asus A7V Problems/Upgrade Solution?

[eduboys]

ok - let me preface this post by saying that I've tried all possibly driver and bios upgrades.

I've had an AMD Athlon 900 Mhz thunderbird for about a year now

my specs are

windows me
Asus A7V Mobo latest bios
via 4-in-1 drivers latest revision
Abit Siluro Geforce 2 GTS - newest nvidia driver
sound blaster live
realtek ethernet card
256 meg pc 133 ram
2 HD - both running off the ultra ata/100 port
2 cd's (DVD and CDRW) running off of the regular IDE port ( I had to do this because I was unable to burn discs through the Ultra ata/100 port

I think thats about it for the hardware.

I have had a tremendous amount of problems running anything that seems to use alot of processor power (ie. movies, games) I will be able to use the computer for a couple of minutes before it freezes, but inevitably it does. It also freezes for no apparent reasons at times. I've tried taking everything out of my startup, etc. and it still crashes to the point that the screen is frozen and I have to reboot the system.

Possible solutions that I have been advised.
1) something is overheating
- I've got two case fans and plus the one on the CPU and GPU, i don't think this is the problem.
2) the power supply - I think i've got at least a 300 watt supply, because the vendor I purchased the system from (cyberpowerpc.com) only has 360 watt ones now, and i bought it less than a year ago.
3) I've read several message that there are faulty asus a7v boards around, and even seen a tutorial of how you are supposed to set them up step by step to ensure a stable system.
4) the promise ata controller is possibly bad (I dunno how i'd check this out)
If anybody has any thoughts please let me know.

Now the other issue here is that I am thinking about upgrading to a board based off of the via kt266a. I've heard MSI makes a good one, and it'll be out in about a week, but i am open to suggestions. Also I am wondering what type of DDR memory i'd need on the board - 2400, 2100, 1600 - and what type of performance increase i would see with the change of motherboard to my system.

I think this post is long enough, so i'll end it.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[BigRat]

check your cpu temp. If its >60C get a new hsf

:redface: :frown: :lol: :tongue:

 

[btvillarin]

First, tackle the hardware issue. What kind of heatsink are you using? Is it the retail one that came with it? If so, maybe it's starting to die on you or something. That's why it <b>might</b> be the CPU. I suggest getting a better one, plus using Arctic Silver II on the die. Might I suggest a MCX370-0A? It's easy to install, and performs well.

I have an A7V133. I don't use the ATA100 controller though. I just use my HD on the Primary controller, and my CD Writer on the Secondary one.

If you wanna install Windows the right way, I suggest you do it in this order:
1) Windows (if you can, I would rather use Windows 98SE)
2) VIA 4-in-1 driver v4.33
3) Promise IDE Controller drivers
4) Graphics Card drivers
5) Sound Card drivers
6) NIC drivers
7) Windows Update website

Usually, after all this, I image my hard drive and burn it to a CD in case my system chokes later on using Drive Image 4.0.

Anyways, I'm not sure if it'd be your power supply, although you do have a lot of components. If you want, maybe you'd like to try setting up the hard drives on the Primary IDE Controller, and the CDRW and DVD on the Secondary IDE Controller.

I hope this helps...

Kernel32.dll error...aw, son of a....