Originally Posted by zxladie
I am in total agreement. I\'m fixing a friend\'s Gateway Select 1.1GHz, AMD KT133 piece of junk and fighting with it for over a week. It\'have never seen anything it. Locks up on every other bootup. Religiously. IRQ12 comes and goes at will. It\'s not even registering a mouse present in the bios. If I do manage to get it into Windows, move the mouse and it restarts. I\'m having to use a serial mouse. There are no technical specs on their website, serial number specs say it\'s a Jabil MB, however it\'s an MSI6330. Part numbers aren\'t even right. And I bet I know more than some of Gateway\'s techs. If I had my way, this whole system would be a shotput.

oh there is one thing i have to say about this problem i think i found a possible hint to the problem people been getting
my amd never freezs when i have over 70 of the hd full which is very strange and no it not the os i have tried all of em even linux

there one thing i notice that never changes there all using amd chips i think the problem is to do with via using emulated agp interface and intel you proper interface

I see a lot of postings about boot failures. I found similar issues in Tualatin 1300 which contiually froze, crashed and failed to boot correctly. After reinstalling drivers, oses and trying different hardware, I found the culprit to be the (of all things) the HDD Cable. When this was replaced system worked perfectly stable. Saw the same symptons again in 850 Duron with a likewise cure. I'm not sure what the deal is, but the fault appears in the newer 80 pin cables required for fast ATA drives. Hence giving the impression of failing PCI bus components (on with IDE connectors), and reports of freezing when HDD is required to be operating at highest speed, ie fails during intense action. The failure rate of these cables appears to be at a reasonably high percentage. Intels appear not as vunerable due to slower FSB speeds except for Tualatin with high megahertz and FSB speeds.

I have an ASUS V7100 Geforce2 MX-200 on an ASUS A7V with a 750 Duron + gobs of memory. I was getting freeze-ups in Media Player, Word, and other apps -- no mouse control, press reset + wait.

I put a fan on my video card, which helped, but gradually the freezes came back.

I upgraded to the latest Nvidia drivers, and then WinXP wouldn't boot (it got literally half of the entry screen drawn, then would freeze). Thank gawd for Safe Mode boot.

Anyway, I flashed my BIOS, installed the latest VIA 4-in-1's, and reinstalled the latest Nvidia driver.

So, far (three days of pretty heavy use), so good. No freeze-ups, down from 3-4 per day.

Went out and bought an FIC mobo with the irongate chipset all problems are solved, went ahead and purchased a 750atholon(not a tbird) and the K7VRM board is fine with that. Just thought I would follow up. Take care all good luck with your hardware.
Rob

well,after a bit of hell,i did manage to FULLY stop the 750 mhz athlon t-bird on a jabil kodia mobo to not lock up in 3d apps,i started by getting a card that can take a load (nvidia geforce 4 ti-4600)than got a bunch of drivers (amddrvpack4.6 from amd.com) instaled half-life and pwned some ass in multiplayer,i even run AVP2 and RTCW without problems,unreal is a bit freeky looking and red faction had some issues,but it think those are game based,

i bought a geforce 4 got it all installed tried to boot up and boom 1 long and 2 short beeps i don't know how to get it to work but if this don't work i will call nvidia and bitch like a mother f@##$ cuz it is angering me if any of u can help plz my e-mail is pauliii@epix.net if use can help i would greatly appreciate it.

Originally Posted by gavagai
Sorry, re-installing the chipset drivers doesn\'t do the trick. Downplaying graphics does help, but system still locks up when graphics become too intense.

VIA can\'t stand the heat? maybe they should step out of the game.

Oops, the previous post was meant to be a reply to the Anonymous Gerbil who tried out an AMD board for the first time, gave up and switched to the TUSL2, and who is amused by "AMD monkeys". lol.

Looks like you forgot to install the chipset drivers. Why don't you try that.

Although from the tone of your post it sounds like you're quite happy with the outcome.

Glad I found this site. I just went through the week of hell reformatting, reinstalling different hardware and OS's. Based on some of the information from your hardware savy readers I was able to stop the locking on my Duron 1333 MHz box.

I'm sure there are other ways of fixing it. The steps I took were to open the Display Properties from my Desktop, go to Settings, go to Advanced, to to Troubleshooting, and set the Hardware Acceleration to the 4th setting (of 5). The problems went away for any but the 5th setting.

The description of the 4th setting is "Disable Cursor and bitmap accelerations. Use this setting to correct problems with the mouse pointer, or to correct problems with corrupt images."

I was having both problems. Using different monitors, mice, keyboards and versions of adapters didn't help.

Thanks again for the information. Hope I don't have to visit this site again expect for curiosity. I'll probably be back the next time I think of upgrading.

When upgrading a system, I decided to go against my own standards and try AMD, they are cheaper than Intel, have been around a while, and I had heard good things.
The system: ASUS A7V-E motherboard and AMD Duron 900MHz - both new.

After installing Win98 SE on a new hard drive, experienced lock-ups / system freezes right away.
Thought it was the video card, Rage Fury MAXX, which has its own problems, so went with a PCI TNT card.
After trying everything..and I mean everything..the system still locked up after 5 - 20 minutes, usually during 3D games but also while browsing in Internet Explorer.

To solve the problem:
Ordered an ASUS TUSL2 motherboard and Intel PIII 800EB and problems went away - mostly (now I am left with this piece of sh**, almost useless AMD and motherboard)

I have tried different hard drives, cases + power supply, video cards, sound cards, memory, underclocking, overclocking, disabling settings, enabling settings - nothing seems to matter.

The only thing that remains constant is the motherboard, CPU, and cooling fan/heatsink (CoolerMaster or something like that).
Asus had some information on CPU "burn-down" that may apply -
http://usa.asus.com/inside/Techref/amdbdas.html

The moral:
If you have a personal preference or standard (mine being to always use Intel). Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, NEVER, ever go against it.

If I had gone with the Intel solution to begin with, I could still be one of those people that gets to laugh when AMD monkeys have problems.

Originally Posted by starrcannon
AMD 700 tbird running on ASUS K7V-RM mobo, i get lockup on 3D apps, even when running DXDIAG it will lock up, also get lockups if i run my browser window maximized, and iexplorer locks up when i close it down, \"not responding\" is the error i see when i do ctrl-alt-dlt. if i have a window maximized when the freeze happens i lose mouse and KB funtions and must use reset switch on the tower. I have done 3 clean installs, and tried many combinations of 4in1 drivers, updated vid card drivers, updated AGP miniport and Bus Mastering drivers, different memory sticks, jumper and jumper free mode. To no avail, i am prolly gonna end up jumping ship to Intel am very tired of VIA and ALI not being able to produce a reliable chipset this is all just to frustrating, spend good cash on stuff that dont work, what really sucks is they released knowing this stuff doesnt work at all. anyway hope ya all figure out your chipset/CPU woes, i am at the end of my rope with this myself. Rob

Hi guys,

I have encountered an even bigger problem.
MSI 6330 mainboard with VIA chipset
AMD T-Bird 1.0 Ghz
Asus v7100 Geforce2 32MB AGP

Everything was running great for about 4 months, I dont overclock either video or CPU. Then one day whilst browsing all my icons took on a bright green purple colour scheme, these were ie5 and windows icons (except desktop icons). very strange indeed , so i stripped my geforce drivers off and replaced them, everything fine. Then a few days later it happened again, so again I replaced the drivers that fixed it.

Then the real problems began, upon boot up I received the POST error code for video (1 long, 2 short beeps) and failure to boot up, after hitting reset numerous times it came good, this continued for 2 weeks until I could no longer boot up at all. I replaced my Geforce2 with one from my other machine and it didnt work , I placed my problem geforce2 in my working machine and it also didnt work.

So now I have an MSI 6330 mainboard with a defective AGP port and a fried Geforce2.

My question is which caused the fault, and how did it happen?
They are both under warranty and to ensure I have a hassle free warranty claim with either MSI or ASUS or both I want to get my facts straight.
any ideas?
bluntman@iinet.net.au

Thanks.
Regards,
Paul.

Originally Posted by naki
AGP problem with freezes is \"solved\".
Underclock your CPU and it\'s fine.
At least it worked for me.
I dunno, maybe it\'s not the bus speed itself,
but lowering it lowers PCI and AGP speed also.
I put it from 100 to 95 Mhz.
The solution is not very good.
Does anyone know can I just change AGP
speed and leave bus speed at 100 and how?

Originally Posted by naki
I have a DFI motherboard AK74-EC with a Via KT133
chipset and unfortunately I just bought an Abit Siluro
64 MB. It is with a Geforce 2MX chip. CPU is Thunderbird
socket A at 900 MhZ. Now it freezes in games, not just 3d but 2d also. I\'ve tried flashing the bios of MB and videocard,
updated Via 4in1 drivers, tried 3 or 4 kinds of Detonator
drivers. It usually works for 5 to 10 minutes or more
and then freezes. Strange thing is sometimes it works all
day long, for example a week ago. I\'m desperate, I\'ve been
looking in the Web for an answer some time now,
but even BIOS setting change doesn\'t help.
It\'s not IRQ, I even removed all PCI cards.

ive recently bought an amd 750 atx motherboard, duron 800mhz processor and 128mb dimm but my voodoo 2 just isn't playing along. I have put on the latest driver but it still crashes on loading up of windows. Any help please. Ive tried everying i can think of.

Originally Posted by bmcclen45
Ive got the same problem as gerbil#26. Got Epox ep-8kta+ with duron 600,128ram,8.4wd,win95b. Matrox Millenium 4mb., 4in1 Via drivers loaded. Mouse and keyboard lockup when the Voodoo2 drivers are loaded. When the 4in1 drivers are loaded get a warning (sucatreg fail) . Epox and Via seem to have no clue. Appreciate any help. Thanks.

I've got an Epox EP-8KTA2 with VIA KT133 Chipset, my OS is Windows 98, The Diamond Viper V 330 works, but the 12 MB Voodoo2 PCI Accelerator Card doesnt work on it. I#ve no idea, i've testet also the Voodoo2 with an PCI S3 main Graphic Card but it doesn't work too. Can anybody help me ???

I Just bought an Thunderbird 950 and an ASUS A7V Main Board (VIA KT133 chipset) no sound option. I am using a Dell GeForce 64MB DDR Ram graphics card and when I boot, it stayed up for about 30 seconds and then 3 short beeps and a freeze. After I disabled the Fast Write support in the BIOS it booted up. I loaded Windows ME and It was hanging about once every 5 minutes. I noticed that the CPU was running at 60-62 degrees C. So I added a second cooling fan to my case now it runs about 54 degrees C and has been up most of the day. It likes to freeze when I am in IE5.5.

Originally Posted by Jason B
I just purchased a Duron 700 and a Gigabyte 7ZX mother board. The system locks up constantly. I have about a 33% of actually lasting more than 3 seconds in Windows at boot up. Some apps like MS Office seem to work fine but mpg/avi, games, etc lock the system right up.
I installed all the via drivers, tweaked the bios, reinstalled all device drivers, moved PCI cards, swapped memory, .... Nothing helps!
Does anyone have any ideas? My system uses a TNT 16MB AGP video card, 192MB PC100 RAM, 12MB Voodoo2, Monster Sound MX300.

Originally Posted by pooba007
I upgraded my computer to a Duron 600 and a Biostar MV7KB motherboard with a VIA chipset. Let me repeat what bdwilcox said: \"Let me state unequivocally that VIA not only sucks, but sucks hard.\" I re-formated my hard drive, loaded windows 98 and the damn thing freezes whenever I try to load the right drivers. Without the right drivers, it won\'t stop freezing. When the right drivers are loaded for my Voodoo 3 3000, it freezes automatically on startup. VIA\'s website is no help:

Q:I use a VIA based motherboard with Windows 98 and it is unstable or IRQ assignments are incorrect. How can I fix it?
A: Download and install the VIA IRQ routing miniport driver from our drivers page. This update corrects some issues dealing with the assignment of resources using Windows 98 and VIA chipsets.

I downloaded the IRQ routing miniport driver and I still have the freezing problem. Anyone want to do some cleaning up for VIA and let me know how to fix this?

Oh yeah
#19

not all our Athlon boxes use a 200watt power supply. Only the lower speeds do. From what i remember, everything above 800 has a 300Watt PS.

Hey fellas,

I work at Gateway and currently, our athlon MBs are manufactured by Jabil Circuit and use the 750 chipset.

I read on whatisnew.com that there was a new release of the KT133 chipset - revision C was the 'old' revision and 'E' is the newer one. You might check up on these revisions to see what was changed from the C to E versions.

Originally Posted by spinynorman
Gateway have indicated that the problem is either the motherboard or power supply.

Gateway\'s motherboard uses the AMD 750 chipset, which makes Via\'s KT133 chipset a rather remote
candidate, not only because it isn\'t being used, but also because it\'s meant for socket-A boards and
Gateway\'s is slot-A!!!

Gateway\'s 200W Power Supply, as they realized themselves, is definitely a candidate since ALL of AMD\'s
recommended power supplys are 250W+, and almost all the 250W ones recommended at 900MHz fall off
the list at 1GHz, leaving only 4 at 250W and the rest at 300W+.

AMD\'s approved motherboard list is also a useful source of information as some boards are only
approved at 1GHz after a rev. For example, MSI 6340 rev. 1.0 was approved up to 900MHz, and it
took the 1.0A rev. to get 1GHz approval.

This speculation about the problem being Via\'s AGP design is the result of zero research.

Marks for your article: 0/10 - piss poor.

Originally Posted by saturn
The problem with power supplies and the Athlons is not the power that is availble but the timing in which the voltages come up. Yes, they also draw a lot of power especially oveclocked with raised voltages and you need a supply that can handle it.

I have run many k7\'s from 500 to 1.1ghz on both the 750 and the kx chipset boards and they have run for days without a glitch. The 750 boards seem to have more problems at the 1ghz mark and up. The kx 133 chipset ran chips at speeds that the 750 wouldn\'t. The oveclocked chips are all chips I resoldered. no GFD\'s involved. The tbird\'s have been working on the 750 chipset up to 950 but they won\'t clock over 800 on the kx chipset board.

Let me state unequivocally that VIA not only sucks, but sucks hard. Thank you...that is all. :)

No one here has mentioned the first thing that came to my mind: excessive CPU temperature. Kyle of the HardOCP stated that the AMD rep told him a 1 GHz T-Bird would fry in under 8 seconds without active cooling. They run VERY hot. Perhaps some of the Gateway systems were designed and released with sub-standard cooling or inadequate ventilation.

-Brian Wilcox

Scott,
Ok, after some thought I was a little harsh on the criticism. I guess the title "Could GHz Athlon glitch signal deeper problems?" insinuated that there were problems directly related to the Athlon. It was a little too easy to take this out of context and I know that a lot of people new to the hardware world would might assume this meant that the Athlon was not a reliable platform, especially with the often misguided press that the Gateway 1ghz system has been getting. Thanks for the email response, and I apologize for being so harsh.
Jason