Whats wrong here ????

[ElGriton]

A buddy of mine just built a new system. KT7A-RAID T-bird 1.3 2X256MB PC133 (Not sure what kind but he said it was on AMD's list?) IBM75GXP 30gig ATI Rage Fury Pro AGP 32mb. Set up like this it won't even install windows and when it does its buggy as hell and crashes all the time. We pulled the drive and tried in my system(ASUS CUSL2 PIII800@1054 512MB Mushkin Hi-perf REV2 ASUSv7700GF2) And the drive workes fine. We tried a diff video card on his and tried diff memory configurations no change it just dosent work. Any Ideas would be great.

 

[SickBoy]

Have you got a good HSF on that processor? with some thermal grease?

SickBoy

 

[ElGriton]

SickBoy (Apr 22, 2001 01:25 p.m.):
Have you got a good HSF on that processor? with some thermal grease?

SickBoy

Yes it's a Mini Super Orb with Artic Silver.

 

[Da Whip]

Whats wrong here ??? Are you trying to FRY that 1.3 chip, Orb's ARE NOT, repeat, ARE NOT designed for anything over 900mhz. I would get a good HSF as soon as possible. Others in this forum will concur that Orbs ( Silver, Super, Mini or Gold) all suck for 1gig and up.
Checkout some reviews or comparison tests on Socket A HSF. I have the Vantec 62540 and love it , others swear by Alpha or Globes.

 

[stool]

Just to make sure, you're not trying to do an install while its overclocked, are you? Makes things difficult if not impossible. Also, have the bare minimum of hardware installed during setup. CPU and HSF, 1 Stick of RAM, Vid card, CDROM, floppy, and boot hard drive. See if it installs, then add stuff 1 at a time. Also, try switching out the RAM if not successful, and switching DIMM slots.

 

[ElGriton]

Tried all of that. And He's not going to OC it. (Although when he was out of the room I pumped it up a bit just to see what it would do, 1500 without skipping a beat I said HOLY **** a little too loud and he came back into the room I had to kill power before he saw ). Anyway I have tried moving the components around and even different ones but nothing seems to work. Kind makes me rethink wanting to build my AMD scream machine it keeps popping into my head that this wouldn't be happening on an Intel System.

 

[Corax]

I agree with Da Whip. You need a better heatsink! Read some reviews Super orbs suck especially a mini! Get a WBK38 at least. You can find them for under $25 and they work quite well. It's no Swiftech, but it's a lot cheaper.

Barring the occasional bad component, you shouldn't have any trouble with an athlon system. I've built several an they were rock stable. But you MUST have proper cooling. Not just on the chip, you need to get that heat out of the case! Cheap cases with poor ventelation need not aply!