Faulty mothboard?

[max u.]

About a month ago I bought an MSI K7T266 Pro2 motherboard and it seemed ok 'til now...

I would've never found out about it, but...

Recently I bought AvP2 (it's a new FPS game, if someone doesn't know). Anyways, it installed nice and smooth, but about 5-10 seconds after I run it, the game completely freezes the system (with WinXP!).

So I've tried all kinds of things and tweaks to the system (damn, it's a long story)- no use... And, after I decided to try out SiSoft Sandra, I've found out that it doesn't even show any chipset present (if you've worked with Sandra, I hope you'll know what I mean). So I consulted with one buddy tech and he's done a Remote Assistance for me (he's in US), and he also said it's definetly a faulty mothboard.

So, does anyone have any ideas (real one's, please
;) ), or should I send that motherboard back and buy a different one?

I really hope someone can give me a piece of advice.

Thanx in advance!




PS: here's the sys specs just in case:
Athlon XP 1800+
512 Kingmax PC2400 RAM (2x 256)
Leadtek GF3 Ti500
SB Audigy Platinum
IBM 75GXP 75Gb HD
WinXP Pro

[sonyfier]

Hope it doesn't turn out to be the board and look forward to reading the results of your problems as I have my eye on purchasing that board and hope its not an endemic fault to all of them.
I wouldn't of thought that sandra has been upgraded yet to read the 266A chipset properly?

[max u.]

Not sure if Sandra'd been updated, but for now the motherboard seems to be the only sane reason why the damn game doesn't work. (I blame myself for what I have to do just because of some game...:( )

[brad]

I seriously doubt it is the motherboard. I have two myself, one running win-98-se, the other unix, have built 18 others, and have yet to see any chronic or systemic problems with them so far, although I have no experience with win-xp on them yet. The vast majority of problems people seem to be having are caused by incorrect BIOS setup, poor quality memory, and inadequate power supplies.

If the system runs fine except when running that particular game then it is definately NOT the motherboard. It is possible that your PSU may not be up to the task because your XP-1800+ chip and gaming does demand more of the power supply than other apps. If you have an AMD approved PSU that is listed for the XP1800+ then it is more than likely a BIOS setup issue (memory timing), a compatablity problem between that game and win-xp, or possibly a driver related issue.

I have no idea at the moment why sandra isn't recognising the KT266A chipset. Win-XP installs a version of VIA's 4-in-1 driver pack during setup so I don't think that is the problem. Perhaps the version of Sandra you have is at fault on this problem.

Brad

[jim chase]

I second Brad's statement, ram and ram timing. More often than not, if I have a seemingly stable system that crashes in one particular application the problem is solved by backing off the ram timing a step or two in the BIOS.

Jim

[rakki]

using the MSI mobo and was playing the AvP demo (dunno if this is relevant). Wandered around lost for half an hour no problems before i uninstalled the game for sucking :)

[max u.]

Thanx guys, I'll try to reduce that RAM timing. Hope it'll work.:)



Oh, and rakki, it's the AvP2, not AvP, and the demo ran fine with me, too, it freezes only on the full game.:)

[allocta]

Have you try installing the drivers for the motherboard?
The problem you have got sounds more of a software problem where drivers like the VIA 4 in 1 are not installed and system lock up and crashes happens.

[brad]

A version of VIA's 4-in-1 driver pack is automatically installed by default during win-xp installation. Don't know which version though. Updating the VIA drivers to the current v4.35 package might help but I'm not inclined to think so right now because everything else seems to be running fine.

Brad

[rakki]

well, i meant AVP2 single player demo. :)

Life Lesson: "Don't trust MSI's Live Update - it just gives you Dead Mobo !"

[max u.]

Hmm, I couldn't find those v4.35 drivers on the MSI web site. Where can I get them? Or I didn't search good enough?

[brad]

Here is the official VIA support site driver page. Please make yourself very familiar with ALL of the instructions on the page before installing the new drivers.

An alternative thought is that since your problem may be just video related, perhaps just downloading and installing the newest AGP driver they have might help.

Brad

[brad]

I must be getting older than I thought because I forgot to put the VIA driver download link in the previous post. Chances are you have already found them but here it is just in case. Please accept my apology!

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2


Brad

[max u.]

No worries, I already found them and installed.:)

But the drivers don't seem to help the prob anyhow.:(


One more thing I noticed just today:
It's not only the game. When I try to play some video clips, that require some real video card work, exactly the same thing happens: freezes completely and keeps replaying the last sound that was there before the freeze (you know like those old vinile disks;) )

So I'm completely lost here.


Brad, you seem to be one of the most compitent people around here, maybe you have some ideas on what can be going on in my box? I hope.

Cheers

[rakki]

could be goofed up video codec ?

[q9]

Actually had a similar problem with a Transcend motherboard. I installed some game demos that came with the ASUS vga and it looked brilliant. However installed some other games such as Delta Force 2 and it crapped itself. Garbled graphics galore.

Tried everything to get it going, swapped graphics cards etc, but no joy. Reduced clock speed, no joy.

Turned out to be a faulty motherboard. First time I'd ever had to warranty one.

[brad]

Originally posted by max u.
No worries, I already found them and installed.:)

But the drivers don't seem to help the prob anyhow.:(


One more thing I noticed just today:
It's not only the game. When I try to play some video clips, that require some real video card work, exactly the same thing happens: freezes completely and keeps replaying the last sound that was there before the freeze (you know like those old vinile disks;) )

So I'm completely lost here.


Brad, you seem to be one of the most compitent people around here, maybe you have some ideas on what can be going on in my box? I hope.

Cheers

I'm at a bit of a loss at the moment because I have yet to find any hint of a video compatability issue with the board. However neither I or the other 18 people I have built MSI socket-a systems for are gamers, and we're all using ATI and Matrox video cards. Most of them don't run windows either so perhaps that is why we have not had any video related problems. Could be one of the famous matters of trying different NVidia drivers until you find one that works, as I read about that on usenet rather often. My gut feeling is still however a problem with your video drivers and/or windows-xp.

A few other possibilities:

In the BIOS setup, AGP apeture size, the default should work fine but changing the setting often cures some strange problems.

Update your video card drivers to the latest versions.

Consider downloading and installing the latest separate AGP GART driver using the link:

http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/others/VAGP410.zip

Although I personally find it very hard to believe the mobo is at fault, exchanging it for another may eliminate the problem. I stress again that your psu is still a possible suspect. LOADS of strange problems have been cured by upgrading it.

Sorry I can't offer more but it can be a real bear to armchair troubleshoot a problem I have never seen myself.

Brad

[max u.]

Well, I tried all the nvidia drivers I could find and stopped at the ones that are digitally signed (they haven't got any issues, unlike the others I tried).

And I played around with the aperture size-no use. I installed those AGP drivers just after those for the motherboard. And about the PSU, I really doubt it's the prob, it's a new Enermax 420W unit.

And yes, this is a strangest problem I've ever had, too, ever. :(

[brad]

Is the game supposed to be win-xp compatable? Does the maker specifically say so? I'm inclined to think it isn't, and I agree that your psu probably isn't the problem now that I know what it is. It would be interesting to slap win98, me, or 2k on another drive to see how the game runs then.

Brad

[max u.]

Yep, the game is not specifically compatible with WinXP. But it is said in the manual that they have tried running it on WinXP and did not experience any probs. Also I asked pretty many people at the game's forums and they run it ok on WinXP.

But still I guess I should try installing it on other OS, who knows...