- Joined
- Dec 6, 2001
Subj : Bad May, 2001 IWILL KK266-R motherboard
Anyone else have a May, 2001 IWILL KK266-R motherboard that has been used a lot and is still running stable?
I was running stable for 3 THREE months with extensive usage. Needless to say, it is damned now. Extremely Intermittent freezes (from 5min to 10hours), regardless of operating system or hardware attached. NEVER installed any 4in1/bios in this time or touched/moved ANYTHING inside the case or plugs (no power surges either
Here's how I concluded this is so:
- Swapped & tested from a working AMD PC:
CPU, Memory, Video Card, PSU
Both of our AMD PC's have the SAME specs; Duron 800, PC133 256MB memory, GeForce 2 MX/400, 300watt PSU
Each was tested individually. When these were tested on my machine, the board continued to have intermittent freezes.
- Disconnected/removed everything except the PSU, Mobo, CPU, Memory, & PC speaker. Disconnected and reconnected these to make sure they were seated properly/firmly.
With this setup, sometimes a long continuous beep "memory inset error" would occur, and other times, w/o changing anything except powering it on again, no beeps. And still other times, the POST would succeed (1 short beep).
It seems to be a pattern, when I finally do succeed on POST, subsequent power off/on events will work; however, when I get long continuous beeping (or no beeping), this will happen repeatedly on subsequent power off/on's too.
When it finally does switch between these modes, it does so without me ever changing a SINGLE setting/device. Clearing the CMOS does nothing to help cure this.
To clear up some questions, here are some things I think are important to know:
- I never OC'd this box.
- My PSU, Mobo, CPU/heatsink, Memory and the rest of my PC are all new components that worked/ran flawlessly for about 3 months (averaging maybe? 4 hours a day of it being on in that time)
NEVER did I have these weird random POST errors, nor did I mess with inside of the case in that time.
- When HARD Freezes and random POST errors began, I had NOT installed any system driver update (4in1/bios) in that time.
- I have tested the PSU with a very minimal setup (as told above), and also with MANY devices connected to it. The variability of POST succeeding does not increase either way.
- When POST does succeed, I can boot into win2k and every device will work/function normally, up to the point it HARD freezes (no BSOD).
This freeze can occur while booting (rare), within 5 minutes after booted into OS (not so common), within 20-90 minutes (quite common), and sometimes around 3 hours (more common than not so common, but still not as common as common
- I also had a few freezes just idling in the BIOS (having changed or inputting NOTHING) - it doesn't matter where. This is an important distinction.
- It's not a weak board nor a heat prob, it's just defective. I have run all sorts of benchmarking utilities on this board. 3DMark 2001, SANDRA, Prime95, Quake3demo -- freezes would NOT occur more often than just leaving the PC idle.
- Originally when my PC began to randomly fail while in win2k, they were all BSOD's (Paging memory errors in NTOSKRNL.EXE) and not HARD freezes. Also, to note, after powering off/on, POST would always succeed and I could boot into win2k again.
This happened between 4-7 days, and shortly thereafter, I was getting memory inset errors (a long continuous beep in POST) after a HARD freeze. So, I removed & reseated the memory and tried all 3 dimm slots, but to no avail. When I finally did get the PC to POST successfully, it was when I had not touched/changed a thing.
- Sometimes, though not too often, I get no beeps when booting, and when it occurs, it usually happens repeatedly. The other 80-90% of the time, it's a long continuous beep (memory inset errors).
- RMA is not an option
btw, this is the first PC I ever bought, or built. maybe i'm just one of the very few iwill_be_damned users.
I updated the BIOS to October, 22, 2001; than updated to VIA v4.35
Tested individually, random freezes still occured.
My only hope is that someone out there can tell me I'm not alone; and hopefully tell me there is a fix for this. mobo mod, special bios?? Yeah, right, IWILL_be_damned is dreaming again..
Anyone else have a May, 2001 IWILL KK266-R motherboard that has been used a lot and is still running stable?
I was running stable for 3 THREE months with extensive usage. Needless to say, it is damned now. Extremely Intermittent freezes (from 5min to 10hours), regardless of operating system or hardware attached. NEVER installed any 4in1/bios in this time or touched/moved ANYTHING inside the case or plugs (no power surges either
Here's how I concluded this is so:
- Swapped & tested from a working AMD PC:
CPU, Memory, Video Card, PSU
Both of our AMD PC's have the SAME specs; Duron 800, PC133 256MB memory, GeForce 2 MX/400, 300watt PSU
Each was tested individually. When these were tested on my machine, the board continued to have intermittent freezes.
- Disconnected/removed everything except the PSU, Mobo, CPU, Memory, & PC speaker. Disconnected and reconnected these to make sure they were seated properly/firmly.
With this setup, sometimes a long continuous beep "memory inset error" would occur, and other times, w/o changing anything except powering it on again, no beeps. And still other times, the POST would succeed (1 short beep).
It seems to be a pattern, when I finally do succeed on POST, subsequent power off/on events will work; however, when I get long continuous beeping (or no beeping), this will happen repeatedly on subsequent power off/on's too.
When it finally does switch between these modes, it does so without me ever changing a SINGLE setting/device. Clearing the CMOS does nothing to help cure this.
To clear up some questions, here are some things I think are important to know:
- I never OC'd this box.
- My PSU, Mobo, CPU/heatsink, Memory and the rest of my PC are all new components that worked/ran flawlessly for about 3 months (averaging maybe? 4 hours a day of it being on in that time)
NEVER did I have these weird random POST errors, nor did I mess with inside of the case in that time.
- When HARD Freezes and random POST errors began, I had NOT installed any system driver update (4in1/bios) in that time.
- I have tested the PSU with a very minimal setup (as told above), and also with MANY devices connected to it. The variability of POST succeeding does not increase either way.
- When POST does succeed, I can boot into win2k and every device will work/function normally, up to the point it HARD freezes (no BSOD).
This freeze can occur while booting (rare), within 5 minutes after booted into OS (not so common), within 20-90 minutes (quite common), and sometimes around 3 hours (more common than not so common, but still not as common as common
- I also had a few freezes just idling in the BIOS (having changed or inputting NOTHING) - it doesn't matter where. This is an important distinction.
- It's not a weak board nor a heat prob, it's just defective. I have run all sorts of benchmarking utilities on this board. 3DMark 2001, SANDRA, Prime95, Quake3demo -- freezes would NOT occur more often than just leaving the PC idle.
- Originally when my PC began to randomly fail while in win2k, they were all BSOD's (Paging memory errors in NTOSKRNL.EXE) and not HARD freezes. Also, to note, after powering off/on, POST would always succeed and I could boot into win2k again.
This happened between 4-7 days, and shortly thereafter, I was getting memory inset errors (a long continuous beep in POST) after a HARD freeze. So, I removed & reseated the memory and tried all 3 dimm slots, but to no avail. When I finally did get the PC to POST successfully, it was when I had not touched/changed a thing.
- Sometimes, though not too often, I get no beeps when booting, and when it occurs, it usually happens repeatedly. The other 80-90% of the time, it's a long continuous beep (memory inset errors).
- RMA is not an option
btw, this is the first PC I ever bought, or built. maybe i'm just one of the very few iwill_be_damned users.
I updated the BIOS to October, 22, 2001; than updated to VIA v4.35
Tested individually, random freezes still occured.
My only hope is that someone out there can tell me I'm not alone; and hopefully tell me there is a fix for this. mobo mod, special bios?? Yeah, right, IWILL_be_damned is dreaming again..
