I own a KT7A-Raid System with a Thunderbird 1.1 and 512 MB Corsair 133-2-2 RAM.
other components:
ATI Radeon 32 DDR
Soundblaster Live!
ATI TV-Wonder
Dlink TX-530 NIC (for Cable Modem)
Dlink TX-530+ NIC (for Home Network)
WD ATA66 16GB Harddrive (Master)
Maxtor ATA100 60 GB Harddrive (Slave)
DVD Magic 12xDVD
Sony Spressa 100 (CD/RW)
Mitsumi Floppy
Originally - after various tries - it was very stable (for hours of quake 3 or Prime-number-crunching) with 145FSBx8.5 --> 1232 MHz. (I unlocked the L1 bridge with Loctite Car-window-defogger-repair-kit).
All Bios attributes were cranked up pretty much. The Bios I use is the WZ Bios. I also use(d) all the latest drivers (including VIA 4in1 4.29 Beta).
I was hugely impressed. With the FSB speed. It was working fine but getting a little hot.
So I installed some additional cooling-fans and then it happened: Obviously my 250W PS was not big enough. So the Computer produced some funny ‘screens’ at startup:
·One time only half the start-up (Award …..) came up and then it stalled.
·Another time a completely Basic AWARD Bios came up, asking immediately for the Floppy
·……
I ended up buying a bigger Power supply (400) and (after refreshing the CMOS) I could boot again. BUT: since then I can not get the system anywhere near the performance numbers mentioned above (It won’t even POST/PEEP with those values). Even with the complete original configuration (old PS, not additional Fans) it aborted with the 'high settings'.
For a while the best I could get was 148FSBx8 --> 1184 MHZ but with that Quake used to crash after 30 minutes or earlier. Only W2K runs fine. W98SE was a nightmare to install and is still unstable, eventhough it's fresh with hardly anything loaded. Now I’m down to 145FSBx8 à 1160 MHZ and that’s where it is stable again. This is about 7% less then before.
The only Hardware-change between now and then is the Power-supply. A driver-Fan (I-Storm) and a Grafics-card-Fan (uses PCI slot next to Card).
No new components or different drivers.
Here’s the request/question I have:
What could be damaged because of the Low-Power situation?
My first Guess: BIOS-Chip. Why? As you might guess, I switched the BIOS settings quite often. And sometimes, the Voltage is suddenly set to 1.35 instead of 1.85, which forces me to reboot with the ‘insert’-key pressed twice, before I boots up normally again, besides that, during the 'low-power' the Bios came up quite awkward. I did reflash it already. and it would not flash completely with WZ. So I flashed it back to WW (flashed completely) and then I could flash it competely to WZ again.
Would it make sense to replace the BIOS-Chip??? Where can I get it?
Second Guess: CPU?? The FSB is obviously not the problem, rather the total CPU speed.
Any ideas/knowledge (I am abviously not an expert/engineer)
other components:
ATI Radeon 32 DDR
Soundblaster Live!
ATI TV-Wonder
Dlink TX-530 NIC (for Cable Modem)
Dlink TX-530+ NIC (for Home Network)
WD ATA66 16GB Harddrive (Master)
Maxtor ATA100 60 GB Harddrive (Slave)
DVD Magic 12xDVD
Sony Spressa 100 (CD/RW)
Mitsumi Floppy
Originally - after various tries - it was very stable (for hours of quake 3 or Prime-number-crunching) with 145FSBx8.5 --> 1232 MHz. (I unlocked the L1 bridge with Loctite Car-window-defogger-repair-kit).
All Bios attributes were cranked up pretty much. The Bios I use is the WZ Bios. I also use(d) all the latest drivers (including VIA 4in1 4.29 Beta).
I was hugely impressed. With the FSB speed. It was working fine but getting a little hot.
So I installed some additional cooling-fans and then it happened: Obviously my 250W PS was not big enough. So the Computer produced some funny ‘screens’ at startup:
·One time only half the start-up (Award …..) came up and then it stalled.
·Another time a completely Basic AWARD Bios came up, asking immediately for the Floppy
·……
I ended up buying a bigger Power supply (400) and (after refreshing the CMOS) I could boot again. BUT: since then I can not get the system anywhere near the performance numbers mentioned above (It won’t even POST/PEEP with those values). Even with the complete original configuration (old PS, not additional Fans) it aborted with the 'high settings'.
For a while the best I could get was 148FSBx8 --> 1184 MHZ but with that Quake used to crash after 30 minutes or earlier. Only W2K runs fine. W98SE was a nightmare to install and is still unstable, eventhough it's fresh with hardly anything loaded. Now I’m down to 145FSBx8 à 1160 MHZ and that’s where it is stable again. This is about 7% less then before.
The only Hardware-change between now and then is the Power-supply. A driver-Fan (I-Storm) and a Grafics-card-Fan (uses PCI slot next to Card).
No new components or different drivers.
Here’s the request/question I have:
What could be damaged because of the Low-Power situation?
My first Guess: BIOS-Chip. Why? As you might guess, I switched the BIOS settings quite often. And sometimes, the Voltage is suddenly set to 1.35 instead of 1.85, which forces me to reboot with the ‘insert’-key pressed twice, before I boots up normally again, besides that, during the 'low-power' the Bios came up quite awkward. I did reflash it already. and it would not flash completely with WZ. So I flashed it back to WW (flashed completely) and then I could flash it competely to WZ again.
Would it make sense to replace the BIOS-Chip??? Where can I get it?
Second Guess: CPU?? The FSB is obviously not the problem, rather the total CPU speed.
Any ideas/knowledge (I am abviously not an expert/engineer)
