Could my XP1800+ have hosed my KT7A-Raid?

[SickBoy]

OK here's the deal. A while back I caught the thread that the A9 BIOS brought **pretty good** AthlonXP compatibility to the KT7A boards of revisions 1.0-1.2. I have a KT7A-R v. 1.0 so I figured I'd try out an XP in there. Tried it out after flashing to BIOS A9.... couldn't install Windows. WinXP setup hung after the part where it copies all the driver files and says "Starting Windows"...

Now I put my TBird 1 GHz back in there and it does the same thing. Even tried flashing back to my previous BIOS (WZ)... no joy. I've cleared CMOS several times, yadda, yadda. Any ideas? Has my board just flipped out randomly or could the XP have damaged it somehow?

sb

 

[Sonny]

Could you have maybe knocked the memory when changing CPUs?

 

[repo man11]

I'm with Sonny, the CPU may be misleading you. Memory, a loose drive cable, a drive going bad?

 

[SickBoy]

Possible. I'm so mad about it that I haven't touched the box for a day and a half. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up early and do the diagnostic thing - reseat everything, take out all the PCI cards, etc etc... might be the DVD drive I'm trying to use to install Windows as well, I'll try my good trusy CDRW.

This board has given me hints that it's gone on the fritz - soft rebooting, very sensitive to voltage changes, etc... so it may be its time. I suppose it wouldn't kill me to shell for a new board but finding one I like might be tough. I really bonded with this thing... it got my little Duron over 1 GHz, was the first mobo I ever took a soldering iron to, you know. Sentimental.

 

[Sonny]

Yeah, I feel as though it's also time for me to change motherboards as well & the hard part is there is no Abit boards available in my country so it looks like I'll be following the Epox route in a few days

 

[SickBoy]

Well, I took out the PCI cards and reseated the RAM, so it looks like everything is "situation normal".... WinXP is installing right now.

I should have known to do this but oh well....

 

[Sonny]

Good news from you then

 

[SickBoy]

Yeah, I guess... **shrug**

I really would have liked the XP to work in this rig. I can't really fold with the bookPC (because of heat issues in that tiny case) so it's kinda like processing power down the toilet.

Maybe I'll try it one more time later on... I think I finally got the plastic nuts for the Alpha superglued on to the mob good enough that I should be able to take my Alpha off w/o removing the board from the case, which makes switching CPU's EXTREMELY easy with that HSF. I'll post back if I can get it to work.

sb

 

[repo man11]

One more idea; have you checked the board over for bulging capacitors? From an article I read on the front page, Abit boards are one of the ones that have capacitors going bad.

 

[SickBoy]

Abit not to mention just about every other board manufacturer. It's tied to (basically) a series of bad batches of capacitors coming out of component suppliers in the far east. I haven't checked my board for them but I probably should next opportunity I get. It's not an Abit-only thing though.

sb

 

[OC-Master]

Also, you mention rev v1.0, 99% of people who have this who use a XP processor cannot use any FSB above 133MHz simply because the board for some looses stability and begins to fail at 134MHz and or higher.


DS-Master

 

[SickBoy]

I'd be perfectly happy to run my XP 100% stock in this board....

 

[OC-Master]

I'd be perfectly happy to run my XP 100% stock in this board....

Have you uploaded my hacked A9 bios to your KT7A??? Its got some features in there that help with processor timings and electrostatic interference control.


OC-Master

 

[SickBoy]

Yes that was the BIOS I tried. The thing was, after reassembling my box with the XP in it I was seeing the same issues when I switched back to my TBird, so maybe it will work if I switch back to the XP now. Unfortunately this box serves MP3's and videos for my apartment and is my video game system (NES emulation ) and if it's down very long I start to get an earful from my roommate... lol. Not to mention it's a pain in the rear to drag out to tweak with the hardware because of where it's placed. I might try it tomorrow night again.

 

[SpyderMatrix]

Yeah, I feel as though it's also time for me to change motherboards as well & the hard part is there is no Abit boards available in my country so it looks like I'll be following the Epox route in a few days

no sonny dont find a way man youve helped me out with Abit since day one i cant see you with any other board but an abit board tell me your country and i see if i can find someone near to sell you one ok

 

[Sonny]

No worries SpyderMatrix I just got a buddy of mine to get me a KD7RAID but the shipping is a b!tch but should be here in a few days or so. Yeah its hard to break away from ABIT

 

[SickBoy]

Sonny - got a CPU lined up for that board?

 

[Sonny]

Sorry to high jack your thread SickBoy but not at the moment, shipping fedex 3 days is costing me a bit of cash but I should be able to get one by January. I'm just hoping the 2400+ here wont cost that much by then.

 

[madsam]

i've heard good about that kd7-raid sonny. i'm glad you decided against the epox, and stuck with abit, and cheers to your friend who's getting you a board. i was going to buy the same board, but i've tested a friends board, and it's very unstable, so, i rma'd it back to newegg. i hope my cheap power supply didn't damage it.

i decided to replace my trusty at7-raid with a new at7-max2, and like you, i am anticipating good results. i'm in usa, so the shipping is cheap, but the darn board cost a fortune...he he .. ok, well, keep us posted as to your results when you get your board, and i will do the same

 

[Sonny]

i've heard good about that kd7-raid sonny. i'm glad you decided against the epox, and stuck with abit, and cheers to your friend who's getting you a board. i was going to buy the same board, but i've tested a friends board, and it's very unstable, so, i rma'd it back to newegg. i hope my cheap power supply didn't damage it.

i decided to replace my trusty at7-raid with a new at7-max2, and like you, i am anticipating good results. i'm in usa, so the shipping is cheap, but the darn board cost a fortune...he he .. ok, well, keep us posted as to your results when you get your board, and i will do the same

I'll tell you guys for sure as soon as my almost damaged by faulty PSU board comes in.

What killed your AT7MAX?