My Athlon freezes all the time in D3D and OpenGL

[Nicolaj]

I'm having a very big problem with my computer! Every D3D or OpenGL applicstions crashes, sometimes after 2 min. and sometimes after 1 hour! I have been having this problem ever since a bought my computer in november!! And it's really starting to pissing me off
I started with a TNT2, and changed it to a G400 MAX because i thought that it would help with the stability issue!
Here is my specs:

Windows98SE
Athlon 500 NOT OC'ed
Asus K7M rev. 1.04 stepping 4
Onboard Audio
G400 MAX
IBM 13,5 GB
24X CD-ROM
128 MB PC-100 RAM
100 Mbit Netcard

I didn't post my IRQ list, since I'm not at home right now! But my G400 uses IRQ 11 or 15 (can't remember witch one) and is sharing it with "PCI irq holder sharing somthing"
Latest DirectX 7.0a
Latest Agp Miniport 1.60 I think (DL it yesterday)
All the Matrox Drivers, since 5.30.
Latest TurboGL, all the Bios updates for my Motherboard. Currently running with 1209 sice i hears that it was the most stable one.
None of the tweaks or Bios changes I have tried several tweaks! I've tried all the Bios updates, all the Matrox drivers, (including ParaKnowYA's driverpack, with AGPx1 regs)nothing seems to help!

Please help me before I kick the crap out og my computer!!!

BTW, I only get about 28 frames in Q3 with everything on EXCEPT triniliar filtering, in 1024*768!! With my TNT2 Ultra I got about 35 frames!!! How can this be???
I'm really desperate, so please reply with anything you can!!

PS. How do i disable sidebanding?? And why can't i start Quake2 with bus mastering disabled??

[Wombat]

What about cooling? Could be heat, or the Power supply.

[merchant2112]

im not that familer with the arus board but, what kind of power supply are you useing.?
were you haveing this problem with the other video cards you had in your system? have you tryed disableing or removeing the other devices in your system to see if they are cuaseing the problem. (i had issues with my vortex 2 sound card cuaseing almost the same lock up as yours. switching out to a sb live x gamer fixed the problem. (try disableing the ondoard sound see what happens.)

other, what version of windows se are you useing (upgrade or full install.) i resent;y upgraded to windows se (useingn the upgrade version.) and my pc that was rock stable started locking up. (windows messed up on install (i know this becuase my modem started connecting to the web at only 49000 last night i reformated again and reinstalled windows (this time useing the full install version of se) and it seems as if some things were fixed, (my modem once again connects at 50666k) and some other things seem to be worrking better.)

[Meek]

Since you had the problem also with TNT2, we may assume that the problem is not the G400Max. (Well, of course, you can never be totally sure).

Athlons are picky about the PowerSupply and also the DIMMs. I do not know if you can change memory timings with the K7M, but if you can, you might try to use more conservative settings.

IRQ list would be nice to see, also conflicts between e.g. sound card and NIC cause instability.

M.

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Athlon500/MSI6167/256M/10GIBM/6GSamsung/18GSCSI IBM/AHA2940/CL2xDVD/FastMM2+MJPEG/HPPSScanner/HPPSPrinter/G400DH32M/ZIP100SCSI/Mitsumi2xCD-R/Samsung17GL/MX300/ADSPyro1394/AHA2940UW

[Zwisch]

Which drivers did you install for your VIA southbridge chipset... since you only mention that you installed the AGP miniport for your AMD northbridge chipset...? The BusMastering drivers from your CD are very important if you want a stable system...

And yes, good and recommeded powersupply and memory are very important with Athlons.

Z

[Nicolaj]

I got 300W power suply, and some PC100 RAM!! But what's that about Ram timing?? Tell me more!

BTW, I can't post my IRQ list since I'm not writing this at home! But I can 99,9% asure that IRQ is NOT a problem at all! I'm using IRQ 11 or 15 with My Matrox g400 and it's being shared with my "PCI Holder for PCI steering" or what it's called, NOTHING else.
I already got the new AGP driver, but as i'm familiar NO IDE Busmaster driver. Is that really important?? Because a have broken my UDMA66 Cable, and is currently running with a standard IDE cable. Oh, before I broke the UDMA66 cable I used it! But I still frooze in games.....

PLEASE HELP MY!!

Thanx

[Zwisch]

Hi,

The Bus MAstering patch is darn important!!! Your cards will not a able to communicate with the bus properly without them. This is not only related to your hard drive but your hole system... If bus mastering is not working, it is just as if your would be sharing all your IRQs. Install that patch now! You can find it on the CD that came with your K7M.

Z

[Nicolaj]

Zwisch: I really hope that's my problem! I'll be runnug home and check it! If my problems are solved now, I would really like to thank you for helping me! but if not, i'll be back for help

See ya

Nicolaj

[Designer]

Z, not to take away from Nicolaj's thread, but what is the file name for the bus mastering patch on the CD. I have a K7m mobo and did not load that file. However, my system is stable and bus mastering is enabled. Thanks, Designer

[Zwisch]

Hi,

This is my work system and do not have the CD here but if I remember there are very limited options in the main menu of that CD... There should be one called AGP Miniport and one called BusMastering or Via patches (or chipset patches)but should be easy to find... I am sure that I am getting confused a bit with the CD from my FIC SD-11 that I am using at home

[Mechanix]

If you are using Windows 98SE, you should not need any drivers other than the AGP miniport dirver. In fact, the VIA bus mastering have been shown to offer slightly less performance than the Microsoft drivers. As with any Athlon, you need to be sure your memory and power supply are of good quality. The Asus board is especially sensitive to power supplies. You may not notice problems until you start to tax the CPU heavily, as in when gaming. Please post the brand/wattage of the power supply you're using and the brand of memory. Believe me, these are vitally important. If you like, I can recommend replacements that have been proven to lend to Athlon stability. From what I've gathered over time, the G400 max does not typically have problems with Athlon systems. After all, I'm using one and I think it's great! Good luck.

[Nicolaj]

Welli'm not currently running Windows98/SE i'm using Win2K, because it seems a little bit more stable... I got an HX08 Aopen case with a 300W powersuply. And what name my RAM is?? NO IDEA... I bought it throug a magazine og used things.... But I don't think the RAM is the issue, bacause i've already tried changing them with my freinds 64MB RAM (But theu could also be of low quality, he used them on his K6-2)...
I will try to see if I can borrow some PC133 RAM or atleast some 6 or 8ns PC100 RAM!
I will be back for further infomation with my results!
I sure hope thats the issue! Could it really be it?? I hope so, since RAM prices are REALLY low now. And if so, i'll get me some PC133, just to be SAFE!!