Massive cold boot problem ...

[MK]

I am currently building a second computer consisting of an Asus K7M mobo (AMD 751 north, VIA 686A south) and an Athlon 700.

But I can`t get it to work properly. According to "bootlog.txt" the board stops to boot exactly when it`s trying to init the display. This only happens when doing a cold boot.

I have already upgraded the mobo bios to the latest available, tried different PD`s and was playing around with Matrox Tweak Utility. Disabling the option "Force Busmastering" helps, but I cannot play videos and some of my games any more.

What can I do ??

MK


The hardware is as follows:

Asus K7M Rev. 1.04
AMD Athlon 700 MHz
196 MB RAM @CAS 3
G400 16 MB
Lite-On CD/RW Writer 161040
Soundblaster 128 PCI
300W power supply
all on W98SE

[Greebe]

Do you have the AMD AGP patch and the VIA Southbridge patches installed?

[MK]

Hi Greebe,

yes I installed the patches in the following order after format c:

- Win98SE
- IDE & IRQ Miniport Driver from VIA 4in1 V4.37
- AMD AGP Patch from AMD Driver Package V1.30
- DirectX 8.0a
- PD 6.82

That should work right ?

Some more questions:
How do I turn off "side band addressing" ?
Does it have the same negative effects than disabling "force busmastering" (no video, games, etc.) ?
Do the PD 5.xx registry hacks work with the PDs version 6.xx ?

MK

[Kruzin]

G400 doesn't support side band addressing, so it's already off...

[MK]

So do the PD 5.xx reg hacks work with PD 6.xx ??

MK

[Greebe]

Uhmmm Ken the G400 does support sideband addressing.

MK the only time you what to disable SBA and or busmastering is for trouble shooting purposes.
Also do not use PD5 registry hacks in PD6

- Win98SE
- IDE & IRQ Miniport Driver from VIA 4in1 V4.37
- AMD AGP Patch from AMD Driver Package V1.30
- DirectX 8.0a
- PD 6.82

that's what should be installed... post up your IRQ list

[Kruzin]

I stand corrected by Greebe.
I was thinking fast writes, not SBA, when I posted that...

[MK]

Greebe - thanks for the fast reply, so I don`t even try to use the reg hacks for PD 6.xx.

The IRQ`s are fine (that was the first I checked), nothing on the same IRQ, not a single conflict and the G400 resides on 11. Tell me if you still need them. But there is something else I noticed:

When I installed the operating system (I tried it with and without ACPI enabled), it stalled the first time when it was trying to go to the desktop for the first time (bootlog.txt stopped after "init = display)!. The screen suddenly went black, the system rebooted automatically and booted perfectly fine afterwards.

Now the same happened after installing the G400 drivers. As the system tried to go for the dektop for the first time it stalled and rebooted suddenly. At the second try everything worked fine and I was able to install the rest of the software. I checked stability with a 15 minutes Q3A demo1 and demo2 loop and shut down the computer.

At the next startup (a cold boot) the screen got corrupted immediately as the system tried to initialize the display. This cold boot error can be constantly reproduced since then. To get rid of it, I have to go to save mode, deinstall the G400 in the device manager and reboot. Then the card is recognised correctly, the drivers are installed and it asks for another reboot. At the next startup the systems usually stalls (black screen) and reboots immediately. Half a minute later I find myself on a properly working desktop as long as I do not shut down the machine and do a cold boot.

To make sure that the card itself is o.k. I put it back into my main machine (W2k) and in my girlfriends computer (W98) - the card worked flawlessly in both of the systems.

Disabling "Force Busmastering" improves the boot situation a little bit, but does not eliminate the probs 100%. If I swap out the G400 for a ATI Rage Pro AGP 8MB I run into the same problems !!

I am becoming pretty desperate now, so do you have ANY advice ?? Do I have to install the VIA USB filter ??

MK

[MK]

The system seems to work now. After some reading I changed several settings in the bios.

And guess: the cold boot problem does not occur any more with the ATI Rage Pro.

Tomorrow I am going to test the G400; but I hope that`s final then !

MK

[Greebe]

I owned the K7M when it first came out... think it took Asus 6-9 months to get the BIOS straightened out. I never liked it... way to much sheit for a small MB... especially if you wanted to use a real HS ackkkkk!

[DC]

Have you tried another PowerSupply? That was a Problem I had with my Abit KT7 and Duron 600.

DC

[woel]

I also have a problem with cold boot. I wrote about it in the general forum. I haven't found a fix yet but I haven't tried all suggestions I got. But I guess my problem is a little different and it does not seem to be related to the graphics card.

I find it really interesting/confusing when the computer hangs when booted cold. I have a hard time finding any connections with a software problem and it seems more like it's hardware related....


/Leo

[MK]

woel - I changed the ASUS K7M bios to the following values:

Primary Display = Absent
Delayed Transaction = Disabled
Clck Generator for Empty PCI Slot = Enable
USB = All USB Port (recommended by VIA)
ACPI = yes (but Win98 is installed without it)
APM = enabled
PnP Aware OS = Yes (recommended by VIA)
Clear NV RAM = Yes
PCI Clck Latency = 64

These were the crucial settings that make my system work up to now.

Hope that helps

MK