Anyone have this problem??

I have a K7S5A that i let my wifes brother build (he;s taking a puter class and needs experience).. anyway.. he gets the rig to post on first shot, installs an OS, and all seemed okie dokie (exept i had some trouble installing drivers for board).. So i install F@H on it and let it run.. But it locked up before first hour.. i rebooted and tried again.. then it corrupted OS and i had to reinstall. this goes on for the whole day.. now it will run for 4-6 hours then lock up..

Here's whats in it:
1200 Duron @1200
128 mb ram (already reseated it twice and moved slots)
TNT 64 Nvidia card
network card enabled
AC audio enabled
Quantum bigfoot 6 gig HDD

Any suggestions??

Try this, it can't hurt..

Set the 'Optimal setttings' in the bios and restart. If it goes completely into the OS without any problem, then immediately do a restart. Don't change anything in the bios this time arround, don't even go into the bios, and see if it loads into the OS again.

The reason for this suggestion is that I have seen occasions where the bios and OS seems to need to get all of the settings coordinated by loading complete a couple of times.

I've never been able to prove this out but it has helped me several times.

Have you downloaded Motherboard monitor. Maybe when running a cpu intensive program ie. F@H its overheating. Sorry but I can't think of any other ideas beside this obvious one.

Get rid of the Bigfoot as soon as you can. It will hamstring any system you put it in. Those big 5.25" drives are so incredibly inefficient. My Compaq Presario was like a whole new machine when I went to a Maxtor 3.5" drive.

A couple of pertinent things you didn't mention were the OS and power supply being used.

Bueller...?

I guess it locked up permanently.

No ive been away wiring a 55 chevy for a 90 corvette tuned port injection on a police interceptor 350 eng.. haven't slept in a couple of days so i be lagging.. Its funny you mention compaq, because the Hdd came out of a compaq.. This drive, even though its slow, has been the one piece of equiptment that has not failed on my beer can catcher (5062).. It survived a processor failure as well as a mobo failure unscathed.. I have seen drives take a dump and cough an OS.. but i dont see em cause a lockup..


As far as temps go.. i have a non contact pyrometer i use for temps as i can check any component at will with it.. My proc is running 42*C under full load .. The OS im running is 98SE (the most stable m!crosuck has out) with IE 5.5 SP2.. I have this identical setup (OS) at shop and on one backup rig.. I have no problems with any of the other rigs.. Oh BTW im using a 300 watt PSU by Codegen.. all voltages are stable and around spec

Also. I haven't dumped the OS since.. it just locks up at will

Some vehicular overclocking? Sounds like fun!

I'm sorry you are under the impression that Win98SE is the most stable MS OS. I would say Win2K is the most stable with XP not far behind.

I ran that Bigfoot as a secondary drive and it ultimately failed a few months after it was replaced as the primary. Performance of the Bigfoots (or is it Bigfeet?) never was very good.

You mentioned a corrupted OS in your first post, so I would still be focussing on the drive. I know the Bigfoots were capable of enhanced IDE tranfers, but they are limited in their interface options.

The built-in IDE controller on the mobo supports PIO mode 4, DMA Mode 2, Ultra DMA 33/66/100.

Bigfoot--Fast ATA-2 Interface (PIO Mode 4, DMA Mode 2, ATA 16-16.6MB/sec, no Checksum error checking)
Bigfoot CY--Fast ATA-2 Interface (this is the dead one I have)
Bigfoot TS--Ultra ATA Interface (PIO Mode 4, DMA Mode 2, Ultra DMA 33-33MB/sec transfer)
Bigfoot TX--Ultra ATA Interface

Which flavor do you have?

Have you tried using another known good drive?

Ultimately, I had a lot of odd problems with my Presario 4824 with 6 GB Bigfoot CY that I couldn't explain. The IDE controller in the 4824 is capable of Ultra 33. Since I replaced the Bigfoot with a 30GB Maxtor 33/66 drive 1.5 years ago, it has been rock solid. I'm even overclocking my PII 233 @ 266 without a single hiccup. It just sits there, running Windows XP Pro, crunching SETI and acting as my SETIQueue server 24x7, as well as performing its job as a file server.

The other components you listed seem to be very modern, including a 64MB video card and 1.2 Ghz CPU, and the Bigfoot was the one thing that was antiquated in the game of 'which of these is not like the others?'. With 128MB of RAM, you are bound to be using virtual memory on disk. That drive, even if it is capable of ATA33 is limiting the rest of your system tremendously. Do yourself a favor and get a 7200 RPM 3.5" DMA 100 drive. You will definitely notice a huge difference.

The bump of moving your SDRAM to DDR would be nowhere near the bump you would get using an ATA100 drive.

lockups

I agree that the harddrive could be the problem, but if it's not there are dozens of other possibilities!! You have alot of computers so you probably already know about everything I'm going to say, but I have to say it just in case. 1. don't install windows over windows--it can cause problems. reformat and then install 2. don't install all of your hardware at the same time--this can cause conflicts(there is a preferrable order in which to install hardware to help prevent conflicts). speaking of which, have you checked out conflicts with hardware/IRQs/memory addresses? 3. once booted, have you tried any diagnostics on your files,etc? Your OS disk might have a problem or your cd-rom might have a problem reading everything on the disk even though other cd-roms can. Whenever I install my OS I always go into registry checker and file checker to restore the corrupted files(there seem to always be some). Of all of these , I'd guess the most likely suspect is a conflict--check this after you find out that your harddrive is working.

Alright.. thats two of ya against the drive
the drive deoesn't hurt performance, because im only running F@H, thats why im not running 512 mb ram like i run on everything else.. All i need is the FLOPS. However i will go buy another drive as you could be right about the drive being root cause of corrupting OS... BTW i started this install with Fdisk, then clean install of OS.

I have a copy of XP here but am waiting for M$ to get their act together (maybe another year)... as far as it being a stable OS, ive head otherwise .. some folks like it, and quite a few are having nothing but probs with it.. its been my experience to always wait a year or two to get things ironed out. 98 SE with IE 5.5 sp2 has been the most freindly with everything i have.. I wish i knew linux my freinds who are consultants/admins at various places swear by linux.. one of these days im gonna get around to installing system commander and doing a partition so i can install linux and play with it ..

Ill let you guys know about the drive as soon as i get one .. thx for your input.. the info i get here is top notch

BTW its a bigfoot TX and the vid card is 32 mb (nvidia tnt 64, cheap but works very well)

I've been using NT since 3.51, so I'm very familiar with how it works, and a lot of that info translates to XP. I can no longer stand to even work on anything with the 9x kernel. I've seen so many wierd things that can't be explained, like having a sytem respond 2 different ways using 98SE. It's odd one way, you reboot, and now it's being odd in an entirely different way.

I guess we all go with what is familiar to us.

I'm also thinking of toying with Linux. Now all I need is a bunch of spare time.

Please keep us posted on the outcome of the new drive.

I have to finish the mods to the fridge so i can hop up my main rig.. Here's a link to some pics on the 55 we're setting up (so much going on, so little time .)

http://home.earthlink.net/~walaka7

That Chevy looks sweeeet! It's gonna' be hard to keep rubber under it!

And U-joints, and rear diffs, and tranny's.. but hey, He asked me to set it up so who am i to argue??

There's nothing wrong with a repeat customer.

Well i gotta hand it to yall.. apparently it was the drive causing the problems.. I yanked the CD ROM (He mounted right on top of drive) and the rig hasnt had a problem since '

JFIA The CD ROM is back in my sons puter and working fine.
I have pcanywhere installed on all rigs, so i can transfer files at at will and dont need a CD ROM in that rig.

I am late to this discussion, but the first thing that came to my mind was that Bigfoot. Whoever invented those things should be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Big, slow, LOUD...Compaq and HP put those things in their machines because nobody would willingly buy one retail...

Good to hear it worked out for you. I would have felt bad if that didn't fix it. I guess experience is worth something.

Flounder, we are on the same page. When I was swapping around my Bigfoot, I watched the actuator arm through the clear window going back and forth while the drive was running/crushing rocks. Not a great idea. "We'll get better crop yields by getting a larger parcel of land!" Then you better hire a few more hands to work that land. The heads have to cover that extra realestate. It's amazing how much more stable and better performing my system was going to a 7200RPM 3.5" drive. It was like getting a better/faster computer by replacing one component. The manufacturers should have thought about that going in. I don't see ever going with a system I didn't build myself from select components--even if I may be doing it on the cheap.

I knew the drive was animic as far as performance as all my other rigs have 7200 ATA 100's or better (my XP rig has twin 7200 ATA133's in RAID 0 fast FAST).. I just wanted to keep costs down on my ECS rig because all it does is fold and play games.. Im going to keep drive in there for now, just put a cooler kit above it as im sure the CD ROM was being a blanket the way it was installed .. I learned something and I thank you all for your advice.. once again i must say this is a top notch forum and ive been feeling nothing but love since ive been here

I hera ya greg.. i too couldn't ever go back to store bought again.. those rigs are what me have to learn this stuff in first place.. I would much rather build it right the first time (except the ECS rig its my $200 rig LOL)

We are all just glad to help, and are happy it worked out for you...

Strange creatures those Bigfoots...

Don't sell your K7S5A short. They ain't sexy, but they definitely work. They're not made for overclocking, but I'm running mine at 138fsb. They are probably the best performing, full function, cheap boards out there. It was the third system I've built, and I've had no trouble with it. I like it a lot more than my first 2 Iwill boards. Their KT266A board seems to get good reviews, particularly at its price point. I just hope PC Chips doesn't run ECS into the ground.