Okay. This is Poser related in that I want to get my bloody computer upgraded and running so I can =USE= the damned program! Yes, I'm still fighting with it. What I have at the moment is a Soltek Pro mobo for the Athlon 64 (socket 939). And currently it is hosting an Athlon 64 3200+ (the Venice core). There is one 120 gig Maxtor SATA HDD, and Asus PCI-E Nvidia 6200 video card (128 megs on card ram), an SB 24 basic sound card in one PCI slot, and a 40X CD reader on IDE 1 (There's also a 550 watt power supply) The OS is Win2k Pro SP2. On startup, the default windows .wav file breaks up, like it is starting and stopping, or the audio is cutting in and out. Occasionally this happens with Winamp, and if I close Winamp while an mp3 is playing, it stutters on for a couple of seconds before the sound stops. Adobe Audition is utterly crippled. A Quicktime file's sound will lag the video by almost a second on the first run, although it tracks properly after playing through once. Games -play- fine, but saving and loading can be problematic, with stutters in sound and all the evidence of something not wanting to pass data like is should (hence the reason I don't dare risk the 40+ gig runtime or the scene and animation files I already have). The current 120 gig Maxtor is the 3rd new drive I've tried; the first was a 160 gig Seagate that might have been damaged when the first upgrade board -did- blow. So I tried an 80 gig Seagate, and when I got the same behavior, switched to a Maxtor drive in case it was something funky in the Seagate firmware. Another oddity is that when I try and install XP-Pro, it BSOD's during the pre-installing load and system check with an error message involving pci.sys. I can't figure this out; have I managed to get 2 bad mobo's from different companies at different times? Is this something that involves OS incompatibility? I've never hit this kind of entransigent glitch, and it is really starting to annoy me. Help?

Try to put the soundcard in a different PCI slot or remove it altogether and see if that helps

I have. It doesn't. Tried both an Audigy 2 and the SB live extra cheapy...

If you seriously want to improve the performance of any PC, you should disable all the pretty stuff that Microsoft put in there, such as the Teletubbies look to XP and all sounds, themes and screensavers. That's in addition to any other performance enhancing advice you may get in this thread, BTW. Both my machines - my Poser box and my Everything Else box - are configured for performance, not prettiness. In fact, I've even removed the casings to improve the cooling. :)

That's good advice SamTherapy. I keep the panel off my case as well, and even have a desk fan that blows directly into it. (No reason to not be overly cautious, heat can kill a mobo in no time flat.) Dale B, my first advice is to go and buy a Pentium, since it amazes me how many people with AMDs post to boards complaining that software never seems to work on their machines. (Could be that since the large majority of developers write code on Intel boxes, the compiling suits the Pentium family better. I am not saying AMD is bad, in fact, I think they do make a pretty decent product, but Pentiums are the tools of the big boys. [Even Apple realized that ;-)]) But since you probably won't do that, and I don't particularly think that would fix your problem right now, here is an idea. Did you use the same hard drive cable when you installed each drive? I did that once, and I tore my hair out trying to figure out why my brand new hard disk wasn't running right. All that cable needs is one good twist, and it can rip inside the ribbon. Then no drive you connect will work. Then next thing I would do, take the whole thing apart (please properly ground yourself, static is your equipment's greatest enemy.) Then, put it all back together, making sure everything is seated securly in its respective slot. I have had this problem also. Another question, are you using the same CPU? Did you simply change boards, but not CPUs? If so, and nothing else mentioned works, maybe you should consider the processor being at fault. (That's a shot in the dark, but never say never.) The only other thing I can think of, is do you have the disk on its own channel? And is it set to be the master? Some systems don't respond well to a drive being set to "Cable Select." At this point, I am grasping at straws, but hopefully some of this will help. If none of this works, I hate to suggest it, because I hate to do it, but you may want to consider that Windows is at fault, and may need a reinstallation. I know with Win2k you can do a reinstall in place, but I don't know with XP (never touch the stuff.) If that is possible though, then you keep all of your data, you will just need to reinstall apps and point the data back again. I hope some of this helps. I know it drives me insane when I can't get my blasted 386 to run Doom 3...

Don't know about other's experience but I've never heard of any significant incompatibility with AMD chips. I've run just about any kind of software you can name for years on AMD without a single CPU related compatibility problem. The 64 bit systems are still pretty new technology so I'd expect some minor glitches. I assume you have the latest drivers for the sound card. Have you tried running without any background applications? Is there an onboard sound system on the MB that might be acting up? "A Quicktime file's sound will lag the video..." Only QT or other video formats as well? Most of the symptoms sound like some kind of buffering issue though I don't know what might be causing it.

I think there was lag on a DivX video, as well; I'd have to reattach all the other hard drives I have to access those files though. And yep, latest drivers for chipset, video card, audio card,, and multiple versions of DX 9c, in case what came on the installer CD was munged up in pressing. Changed cables with each swap; learned that one long ago. My preferred OS is Win2k Pro; I was trying the XP Pro to see if it would install, and if so, successfully, as a check against the 2k install CD having developed a fatal issue. Once I find the timing update files I'll be trying 98SE, just to see if it works that way. The mobo does have an AC 97 sound chip, but the drivers aren't installed and it is disabled in the BIOS. And I haven't had an Intel chip since the last computer I bought, which was a 386SX-40. And this is the first time I've had this much trouble. Most of the 'AMD Horror Stories' I've had to deal with turned out to be some dweeb trying to OC when he didn't know what he was doing, or using some really cool BIOS setting his bud told him about...without telling him that you needed server class memory to handle the timing changes. Win2k purred on the last system, which was a socket 754 Athlon 64, so it isn't the CPU pipeline. I've tried a 3000+ and a 3200+ (WInchester and Venice cores respectively). The two mobo's had different chipsets (the first was Nforce 3, the current is VIA KT890). What gets me is that =games= have no audio trouble; Unreal Tournament 2004, Doom 3 and Half Life 2 -run- fine, and I would think that if there were anything damaged or corrupted, a game like a high end shooter would be more likely to bring it out that anything else. But there it's level loading and saving slowdowns.

My AMD comment was merely an observation I have made over the past few years. It just seems to me that AMD users seem to encounter more issues than Pentium users, and I don't mean just Poser. I am talking about video games and other software. My opinion is that it has to do with the differnt multimedia instruction sets. But again, this is just an opinion based on observation over the course of the past couple of years. I have no problem with AMD, if nothing else, their business model over the past few years has led to cheaper Intel boxes for me ;-)

Interesting. It sounds like a definite disk-based I/O issue. However, there is nothing, based on what you have said, that would lead to that being the case. You have tried everything. Here is an idea though. Why don't you try disconnecting the sound card. Then enable the on-board audio on reboot. See if the problem persists. You never know, it could be the card itself. You defintely sound like you know what you are talking about, so its not as though you are just some kid who threw together some spare parts. I wish I had a good answer for you, but I can't think of much else to help you. I wouldn't bother with the Win98 though. As far as I know, MS no longer offers the updates for the OS, so you would be dealing with a stock version of the OS, which definitely needed its share of patches. If you are having problems with 2k and XP, 98 is probably not going to help you much. Hope it all works out for you.

actually M$ are still supporting Win98. I just ran Windows Update on my 98 box and find I have 2 critical updates... and I run the update 1 a month on that box...

Interesting, thanks Khai. I still have a 98 box that I don't start up anymore for fear that lack of patches would leave my network vulnerable. Thanks, I will have to go get the patches now.

nps.. not sure how much longer they'll do sec-updates tho.. but there was such an outcry about killing off 98 since a lot of machines still run it in charity work etc etc that M$ relented for awhile

Cool, now if they would just relent on VB6 support, I would be a happy camper!

destro 75; Wanna secure 98SE install? Run a web search on 98lite and be amazed. You can actually make a pretty secure install by ripping out IE, Outlook, the scripting host, the MS bastardization of Java, and plopping the 95 desktop onto 98SE. That gets rid of 98% of the vectors that script kiddies can use. Run a reg cleaner to get rid of all the dangling COM stubs and dead shortcuts, and you might be surprised at how fast and stable clunky old 98 actually is, minus the garbage Unca Billy wanted us to have. A halfway decent firewall program, or a hardware firewall, and you are the 3rd to the next thing to bullet proof there is in the digital world.

Oh, another thing that points to some sort of disk I/O issue; on start up, the Sony DVD burner I have on IDE 2, for lack of a better term, ratchets. It sounds as if either the head is running against a stop, or the spindle solenoid is popping. As soon as the BIOS initializes, it stops, but during that brief time when the video is initializing and th memory is running POST, it acts like it is getting very incompatible signals... (shrug)

LOL, then what you are really saying is just go Linux? ;-) As for the next post. Yeah, you are having an I/O issue, but maybe it isn't coming from where we have theorized before. Given that you are having that sound issue while the video card is initializing, maybe that's the problem. Is this the same card you had on the last board? If so, and you have another card laying around that you can pop in to test with, give that a try. I had an issue with a video card once, not too long ago, and switching it out solved the problem. The other thing I just thought of, are you using the same power supply you used for the last board? This was another issue I had not very long ago. (I had a bad computer year last year, lol.) In fact, if I recall correctly, my symptoms were not too far from yours. I recall hearing my drives freak out on boot, and my hdd showed almost viral symptoms. I tried everything I could think of. The whole time, a buddy of mine kept saying, "Dude, it's your power supply." I kept saying there was no way. Why would the power supply be causing my problems? I went so far as to do a total format (fdisk, the whole nine yards.) It still didn't solve my problem. So I finally gave in and used a different power supply. My buddy didn't let me live it down for weeks that he was right on the money. If your mobo blew due to a power surge, it could have sizzled the power supply too. It's probably not as much a long shot as you might think. (I know from first-hand experience.) Another idea I just thought of (guess where it comes from? lol) your IRQs. Your video card may be sharing an IRQ with something else. That happened to me inexplicably. Check within the BIOS for the settings for the card (a good tip on the testing is to turn everything for the video card down in BIOS, ex. shadowing: off.) Then check within Windows also. See if maybe the video card is on an IRQ that is used by another device. (I'm not sure how PCI-e works, I am still using AGP, but I would assume, given that it is on a pipeline more closely shared by other devices, that perhaps Windows is throwing it on an IRQ it shouldn't.) One more idea, related to the last (I told you it was a bad year) do you have an old modem plugged in? I had an old 56k still in my box (because you never know when you are going to need to use dial-up again, lol.) It was stealing another card's IRQ (I think it was my network card, but hey, at this point, anything is possible.) Sheesh, just when I think I am out of ideas, I am reminded of one more time my computer decided to make me want to throw it out of the window. Anyway, I hope one of these helps. Keep me updated, who knows when I will need to remember it for myself grin

"Cool, now if they would just relent on VB6 support, I would be a happy camper!" I definitely second the vote for VB.Com. OK, sound is the main issue but games work fine? Don't some (most--have no idea) games use DirectSound? Have you actually run DXDiag and checked the status of all the DirectX drivers? I don't know if it's even possible to go back to an earlier version of DirectX. You should be able to find something on MSDN or elsewhere about the XP no install issue--don't know if that is relevant to the other problems though.

.

" Oh, another thing that points to some sort of disk I/O issue; on start up, the Sony DVD burner I have on IDE 2, for lack of a better term, ratchets. It sounds as if either the head is running against a stop, or the spindle solenoid is popping. As soon as the BIOS initializes, it stops, but during that brief time when the video is initializing and th memory is running POST, it acts like it is getting very incompatible signals... (shrug)" Just a question, Is the power suply the same one across all these changes? Try swaping it out and see if that helps. Also are you using the same RAM as on the Mobo that went bad? Its possible they are not good anymore -> (I am thinking maybe the power suply shorted your fist board and is causing anomolies in the current one)

Welp... 1) Nope, the first board had an AGP slot; this board has PCI-E, and the card in there is actually the 2nd one. The first one I got was a very budget Geforce 6200 with 64 megs of ram, and an oncard function that 'borrowed' free system RAM at need (placeholder until I decided what card I really wanted). As that might have been the problem, I got an Asus 6200 with 128 megs on card and no poaching. A bit of improvement, but that is all. 2) New power supply. The previous one was a 400 watt CompUSA special that performed rather well. The current one is a 550 watt MadDog rated for Athlon 64 loads. 3) Memory. It -should- be. I had 2 gigs in the old box; somewhere in the midst of all the swapping I got a fresh stick of Kingston ValueRam on the chance that the blown board did damage it. I'll check though, as it's always possible I popped one of the others in by mistake. Now that's an idea about the PCI-E doing something odd with the IRQ's. I haven't gotten under the hood of that either, really. For that matter, it might be one of the USB controllers or the SATA RAID chip doing it as well.... Oh, last major sympton! On installing Win2k, it starts copying files after the reg code input, gets to 'setting up Distributed Transaction Controller' and spontaneously reboots. Switching to a different media reader and reinstalling seems to avoid this, or a few go arounds with the reboot gets past whatever is causing the reboot. Hm. I wonder if there is something in the media reader's firmware that conflicts with the new chipsets...?

Attached Link: http://www.tek-tips.com/

Message edited on: 06/12/2005 07:07

Sorry DaleB to hear you're having these problems. Know how it feels. :o(

My experience may not be even close to what is causing your problems but I figured I share them anyhow.
The last "issue" I encountered started with the computer staggering and sometimes even slow down to a crawl.
Not always, not with same applications running and not with a noticeable "pattern". And it got worse and worse within a month.
When doing a monthly backup of my work disk and zipping the whole thing I happened upon the problem.
At a certain area/directory/files the zipping slowed to a crawl.
I unplugged the drive and everything worked fine.
I never got any disk problem report when doing disk checks.
Anyhow, I was able to get everything moved to another disk.
Formatted the problem disk and loaded it with test stuff with no problems. Am using it as a storage disk now.
Haven't got any problems with it or the rest of the computer since.

I still don't know what the actual cause was but I'm happy it works. :o)

Have you tried using different RAM chips? Macs and PCs are different, sure. But one thing they share in common is ram timing. I had nothing but weirdness for weeks when I upgraded my ram. Turns out the ram stick's clock speed was using an unsupported multiplier. It'd work fine for awhile, but then it'd freeze up, crash, reboot unexpectedly...you name it. My ram sticks have to use whole number timing, like 7ns and 10ns, instead of 5.5ns or 8.5ns. Newer AMD cpus may have a much lower tolerance to these ns timings than previous editions. If you transplanted your old ram to the new mobo/cpu, then that could be the culprit. What you're describing is a memory I/O issue, and having the wrong ram can cause disk drive corruption, stuttering audio, out-of-sync video, etc. You may not have to buy new sticks. Your bios might have an option to ratchet the speed down or up...

Mm. That =is= an idea; The Kingston ValuRam I'm using is the cheapest DDR 400 they have (and thinking about it, I was surprised when they worked with the socket 754 Athlon 64 I upgraded from), and the 939 Athlon 64's dual memory controller is a lot more touchy about timing than the 754's single controller version. I know one of the sticks, if it is slot 1, will prevent a boot, so it definitely is weak. It works in the upper bank, but still.... Time to dig into the BIOS to check and see if changing the timing helps.... And the Soltek board I have now is set up for overclockers, so the Award-Phoenix BIOS has access to all the timing and voltage settings... ;)

Having been a board that I know has gone Tango Uniform, we now have a nice new pair of Corsair XMS (no leds though) on its way from Newegg. We'll see what happens when they get here....