Irongate problems

[Guest]

I have the following problem with Irongate motherboards.
First, here is the setup:
MSI 6167 (early revision without SuperByPass)
or
MSI 6195 (K7Pro, with SuperByPass, two different boards)
750Mhz Slot-A Athlon CPU (not a T-Bird)
400W Powersupply
newest chipset drivers installed

The problem:
The system crashes VERY often when using either a Elsa Erazor III (TNT2 Pro) or a Guillemot 3D Prophet DDR.

I have set the AGP mode to 1x, using PowerStrip.
The graphics card DOES share the IRQ with
the ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI and
a Soundblaster Live!

Is this problem necessarily related to the IRQ sharing?
Or might something else cause the crashing? It only happens while using the 3D Modus. I think I remember there being a problem involving the Irongate chipset and AGP?
Thanks for any help.

 

[Flyboy]

I'd say your guess as to the IRQ sharing conflict is reasonable. Check your mobo manual and perhaps move the sound card to a different PCI slot.

 

[Guest]

He is right about moving your sound card, also disable ACPI, and/or try setting PNP OS to "NO".
Note: Only do one thing at a time, and re-test. That way you know what fixed it.

 

[Guest]

Rather unfortunately the problem persists.
I tried to asign a different IRQ to the soundcard, but even though I set "Plug and Play OS" to "NO", Win98SE completely ignored my BIOS settings, changing them within the OS is not possible. I already had the card in the second PCI slot so it was supposed not to share the INT-line and IRQ. I then removed the soundcard completely, but it still crashes.
Additional information:
I have the newest BIOS for the motherboards and the Geforce and I am using the newest drivers for the chipset and the NVidia drivers version 6.31. Using older BIOS versions and/or drivers did not help anything.
I am just about ready to buy a completely new motherboard/CPU combo...

 

[Flyboy]

Jeez, seems like you've tried bout' everything.

One more thought and forgive me if it sounds like I'm insulting your intelligence! But did you make sure that the AGP bus speed is set correctly? For example if your running 100MHz FSB is the AGP bus set to 2/3 the FSB (66MHz)? Check your jumper/dipswitch settings or BIOS- whichever applies for your motherboard.

Good luck dude- hope you figure this one out I'd like to know what the problem is...

Hey do you have a PCI video card you can try?

Also have you read the FAQ on MSI website?

http://www.msicomputer.com/search/searched.pl?cat

Looks like you should make sure that you have BIOS rev. 1.5 or newer. Seems like those boards may be a little picky about the type of RAM also. Is your RAM one of those recommended for this Athlon system?

If you could try a PCI vid card, latest BIOS, and different (preferrably one of the recommended types) RAM- surely the problem would be discovered.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Flyboy on 11/19/00 09:01 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[mpjesse]

I think I remember hearing something about GeForce DDR's not working right with the older Athlon's... Check Nvidia's website. I swear I remember seeing something on their website. Good luck. I know it's vague... Are you using Detonator drivers or OEM drivers? Try the latest detonator drivers. If your using those, try using the original drivers that came with the card.

-JEsse
-Jesse

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for replies, I now have found the problem.
I do have the newest BIOS and I do have the right AGP bus speed. I did read just about any FAQ I found.
The solution is rather hillarious.
I just had to disable my on-access virus scanner. Since then, I had no crashes at all if I stay in AGPx1 mode.
Sometimes you just overlook the easiest solutions......
🙂