ASUS DDR Motherboard Problem A7M and A7A

Try to download the latest patch from "Counterstrike" from http://www.counter-strike.net/downloads.html
Look also in the releasenotes on http://www.counter-strike.net/readme.txt

Good luck.

this link has great loads of FAQ regarding GEforce. Might help though. BTW few points to check about

1. Overheating
By using asus pc-probe you might find out the temperature of your system.

2. Power supply
You might have a weak power supply. Check out using pc-probe as well if the voltage is too low

3. Driver
Update latest driver for fixes. Update chipset driver as well. If it is a via driver check out www.via.com.tw 

sorry the link

http://www.geforcefaq.com/faq.cgi

Sound loops while hard locking the system is typically an indication of an IRQ sharing violation by the sound card.  Are any other devices using the same addresses as the sound card?

Read this: http://www.asus.com.tw/products/techref/tech-report/mthmbqa.html

There are lots of nice problems with these boards...it seems either they work flawlessly, or have major problems.  As kahlean said, what size/brand powersupply do you have?  I know that the V7700 requires A LOT of power and seems to have trouble with many newer boards.  There is a patch for Win2K to address video problems under Win2K; http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon-duron/amd_win2k_patch.html.

Also, http://www.systemlogic.net/articles/00/8/agpstability/ explains how to reroute your fan power to run from the motherboard (reduces power requirements to the card/AGP slot)

Have you tried increasing the I/O Voltage by 0.1V in the BIOS setup?  This sometimes fixes these problems.   Are you running the Asus drivers or the nVidia drivers?  Try the nVidia ones (www.nvidia.com), they are almost always newer than the board manufacturer's customized drivers.

-d

I have a 300-watt power supply manufactured by sparkle. I have tried both the Nvidia and Asus video drivers; it didn't make a difference.  There are no IRQ conflicts

"There are no IRQ conflicts"

A shared IRQ will not show up in Windows device manager as a conflict yet may still cause a lockup if shared incorrectly.  From device manager, select 'view' at the top and then 'resources by type'.  You can then get a list of all the IRQs and what device is using what.  For example, my system is sharing IRQ 11 with three devices, 3COM ehternet, a video card, and the USB host controller.  None of these show up as conflicting devices in the main device manager screen because they are shared.  If one or more of these devices were to give me trouble, this shared IRQ would be the first thing I'd change.

ACPI strikes again...does that ASUS board have an option to disable ACPI in the BIOS?  Or you can try changing your PC type in Device Manager to "Standard PC"?  This will force Win2K to redetect all your devices, though you may have to reinstall some of the drivers.

-d

Ok, I thank everyone who has commented so far but...  If you read my question carefully you will see that I changed the motherboard from the A7M to the A7A.  When I did this I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled the OS along with updating the drivers.  I even tried two different operating systems windows 98 and windows 2000 pro.

How likely is it that an IRQ conflict or a driver problem would occur on both occasions and cause the exact same problem?

I am an experienced PC tech; I know how to build a system.

This problem has something to do with a bug in either the motherboard or one of the components or it?s a combination of the components.

I did a search on the Internet; I am not the only person experiencing this exact same problem with these motherboards.

If you have specific knowledge of what may be going on here, please do comment.

Thanks

few issue that i found from the internet that might be related to your system spec which might be helpful in solving your problem here.

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1. The GeForce has stability problems when using Athlon motherboards based on AMD's chipset and AGP2X, due to 'poor filtering on the AGP strobe line'. The following will enable the AGP2X support no matter what motherboard and chip you have

Run Regedit.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\System for Windows 9x or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\nv4\Device0 for Windows 2000.

Delete the value named 'EnableIrongate2x'

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2. Instability in Asus A7V. This might be helpful eve nthough the model only apply to A7V

The ASUS A7V runs at 3.56V by default. Try changing this to 3.31V or 3.35V.

However, for some people the reverse may be true - increasing the voltage or leaving it at the default may fix the problem.

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Problem with half life game (is it same as counterstrike?)

Make sure you have the latest patch for Half-Life.

Make sure you have the very latest drivers installed. The 5.13+ drivers fix the missing textures problem, the 5.16+ drivers fix problems with flashing in shadowy areas and the 5.22+ drivers fix problems with slow loading times.

Make sure you run Half-Life at a resolution below the current desktop resolution.

Try changing the Buffer Flipping Mode in the OpenGL tab of the NVIDIA control panel to 'Block Transfer'

If you're using OpenGL (recommended), try using Direct3D, and vice versa.

Try flashing your GeForce card's Video BIOS with the latest version

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Regards

I had a similar problem with diablo 2. almost same
I used to turn on the AC in full, it prevented it fro hanging...Give it a try if possible

AC ?

I think kiranghag means Air Conditioning, indicating that your problem is possibly heat related...to test, open the case and place a fan nearby to blow into the system to try to cool it.  Don't put it too close though, cheap fans create a lot of interference that could damage your system or monitor!

-d

Sorry

It is in the ASUS Motherboard

There is a known conflict between the chipset and the DDR Ram

ASUS is aware of the problem, but no known patch is available..

yeh i really meant Air Conditioning, thanks dogztar

That's what I thought stuartc.  If you can provide me a link(s) to an article(s) about this issue I will give you the points.

I saw an article on a web site (www.thescreensavers.com) where they had the same problem, after trying something like half a dozen motherboards they finally got an MSI board to work

I checked the ASUS site again http://www.asus.com.tw/products/Motherboard/index.html
and found a new motherboard release using the VIA chipset instead of the ALI chipset on the A7A. The new board is the A7V 266 using the VIA KT266 chipset, and was releaseed on 07-23-01.

ASUS knowledge base was less than helpful, so I have no further nformation on the chipset problem.

ALI site,
www.ali.com.tw/eng/products/corelogic/alimagik_1.htm

Hope this helps

http://hardocp.com/reviews/mainboards/asus/a7a266/

I also found this article
They found the same type of problem, and explain it fairly well. Also they found a new board revision, 1.03, and an error in the manual's wriiten instructions vs the pictured example in setting up the DDR ram.

Hello everyone,

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MrStu:
Check that the DDR RAM modules you're using are on the chart on this page, mentioned above by 1175089:

http://www.asus.com.tw/products/techref/tech-report/mthmbqa.html

-d