New 8K7A. Huge problems. Did my research... would appreciate any suggestions.

First of all, thanks for reading my thread. I know there's a million threads about the 8K7A and its problems-- I just spent about 2 hours reading through every one I could find here on the OC forums (and others, btw).

Little background. I, like a lot of you here, have been building computers for years. Seen a lot of problems in my day. Don't profess to know everything but I do have a lot of experience with hardware/software problems.

So I got my new Epox 8K7A last night... a few days before that, my new 1.33 Tbird, DDR ram, Dragon Orb 3, etc. Spent 7 hours last night and couldn't get Windows (tried 98se and 2k Pro) to install on either of my two hard drives. Did numerous FDISK's and formats. Only had the minimum plugged in (one cd drive at a time; no PCI cards; the HD, ram, and vid card [Radeon DDR]).

None of my hardware is defective (2 cd drives, 2 HD's, etc). I have what I believe is the latest bios (from 7.11.01).

Now, from what I've gathered from the other threads, some people have issues with their floppy drives. I tried all the usual stuff last night, changing the cable orientation, checking the bios settings... no dice.

Another issue could be my Enermax 431 watt PSU. Although I don't see how that alone would stop me from installing Windows.
Also, when I get home tonight I'll try downing the FSB to 100.

Anyways, here's where I'd like your suggestions. There's a general pattern when I try doing an OS install. It starts fine (some of the time) but then there are fatal errors.

**Here's a couple of the errors I got when trying Win98:
-- "Win98 caused segment load failure in module W98setup.bin"
-- errors with User.exe
-- "Standard mode: Bad fault outside of MS-DOS extender"
-- Standard mode: Bad fault in MS-DOS extender"

** And when I try Win2k, it starts copying all the files, but once it gets about 20% of the way there, it can't copy certain setup files. Then it crashes. Sometimes says to check my cd (bad media) which I know is not the problem.

One more note, I've done millions of HD formats and OS-installs. I know what a pain Win2k can be but I've never had any errors with Win98 so it seems really strange.

Any suggestions you might have-- please post 'em. I really appreciate it guys.

Did you check your cpu temp in the bios?
I think trying with 100fsb is a good idea.
Raising the the memory votage to 2.7v also might help.

I'll probably try that tonight... although I just have a feeling my PSU's not the problem. Again, I do realize that there *are* issues with Enermax's... thanks for the suggestion though.

Placid--

Yeah I watched the cpu temp carefully... it was always right around 41 C... (my place is hot).... which is obviously not the most desireable temp in the world but still safe.

Just curious... what would upping the ram voltage possibly do?

Make the memory more stable.

Thanks guys for the help.

Do you have the 8K7A+? And are you using RAID?

Nah, mine's the 'normal' (Non-raid) version.

Guys, do any of you have any ideas what's up with those error messages?... Do they seem to typify any certain problems?

Sumthin stupid, but I always have to mention...

Is the virus detection enabled in the bios?

I've played with it on at times, but for the most part it's been disabled.

try installing it with it not over clocked then when everything is running good try overclocking it in steps untill it becomes unstable... I feel like i have better luck when i do this because you can pull stuff and change stuff to see what works and what doesn't

That's a good suggestion and all, but I have not had it overclocked once. It has been at 133 FSB which is the default for my chip (133x10).

But I have read a few posts where people have suggested lowering it to 100 anyways, so when I get home from work I'll try that.

They just look like random windows b.s.
Another thing you might try is setting the udma to off in the bios for your cd-rom and setting the pio mode manually to 2.

Placid--

Thanks for the feedback. I've seen a lot of Windows bs in my day but this stuff is new to me...

I *did* try setting my cdrom manually to PIO 4... guess it would be a better idea to go down to 2...

If you use 2 hard drives you can try copying windows on the non C drive and installing from there.

You really should not have to go thru all this thou, if nothing here works you might have a bad board.

You might also want to try reinstalling the memory, or putting it in another slot. Sometimes if the Ram is not in "solid," you can get errors. *shrugs* This is a new situation to me, so ya might want to give it a try.

Well guys, some good news...

I'm at home now and this thing is mostly working... the FSB was (and still is) the culprit. I don't get it... my chip defaults at 133 FSB. The only way Windows will install or boot is if I run it at 100! WTF?! I have no idea. Right now I'm glad it's stable at 1GHz, but I'm getting ripped off 333 MHz that are rightfully mine <g>.

Oh well, guess I'll keep playing with it. I *will* be ****ed though if I can't figure out what the trick is.

Thanks again guys for all your help, and if you have any more suggestions, especially about the FSB issue, let me know.

Raise the memory voltage to 2.7 if thats no help bump up the cpu voltage .1
What brand-speed-amount of memory do you have?

It's NEC PC2100.

I've been experiencing a lot of random reboots... using Win2K.

You are the only person I know using nec memory.
If you are using 2 sticks try just 1.
What are your volatge readings +12v, +5v, ect?

Its probably the memory or the power supply is too weak.