much Luck,
GrimHippi

[Goc]

Glad to see GD got his machine working (probably ).
And as for that Hitachi DVD... It seems there is a lot of them around that have that problem with vibrations. I've had two of them and one was vibrating like hell and the other was rock stable always. Anyway, the vibrations don't affect performance, so you should screw the darned thing through some foam rubber on the side... Everything is fine then, and no more vibrating...

RAB... it's a DMA device

[amoore]

>I had pluged many devices in the same electrical socket so I think the problem was in feeding the computer with enough power.

Makes great sense. I was having severe stability problems until recently. After 1) I moved the computer rig to a socket that had nothing else on that line, and 2) turned off all power management in the system.

Moving to a different socket definitely helped (didn't know my refrigerator was sharing the line :-o), but the power management turned out to be the major culprit. Prior to turning off PM, I got the plaid display and other screen trash lockups, blue screen messages saying "can't read from drive C:", and a hung system at least once in every session. Without PM, in three weeks of fairly heavy use, the system has been very stable with no screen trash, no lockups, no hard disk errors and only one BSOD (while testing a suspect keyboard).
FWIW, I turned off PM in both the Control Panel and the System Configuration Utility.

I was surprised to see someone earlier in this thread specify turning PM on since it was such a disaster on my machine.

Athlon 500
FIC SD-11, 300w P/S
128mb RAM
13g Maxtor HD
G400 32mb OEM
SB Live!
40x CD
HP 14g tape backup

[GD]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I really did not expect such an interest!

Targon, I bought the system just before Easter so bye bye warranty. I wonder if the normal guarantee covers me... Anyway maybe I should track down the problem first.

APV, the GX is BX's high-end version. It was designed for the Xeon series but AMI has used it for Slot 1 versions of motherboards as well. I only have one CPU installed.

cnyb, I don't think overheating is the problem here. Even after hours of the computer being turned on, I can touch anything without feeling anything like "hot" or even very warm (of course no one can judge by this fact alone). Currently there are 7 fans inside the case. Two for the case, another two cooling the 10K rpm Hard drive, one at the P/S, and of course the ones which come with the graphics card / CPU. You can easily mistake my PC for a locomotive because of the noise, but hey, I did it in order not to have lock ups! :-)

IceStorm, I HAVE EXCACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM WITH YOU AS FAR AS THE DVD IS CONCERNED!!! I own a 4x GD-2500 as well and sometimes it really shakes the case which produces an awful noise of course. Do you think that loosening the screws would help?

Ali, In the second Slot there IS a termination card installed. However the monitoring utility often indicates a lower than normal voltage for CPU1 (which is for the termination card, the CPU is CPU0).

mkaresh, this is what I was thinking to do... I'm going to try the card on two Athlons this weekend if I find some time...(there's no intel system available unfortunately...)

paulcs, no this is not a server (although I use sambar locally to preview root relative links via a browser, normally these work only remotely). I did reinsert the G400 though without any result. Do you think removing dust would make any difference? (I mean dust on the mainboard because i did clean the contacts of the AGP slot. Although I have filters dust is always there :-( ). There seems not to be any problem with the IRQs. I am able to monitor voltages and fan rpms. There is nothing wrong apart from the CPU's fan (and that termination card voltage) reaching 2500rpm some times. Most of the time it runs at about 2800 (The normal is 3000+).I will try gradually removing everything as a last resort. I will try to put the card in other systems as well first though...

rylan, it doesn't only sound like this it is not! :-). OK here's what I've got:

0 System timer
1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
2 Programmable interrupt controller
3 Communications Port (COM2)
4 Communications Port (COM1)
5 TerraTec EWS64 XL Codec
6 (free)
7 EPSON Printer Port (LPT1)
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
9 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
9 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
10 Symbios Logic 22910 (896-based) PCI SCSI Adapter
10 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
11 Matrox Millennium G400 DualHead - English
11 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller

There is nothing in IRQ 6, for I do not have a floppy drive installed (the LS-120 connects to IDE). What's weird about this configuration is the two IRQ holders for PCI steering for the USB controller. I cannot understand why this is happening.

Helevitia, I know you do feel my pain :-). Usually most computer users can perfectly understand each other.lol.
I am very stubborn when it comes to disabling things, although I'll try this cache thing. Usually this results in a big performance hit right? Anyway I'll let you know of the outcome...

How could I ground the P/S? Since it is directly in touch with unpainted parts of the case, do I have to ground it another way as well?

Thanks for the tips, if everything fails I think it is the only way do go.

chucky, I remember you having a similar config!. The problem is AMI has only released ONE single BIOS update which I installed. It was posted on their site almost one week ago (or so) and the date for the file is 23 of september 99 or something. I did not see any visible changes apart from the fact that the version number has changed. I just get really angry when I see that copyright 1997 (!) text during the POST. (sandra reports even worse, 1995!One of the tips is to update the BIOS!)

Is there a high performance option? I can only find a fail-safe and an optimum option. The problem is, even in the optimum configuration my system is not set up properly. The SCSI is disabled and the boot order I want (ARMD,CDROM, other) is not set.
There is only one SCSI device, and that is the Hard Disk :-). At least for now. I might get a second HD and put RAID 0 some time later...

I do not know about the power supply. In Greece most companies use very low watt P/Ss such as 235W (most people here consider the case and CPU of second fate). Mine is considered to be of very high power (for the greek standards). Do you think I should change it?

I'm surprised! You have the MAX sharing an IRQ with a Live (without ! of course :-) ) with no problems?!

franksch3, I know about the case. As I said there seems not to be a heating problem anyway.

Again, Thank you all for your help!

GD

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PC Power and Cooling Deluxe Chrome Tower case and 300W ATX Power Supply, Dual Slot1 440GX AMI MegaRUM II motherboard, 128MB of ECC 100 MHz SDRAM, PII 450 MHz, Matrox G400 MAX, Seagate Cheetah 9,1GB @ primary SCSI Ultra2 Wide controller, Hitachi 4x DVD-ROM, Panasonic (Matsushita) LS-120 Drive, Terratec EWS64XL sound card.

[Chucky Cheese]

amoore,

the most common mistakes i've seen involving power management setup in windows is people haveing the bios countdown to "power event" at the same time that windows is counting down. one design goal of the acpi hardware was to remove power management from the bios to the operating system. on newer mobos' windows handles this adequately. it is very important to disable the bios countdown timer but enable the hardware.

chucky

[GD]

Hi again!,

Well it might not be as I expected. The machine locked up two times today. Of course I'm not at all disatisfied! Compared to the previous problems, this is fantastic!

The lock ups might be due to the system being over-loaded a bit (you know installs and uninstalls etc). Although I'm running windows at a 1280x1024 res, the programs menu is twice as long as the screen (I have to scroll to access have the programs).

I will try the G400 in other systems as well, just to see its performance on an Athlon (my PII 450 is just too low end for the MAX. I need an SIMD upgrade immediately. I wonder if 440GX will support Willamette. If yes, there's no reason to buy a PIII now)

GrimHippi, there is no such setting in the BIOS. Well the sound card is not very stable, this is true, for it is relatively old (EWS64XL by terratec, 16bit ISA). It is considered a professional board however. I do not think it causes lockups however. Its drivers are very mature. The "non-stable" characterisation goes to the fact that when I change the volume controls while playing an mp3, it will usually lock up... but it might be my fault...

Goc, what do you mean foam rubber? Where can I get this? isn't it restrictive when it comes to removing the unit?

amoore, i'll disable power management as well. It is annoying after all (especially when formating the drive, it goes on stand by..grrr)

Cya all!
GD

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PC Power and Cooling Deluxe Chrome Tower case and 300W ATX Power Supply, Dual Slot1 440GX AMI MegaRUM II motherboard, 128MB of ECC 100 MHz SDRAM, PII 450 MHz, Matrox G400 MAX, Seagate Cheetah 9,1GB @ primary SCSI Ultra2 Wide controller, Hitachi 4x DVD-ROM, Panasonic (Matsushita) LS-120 Drive, Terratec EWS64XL sound card.

[GD]

Hi again,

Sorry for the partly off-topic post :-)

Chucky symbios seem to have released a new BIOS for our controllers. Do you think we should download them or it would cause any incompatibility because it is not from AMI?

Anyway do w2K come with drivers for SCSI? LSI have not posted drivers neither for Win2K not for Linux which is what annoys me the most. ARGH! I want to install linux and Redhat's o/s won't find a partition to install it!

Thanx,
GD

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PC Power and Cooling Deluxe Chrome Tower case and 300W ATX Power Supply, Dual Slot1 440GX AMI MegaRUM II motherboard, 128MB of ECC 100 MHz SDRAM, PII 450 MHz, Matrox G400 MAX, Seagate Cheetah 9,1GB @ primary SCSI Ultra2 Wide controller, Hitachi 4x DVD-ROM, Panasonic (Matsushita) LS-120 Drive, Terratec EWS64XL sound card.

[RGB]

hello
Gd you have an overheating problem...
you should underclock your card or you should
just put a piece of ice in it...


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[G7]

Hi I do not know much of G400 and Gx chipset problems but i had alot of similar probs on an alim1542 chipset a Vanta and a ISA soundcard.

I built about 4 systems like that and each one had a varying degree of stability.
It finally turned out some of the vanta's came from a faulty batch but the most interesting part is that the sound card was running on a 16 bit DMA signal line as well as a high IRQ above 8.

I really thaught that would improve performance in the system but alas it caused the lockups very similar to what you described.

Strangely windows did not show any conflicts at all and the lockups were completely random.
The only way i could fix it was to set the DMA and IRQ resources to the LPT 1 port's resources - if it did not want to work i forced it with a manual config in windows - i will not cover this since you must know what i mean.
Since then it worked every time - and no the seperate systems does not have their soundcards running on the same DMA and IRQ's
it is different for each system,
But it worked for me.
Zero random crashes.

I know this seems like far fetched especially in your situation but it is worth a try since some products are hardware programmed to share some resources.

Hope you get it working - with or without my help that is

[Goc]

Hey GD...

Well... in lack of better term I used "foam rubber", but maybe I'm a bit off the track there...
what I'm talking about is a band made of very porous rubber (don't exactly know what this material is used for). You take it and chop it up so you can glue it to the DVD unit over the holes for the screws... then you play around with your case and try to make the rack where you want to put in the DVD a bit wider, so the rubber goes in too. Then take the screws, find the holes (it's a very annoying thing to do if you didn't mark the holes before ) and screw the DVD tightly (not too tight, though). Voila... that would be it.
And for the material, I think any soft rubber will do...

[Mark F]

In addition to the gaskets/gromets descibed, you can also use a drop a silicon at each screw. It will mold as it dries, can be removed, and doesn't need the drive bay stretching.

Mark F.

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OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a DVD...
and burped out a movie