K7S5A Pro Crashes on Win98 and XP with PCI VGA

**Rodrigo Ilton** · August 29th, 2003, 10:36 AM

The motherboard freezes and reboot. On OpenGL games it locks for a time, then executes all inputas fastly then freezes again.
Them memory is a PC133 SDRam 128Mb module that war working on another board(before the upgrade).
The processor is an Athlon XP2000+ correctly configureg and detected on setup.
My VGA card is an Palit TNT2 M64 PCI 32mb that is not on the pci1 slot.
The IRQ of the pci card(IRQ10) is shared with an USB controller.
Even without PCI IRQ the system freezes.
I've installed a WinXP Pro only for testing and it rebooted too.
After reboot the so says that the VGA driver caused a bad issue.
The VGA card was working(more than perfectly) on the other Motherboard(Even with the SiS630 onboard VGA together).
How can I use my purchased product??? Or it is just a toy?
Someone user this Video Card on this board? Or had success with PCI vga on this board??
About BIOS upgrades, this take much time? I had a fear that power leaks disturb the process and messes everithing.
Wich BIOS upgrades shoud I make. To wich version????

**Peter M** · August 29th, 2003, 02:51 PM

You should check on that RAM. You wouldn't be the first to migrate an old PC133 RAM from a previous system, only to find that it doesn't really live up to PC133 standard in a more demanding environment.
BIOS updates will do little, since K7S5A pro is a matured board that's been on the market for two and a half years now.
www.memtest86.com for a good RAM test.

**Rodrigo Ilton** · August 29th, 2003, 03:45 PM

Maybe I'm wrong. But this memory was working at 133MHz on an pentium III board with no problems. An I'm still worried about the video error on windows XP. This can tell me something about the problem. Ou maybe not. I've read about power supply issues with this board predecessor. And my BIOS date is january/2003.
Since I don't have memory modules available can I make another simple tests?
Thanks for you reply. If I could I'll make this test.
You're(from this forum) are great.

I live in Brasil, so contact the manunfacturer is almost impossible.

**Peter M** · August 29th, 2003, 04:28 PM

Pentium III doesn't push on RAM bandwidth anywhere near as hard as a high clocked Athlon system.

You aren't the first. Belief doesn't help you there. Test it. You got the link, and you CAN run the test.

**AnakiMana** · August 29th, 2003, 05:01 PM

I just went through the same thing with my K7S5As just last night. I have two of them (non pro). One of them started rebooting out of the blue and leaving me with a powered, but non-working machine. And I could only get it to post 1 out of 15 tries after that, followed by another sudden reboot. I swore it must have been the power supply, even though I've got a new Enermaxx (way overkill) supply in there. I swapped it with another brand new Enermaxx, and then every component with another perfectly working K7S5A system, one at a time until I found what was causing it. It was one of my sticks of Crucial 256mb DDR. I've been using 2 of these for over a year with perfect stability until it started acting up a few days ago. I replaced that stick with another Crucial 256mb DDR and all is perfectly fine now. I never would have guessed it was a RAM issue by the symptoms.

I suggest you try to borrow some RAM from a friend just for diagnosis purposes. Or buy another stick (if that wasn't the problem, at least you have more RAM now!).

AnakiMana

**Rodrigo Ilton** · September 1st, 2003, 11:00 AM

I'm not certain but underclocking the core to 100MHz (Memory/Processor) the system seems to be stable. Well, I'm gona test for more time and then post the results. If I got one DDR stick I'll test it. Thanks for your help, anyway.

**Rodrigo Ilton** · September 2nd, 2003, 08:40 AM

S**t, it rebooted again at 100MHz clock. It happens when I'm closing an Direct3d/OpenGl app. This makes me think about the PCI video card. Gonna take my friend voodoo 3 - 3000 AGP to make tests. I'll post results here. The starnge thing is that this memory ran at 133MHz with my pentium3 100MHz(700) with the same applications(half-life/cs, gl/d3d/quake, fifa2003) and never locked or rebooted.

**Omardeth** · September 2nd, 2003, 09:11 AM

k7s5a is pretty picking on the ram you put in it and the power supplies . with problems like you have those are the 2 things that are the cause the problems most of the time . try different ram before you pull and change drivers on the video card .

remember KISS ( keep it simple stupid ) try the easiest thing first . and the easiest thing to try is changing the ram .

**Peter M** · September 2nd, 2003, 12:41 PM

I told him twice already ... he's into belief rather than proof.

**TOAD6147** · September 2nd, 2003, 01:23 PM

It seems he's ignoring Peter's suggestions because he's already convinced himself that it has to be the vid card.
Rodrigo Ilton,
Check the RAM as suggested. You came here for help and this is what was suggested to you. Peter is a seasoned pro and doesn't suggest these tests out of guess work. He's the resident expert on these types of boards. That's where you need to start if you desire further help.

**Richard Cranium** · September 2nd, 2003, 01:27 PM

IF Peter M. suggests a try,, Do It !!

Precious few members have anywhere near his ability.

Doc

**darkheart** · September 2nd, 2003, 01:29 PM

I have one of these boards and had awful problems with the PC133 ram in the end I threw up the head and got some ddr pc2100 and have never looked back the system has yet to lock up on me again ...........

**Rodrigo Ilton** · September 2nd, 2003, 02:15 PM

Whoa! Calm down mob...
I've said that I'll test it with DDR when I have money to buy it. Here in Brasil computer parts are expensive. Even being an PHP/ASP programmer it will take more time.
I have a friend with a spare Vodoo3 AGP. So I'll test it first, ok?
I don't think it's a sin to test what I can. But the memory is my target.
Thanks for the care of my problem!!

**Peter M** · September 2nd, 2003, 03:32 PM

Now will you run memtest86 already? We won't talk to you anymore until you did

**engracio** · September 2nd, 2003, 04:06 PM

Rodrigo Ilton,

Those people that answered your questions are expert on this subject. Reason: they own the same motherboard and probably ran into the same problem as you have. Like me. Test whatever you can with what you have and post back.

Your mobo is great once you get it working, if not it is hell until you get it fix. More than likely you are unable to return this mobo, then the only solution you have is try to make it work. You have a long way to go.

e

**Richard Cranium** · September 6th, 2003, 01:45 PM

If the RAM is not the problem after you test it, try AnakiMana's suggestion.

I too had one of those boards that was very flaky until I installed a high quality 250w power supply..

Doc

**Rodrigo Ilton** · September 15th, 2003, 03:16 PM

In my friend's house I've found an unused supply. I'ts another low quality supply but it never crashed again. I hosted an cs game saturday and sunday without a reboot (I was certain before the change).

Thanks to all members for the help an time spent with my problem. This forum is hotter than hell!

**mattshep58** · September 29th, 2003, 03:05 PM

I have a problem with my K7S5A pro when i try to install Windows 2000 pro or Windows XP pro. On 2000 it freezes on "setup is inspecting your hardware configuration" or if it gets beyond that, it will crash at the graphical portion of install, on xp it has the same problem on the graphical protion. i have a amd xp 1800+ with 512 megs of pc2700 ddr and a Pny TI 4200. what can i do? it works with 98 SE and my games like CNC generals. Email me here

**Rodrigo Ilton** · September 29th, 2003, 03:29 PM

Well, when my motherboard was crashing it ran a lot of games like warcraft 3, Quake, and others. It locks on hal-life(cs) and on GTA3. There are some apps that locks and others don't. Try to verify the power supply and replace the memory for testing. This mainboard is temperamental but still very good. I love it anyway!!!

**mudoggy** · September 30th, 2003, 06:06 PM

I'm not a beginner by any means, but I curse the last two ECS k7s5a boards I bought. BOth had issues, the latter took a couple months to surface. They are VERY picky with RAM and powersupplies. I swapped PC133 and DDR memory in the one I still have, and it's still giving an occasional error. At least it's not rebooting... but it dump explorer.exe at the drop of a hat if it feels like it.

Replacing this one with Shuttle board, and using this one for art, or to relieve my aggression. hehehe