Help needed! Abit SA6R PIII problem (long)

[Junfan]

I'm new in this forum, so please bear with me and I apologize for the lenght...

1st my system specs...
Abit SA6R V1.0, Latest (VW) BIOS
PIII 700E @ 1001Mhz, 143 FSB (super-stable for 4 months).
128 MB Mushkin Rev3 RAM, CAS latency set at 2
Voodoo5 5500 on AGP Slot (latest WHQL drivers - 5.0.2195.232 )
Adaptec 2940 U/UW SCSI Adapter on PCI slot 2, running the boot drive
3Com FastEthernet adapter on PCI slot 4
SB Live! on PCI slot 5
Currently running Windows 2000 Professional, SP1 w/DirectX8.0a

I bought the Voodoo5 recently, which was “sluggish.” Someone in a NG suggested I clock back the CPU to 933(133) to "bring PCI back to spec." But then I got an "invalid CPU" message, so I changed the settings back to 1001mhz. All of a sudden my games would crash. So then I tried to clock it back to 933(133). This time it worked, and the fsb seemed to be friendlier to my V5.

Out of curiosity (the mother of disaster) I asked a knowledgeable friend for his opinion, and he wanted me to load the fail safe settings in the BIOS. That’s the last time Windows worked properly. The OS would not boot (missing .vxd files), and asked me to reinstall. So I ever since then I’ve tried to reinstall, but now I get "msgsvr" errors while scanning for devices in Setup, and the system crashes. If/when I get win98 to install (after several reboots), I get the same error and the system crashes after I install the Intel INF drivers and Windows starts to detect the USB devices. I got win2k to install correctly, but now my USB gaming devices will not work properly. My LWFF force feedback wheel installs, is recognized and calibrates correctly in "gaming options," but in Colin McRae Rally 2.0, for example, I get constant, spastic vibration from the wheel, and subsequently the system crashes. On F1CS2000, the system crashes as soon as I touch the controller, with or without FF enabled.

I'm running all the latest drivers for everything, and have tried just about anything I can think of in setting up the BIOS, and also several installs of both OSs with/without ACPI enabled, all with the same result. I've also tried it with the default BIOS settings, and even with a friend's GForce DDR 32 video card, to no avail.

So I'm all out of ideas, so I'm fishing for new ones. I'm also considering selling it and getting new hardware - I'm sure the hardware is perfectly fine, and this is probably a "settings" issue that might be beyond me. I got it in December as an overclocked combo from a reputable vendor.

Thank you very much in advance, guys.

Junfan

 

[DaveB]

Ask the "reputable vendor" to give you their initial BIOS settings.

 

[Tachyon]

Have you tried a format and fresh install?

 

[Junfan]

I've tried that several times. But I suspect it's a problem with settings. Someone suggested that I ask the vendor for the settings he used on my board, so I'll try a fresh install again that way.

Thanks for the suggestion, though!
Luis

Tachyon (Apr 05, 2001 06:57 a.m.):
Have you tried a format and fresh install?

 

[batboy]

What I'd do is to load the optimized default BIOS settings. I'm not sure what the fail safe settings are, never tried them. After the default settings are loaded, make sure the speed error hold is disabled. Try the memory settings at CAS 3 first. Once you get everything up and running again, then you can try CAS 2 if you want. I don't know if that will help, but it's worth a try.