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AMD ABIT KT7A MOTHERBOARD - Help Me B4 I Blow It Up

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I just started the re-install procedures now so we'll see what happens...

__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
Keith,
Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in this problem. I have the SAME EXACT PROBLEM with my KT7A board. If I shut down my PC, I can NOT turn it back on at all. I have to either, wait for about 1/2 hour, and then try. Or I have to repeatedly unplug and plug in again until it finally works. This wasn't my only problem though. I've had other problems ranging from conflicts with my SB Live 5.1 card, and also my video card was conflicting with Windows ME's ACPI.

To resolve that, I ended up doing an ME install using the switches. "setup /p i" and Windows ME installs without ACPI. This seems to have solved a great many of my problems/conflicts. So far it may have even fixed my power on problem too. This might be worth a try for you.

I can't upgrade my BIOS from WW. Any other BIOS locks my cpu solid on windows boot, every time. I've tried them all, no go. WW is the only one that works. I have no idea why. Good luck, let me know if there's anything i can help you with.
 
Keith:

No neet to remove any ram. The errors you are getting are a result of Windows' inability to deal with that much memory. There is a fix here:


The startup problems are likely an ACPI problem, not a PS problem. Try the suggestion of installing windows with ACPI disabled or you can disable it in the bios. See viahardware.com for details. If you have an older bios, you might need to flash to a newer one to do this. My KT7A came with WW bios and it does not allow ACPI disable. Newer versions do. What is your bios version?
 
I got Win98SE installed last night. Everything thus far seems to be working...but it has occasionally freeze ups now. No logical rhyme or reason...just hangs. I am going to have to see what else I encounter. Oh, BTW, I am still getting message pop-up's that say that I am out of memory, please close some programs and try again. Even with 512 MB of RAM. Strange.. SpokesHave - Funny thing is as you mentioned that someone else mentioned that to me. I have that done on all the other systems I have built, why I didn't think of it here is beyond me...probably because I was so pissed at all the other problems!! :) This should resolve that problem.

Also, I attempted to play a game last night to really test it and it returned an error saying:

"Your video card has returned an error. Do you have the latest drivers?"

Umm...I have the latest from nVidia (v12.41)...strange...

I am going to try this once again tonight.

__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo BIOS WW
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
I know you can get the v12.90 drivers but are they DirectX certified? I don't want to put anything else in there that could lead to even more instability...

__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
just for curiosity.
have u tried it without the SBlive card??
if u all ready have then just ignore this post but if u haven`t
then check here for a fix.

m3D Zone | For 3D Printing Enthusiasts!

3D Printing for everybody. Beginner's Guides, Buyer's Guides, 3D Art Designs, and Much More.
www.m3dzone.com www.m3dzone.com
hope it works out dude.
it seems that u r having a long streak of bad luck.
for me i didn`t have a single problem`s with the 40 systems built on this board this year.
cheer up ....

GOD....
 
just for curiosity.
have u tried it without the SBlive card??
if u all ready have then just ignore this post but if u haven`t
then check here for a fix.

m3D Zone | For 3D Printing Enthusiasts!

3D Printing for everybody. Beginner's Guides, Buyer's Guides, 3D Art Designs, and Much More.
www.m3dzone.com www.m3dzone.com
hope it works out dude.
it seems that u r having a long streak of bad luck.
for me i didn`t have a single problem`s with the 40 systems built on this board this year.
cheer up ....

GOD....
 
just for curiosity.
have u tried it without the SBlive card??
if u all ready have then just ignore this post but if u haven`t
then check here for a fix.

m3D Zone | For 3D Printing Enthusiasts!

3D Printing for everybody. Beginner's Guides, Buyer's Guides, 3D Art Designs, and Much More.
www.m3dzone.com www.m3dzone.com
hope it works out dude.
it seems that u r having a long streak of bad luck.
for me i didn`t have a single problem`s with the 40 systems built on this board this year.
cheer up ....

GOD....
oops the damn things not working!!!!
sorry.
 
Ok, more rounds with ABIT yesterday, here was what happened:

PHONE CALL TO ABIT
I spoke to a supervisor, Nyguen, he told me that all the problems I was having was because I was an 'inept' system builder. He went through all the troubleshooting I had already been through with them on the phone (this took close to 1 hour) and finally he said..."Well, I guess there is no fix for you...Is there anything else I can help you with?" I told him yes, to help me get my system running. After several more minutes on the phone with him and him patronizing me, I got some more facts out of him that the motherboard will NOT run stable in AGP 4X mode even though it is an option. And there are known conflicts with their KT7A series and GeForce chipsets but they are going to make no attempt to fix it since the new KG7 motherboard runs fine in both AGP 4X and with GeForce. He finally suggested that I use the next few weeks to save up for that motherboard and buy it. I told him what I did for a living and that if one of my floor supervisors spoke to a customer the way he did to me on the phone, there would be smoke coming off of his heels as I fired him. He told me, "Well, I am not really a supervisor, I just take escalated calls. Have a good day sir." And he hung up on me.

E-MAIL
They told me to contact the manufacturer of all of my components to get those returned due to the fact that obviously one of my components were causing a conflict.
__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.

System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
well I have never had any experience with 512mb sticks, so I would not use it, for the moment. Put the 128 stick in only... Just seems that that much memory is just too much....
 
This is totally amazing to me that ABIT Customer Service is being so callous (sp?) to your plight and blaming everyone but themselves. I have built 10 system at work with many setups close to yours with no problems. I know this does not help but I wonder if you are just having a very unusual streak of bad luck. A side suggestion is to try a entirely different setup then what you have been working with perhaps some older components that are guaranteed to work with no problems. And get the system up and swap the components 1 by 1 and test and see where the lock up and freezes come from.. I would leave every setting at factory default.


To me my goal would be to get the system up and bootable and then slowly swap out your older 1's with the best ones. That is what I did till I found in 1 case the Sound Blaster Card was conflicting and I slapped in a old IBM 16 bit Sound Card and everything ran fine. Basically what I did is keep backing up till you find something that will boot and run in a stable fashion. Then move forward and test till you fail and your culprit will rear its ugly head.


With my present setup I was able to run for 35 days with out a reboot. I definitely think there is something amiss in a component in your system. Hope this helps...

Maestro
 
I have the same problems too, but it happens to me, maybe 2-3 times a day. I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN ABOUT ABIT'S TECH. SUPPORT, IF ONLY I COULD MEET ONE OF THEM IN A DARK ALLEY!!!
 
GOD (Jun 24, 2001 10:22 a.m.):
Hey keith.
i think u should just give up on that board and get a refund .
then get something else.
asus boards r good .
or the new KG7`s.

GOD...
Click to expand...

God, on your post about giving up on the board...I am almost there. But as to buying a KG7...why would I buy another ABIT if I know this is the technical support I am going to get?! I really don't think I am doing anything wrong but who knows.

Tonight, I am planning on ripping the whole thing apart and starting a one by one install with Win 2K. We'll see what happens...I have tried 98SE and ME...so why not 2K.

__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo BIOS WW
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
snookhook (Jun 24, 2001 12:08 p.m.):
I have the same problems too, but it happens to me, maybe 2-3 times a day. I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN ABOUT ABIT'S TECH. SUPPORT, IF ONLY I COULD MEET ONE OF THEM IN A DARK ALLEY!!!
Click to expand...


I agree with you here...I don't understand why I keep getting like 50 different stories from their technical support department. If my techs ever did that smoke would be coming off of their heels as I threw them out the door! :)

__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo BIOS WW
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
EMOTION - Calm, cool, collected and humbled...

Ok, I have given up on ranting and on ABIT's technical support (I cannot possibly bash them any more than they do themselves) - FOR NOW - so let me see what I can do to get this to work by itself while I wait on a new one coming in the mail (not another ABIT that is for sure).

So with open mind I now officially ask for any additional assistance that can be given my way.

Here is what I have tried last night...

I removed the 512 MB stick of RAM and left in the 256 MB stick and under Windows 98 SE, I still was getting locked up - BSOD's - and insufficient memory errors (although it was showing over 90% free. Also, if I run a game, it acts like it is going to run then boots me back to my desktop asking me if I am using the latest drivers for my video card. I am using nVidia's 12.41 Detonator 3 drivers.

I have tried a Windows ME install before and experienced the same problems so I had re-wiped the HD and started from fresh with Windows 98SE.

I am no longer having the power plug issues where I had to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to reboot. I am not quite sure which part of tweaking I did on my part to get it to work but something along the way made it work.

The only thing I can consider trying at this point is another wipe and load Windows 2000 Professional. But from what I have seen, it looks like it rears ugly heads as well.

I realize that there is no 'fail-safe' method to this motherboard...and that this is a 'tweakers' motherboard (which, to this point, I had thought myself a fairly adept tweaker, this motherboard has humbled me). I was going to attempt O/C'ing but now I have my doubts. Funny thing is all the O/C'd systems and non-O/C'd systems, I built on the KT7 platform run like charms. I even built two on the KA7-100 and they (although not O/C'd) run beautifully. It just seems as though on this motherboard, every time you fix one problem, another rears its head.

Any help would be wonderful at this point...any information I can give to you I will be willing to provide. Just let me know...


__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 2 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
LinkSys 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
I couldn't use the via vxd drivers , kept getting out of range messages on boot.So i used nvida's.
i noticed you had a hp 9510i.i had one and could not use burner for some time.thinking it was the mobo or software issues i tried their support.ha ha.i finally returned the burner and got a new one(same one)and all my problems dissapeared.now im running burner on ide 2 by itself,cd rom on ide 1 with hd's on 3 and 4 for raid,with sb live in slot 2 and modem in 4.it may be the slots your using causing some problems.
i was also using nuts and bolts which wasn't compatible with 98 se.i had gotten the same message about memory and honestly dont remember what the cause or cure was.also got freezes with yh and zt bios's but it cleared up on its own.
also found in device manager under performance,file system in troubleshoting the diable syncronise buffer commits was checked.dont know weather it was done by dr. watson or windows or nuts and bolts but left it there anyway.
have you run dr. watson to see what it says?
 
Ok, as of 12:29 AM EDT...the system is thus far stable running under Windows ME. The only thing installed is my video card (GeForce2 MX) with the Detonator2 v8 drivers and with the 512 MB stick in...

We'll see what happens...no errors as of yet...I would have installed Windows 2K but I lost my damn registration key...damnit I lost the CD, replaced that and now lost the Key...duh...


__________________
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Codegen Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
Abit KT7A MoBo WW Bios
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
768 MB CAS 3 Crucial RAM (1x512 MB, 1x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card w/ nVidia Detonator 3 12.41 Drivers
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
DLink 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
 
Honestly, go for the obvious. If it were me, I would actually try another case. It may sound odd, but certain cases have problems. My case in combination with a Sony FDD, will be able to read and format, but not write to 3.5" floppies if there is a screw in the front right side. So I use a Mitsumi. Purple button cases will not work with certain VERY old Seagate hard drives -- I'm talking 200MB. If it is not possible to try a different case, I would putting paper washers between the brass standoffs from the case and the screws you insert.
 
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