ASRock K7S8X M/B

[longgone]

I have two of these boards, brand new, one came in a barebones unit and one I bought by itself ,, neither one will work for me ,, one has an AMD XP2400+ cpu , the other had an AMD XP2200+ cpu ,, both had the BSOD with Win XP ,, the XP2200+ works fine in another machine ,, the XP2400+ is unknown at this time ,,, it seems far fetched that I could have two identical M/B's and both bad .. ideas ???

[Peter M]

I'd rather say you're making the same mistake on both ... how does a RAM test turn out? www.memtest.org

[beastgreeley]

Some of these boards default to 200mhz + multiplier, and if your ram isn't capable of keeping up to these speeds you need to go to the 166mhz level to get it to work.

[longgone]

To answer both ... one had DDR266 PC2100 ram, the other DDR333 PC2700 ram. Using the UBCD, I did memory test, kill disk, and a 30 minute burn cpu, the results all appeared good. I did load in a Linux distro (Fedora 3) and had no problems, except for internet connection could not be done ... the BSOD was so quick that I could not read it except that it said .. "Windows has encountered a problem" then the screen went black. I also have a 3rd board that I need to check also, but that will be later...

[Peter M]

I'll say it again: Run a proper RAM test.

[longgone]

Peter M ............. in order to do what you are saying I need to be able to make an internet connection ... I cannot get an OS loaded that willl let me do that .. at the moment my tbl shooting is limited to "in house" ..........

[sm8000]

If you're posting to this thread, you've got an internet connection. Can't you download the proper file to make a bootable CD/USB key/floppy? Or are you posting from a cell phone or PDA?

[longgone]

Hmmmm... I might have misunderstood Peter M .. I was under the impression he meant the machine that has that board in it .. sorry .. ooppss ..

[Peter M]

You could at least have LOOKED at that website to figure out what it's about, right?

[longgone]

I did look ... (later) ... and it has some different formats of memtest86 ... which I already have ....

[sm8000]

So you've done the latest version of memtest86+, and no errors have come up after at least one full pass (all nine tests)?

Are you overclocking? How are your CPUs being cooled? And how good is that PSU?

[longgone]

Yes on the memtest ... no overclocking .... cpu cooling is the one that came with the cpu .... psu was good on the old board that was in the case ... so I am guessing it is still good ...

[longgone]

..Update & Question time ........ I can report both of the ASRock boards are good to go .. I have them both in machines, one of which I will keep the other I will sell ... as soon as I fix a boot problem .. the machine will turn on but not do the POST/BOOT (fans work), until I also click the reset button, then it finishes out the sequence. It will also not load an OS, not sure if that isHDD or CDRW related yet. In XP Pro it goes all the way through to the "registering components" portion then BSOD, in Mandriva2005LE it goes to hda lost interrupt and hangs, in Fedcora 2 it exits abnormally .... new PSU and CDRW are on the way .. I have 4 PSU's ,, all of which are new/never used but they are 3-5 years old .. could the age have a bearing on the results they are giving me ???

[sm8000]

Reflash the BIOS on the troublesome machine.

[longgone]

Reflash the BIOS ... just the thought of that scares me ... FWIW ... the board that does not BOOT/POST in the case it is installed in ... did work fine in the case that the other board is in ... the only difference being the PSU and the RAM size/speed ...

[sm8000]

In that case (pun intended), never mind the BIOS. Try different RAM and PSU.

[JPMiller]

what brand and wattage are the PSU's..
age has nothing to do with performance and or reliability...

[longgone]

Ram was good on this board in the other case, that is reason I am suspect of the PSU's, new PSU is on order from Newegg ..

PSU's are 320W, 350W, 400W, 450W ,,, Codegen, Xtreme, the other 2 ??? , one is still in case ..

[brooster]

Another forum
http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/ind...0&#entry568983

advises:
After spending several weeks in Google search i realized that the problem is within the motherboard (Hard-Drive Controller i believe), and other hard-ware is working perfectly (at least under Windows XP SP2)

I'd recommend you buy another chipset other than SIS, Via or Intel chipset would be better. Alway go by the chipset not the manufacturer as Linux detects the chipset.

It seems that support for that chipset is not upto par yet but the newer kernel may have better support.

[longgone]

brooster ....

that is good to know .. I have two other boards here that I am fairly sure are SIS but they are also different mfgrs too, one of them did the same thing as this ASRock board. It also was using same PSU (wonder if that was a hint) ...