G400Max + MSI K7T Pro2A = Instability

[Goc]

Recently I decided to retire my faithful BH6 and Katmai450@600 so I bought myself a Tbird 850 and MSI K7T Pro2A.
When I put it all together, re-installed Windows and installed all the newest drivers I wanted to test my new baby how fast it can really go! Well, I haven't even begun to overclock stuff, and it was already crashing randomly every now and then. Since then it's been all about reinstalling Windows, swapping cards, drivers, cables etc...
And it's still crashing

Well guys (and gals) it's up to you to try and help me out because I'm seriously thinking about smashing the whole pewter to dust.
Through all the testing I've done, I've come up with a combination of things that make my computer crash. Playing Divx flicks while Seti is crunching in the background causes almost an immediate lock-up. Seti and Nero 5.0.0.9 in combination almost always lock-up, and Cool Edit doing transformations on massive .wavs also freezes up the whole thing.

That's all the info I can think of at this moment. If there is something more that interests you, ask and you shall be answered

My Specs:

MSI K7T Pro 2A (via 696B southbridge capable of ATA100)
AMD Thunderbird 850 (running at 30-38 deg. C)
Titan Majesty V TTC-M5AB cooler
128 Mb PC133 Micron CAS2 (set to HostClock+33@CAS3 in BIOS)
G400Max (AGP slot)
SB Live! Value (PCI slot 4)
Pixelview PlayTV Pro TV tuner (PCI slot 2)
Motorola SM56 softmodem (PCI slot 6)
300W PSU, Moretec (best I could buy where I live)
IBM DTLA 307030, 30 Gb ATA100, Primary master
Teac W54E writer, Secondary slave

Running WinME, DirectX7 (tried upgrading to Dx8 but it didn't help)

IRQ list:

00 System timer
01 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
02 Programmable interrupt controller
03 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
03 Motorola SM56 PCI Speakerphone Modem
04 Communications Port (COM1)
05 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
05 Creative SB Live! Value
06 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
07 Printer Port (LPT1)
08 System CMOS/real time clock
09 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
10 Brooktree Fusion/Audio Capture Device
10 Brooktree Fusion/Video Capture Device
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
11 Matrox Millenium G400 DualHead Max - English
12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 Numeric data processor
14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)


OK, that's about it. Hope it's enough data


Edit:

Eh... Every piece of hardware has been tested in other machines running an Athlon on a similar or exact mobo. Also, all of it was in my former pewter and it worked happily in harmony without a single crash... Mobo and CPU are the things that are new. Go figure!

[This message has been edited by Goc (edited 21 February 2001).]

[DGhost]

what kind of power supply are you using?

[Goc]

It's in the specs...
300W manufactured by Moretec...


[This message has been edited by Goc (edited 22 February 2001).]

[dZeus]

I don't know that much about VIA chipsets, but a flatmate of mine also had problems of random freezes, untill Win2k was installed without ACPI. Even then, he could get to install his SBLive! (posted that prob in a thread here even ), so he swapped his soundcard for a Terratec DMX Xfire 1024, and all is working fine now. I still don't understand why his SBLive! didn't work though...

[Goc]

thanks for the input.... Anyone got some more ideas?


[This message has been edited by Goc (edited 22 February 2001).]

[DGhost]

errr. sorry, i didn't notice it listed the first time around.

Make sure you have the latest official 4 in 1 drivers (we use the 4.25 version), beyond that you got me stumped...

[DentyCracker]

I screwed up my the Winme on my machine last night by running speed disk for win2k on its while I was in win2k. No matter what I did I couldn't get my sblive to work. I reinstalled this morning before I went to work. (I have an Abit KT7). I installed winme, installed Via 4in128v(a) (turbo mode), install DX8.0 (don't have 8.0a yet) install PD 6.23, install SBLive! X-Gamer 5.1 drivers. (you may have to enable LPT interrupt sharing on the SB emulation). BTW I never could get a SM56 motorola crap winmodem to work in my machine, maybe was a bad modem). Seemed stable enuf before I left for work.

[IcedEarth]

Well, I installed a G450 on the same mobo last week. The PC has crashed twice during the first two days it was used and once it just decided to reboot in the middle of a heavy duty game of solitaire.
Could be a Matrox-MSI incompatibility problem.

[Goc]

Well, I thought it could be a MSI-Matrox incompatibility problem, but my brother has got the same mobo and a G450 and everything works without a glitch so I am totaly puzzled. It's pretty annonying dammit!!
The more I look at the causes that make my machine freeze, the more I think it's a bad mobo, or even more, a bad southbridge. Seems like havy load on the hdd almost always makes the thing crash. Bwah... it sucks anyway.

And as for SM56 issue, I have no complaints although a friend of mine with a Biostar mobo with KX133 chipset had all sorts of problems until he finally got rid of the winmodem crap... (that really was a bad modem. Didn't work properly in any machine...)

[This message has been edited by Goc (edited 22 February 2001).]