I think I hate VIA.

GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
edited January 2004 in Hardware
I've been installing Windows on my sister's PC for 2 days now - for some reason every time I install the VIA 4in1 drivers, the PC reboots whenever there is significant activity over the IDE channel. I forgot about having this problem previously on this mobo (with previous 4in1s), and now this install of Windows is screwed.

Does anybody have a clue what's going on here? The mobo is an Asus A7V266. Is there any way to get rid of this problem without a complete reformat? I uninstalled the 4in1s and now the thing is throwing device driver errors every 5 seconds. I'm doing a repair install of Windows, and I hope that suffices - I don't wanna go through a complete reformat again! :werr:

Help? :banghead:

//edit: the PC ran memtest86 all night with 0 errors.

Comments

  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited January 2004
    What version of the VIA driver are you using? Also, probably a silly question, but did you update to the latest BIOS?

    Also, what kind of RAM are you using on that system, size and number of sticks? I see a few things on the Asus support site regarding some RAM limitations of the VIA chipset on that board, though they are mostly boot-up hangs, so may not be related to your problem.

    //EDIT: also, just went through the VIA forums, and noted some issues with the KT266 chipset and AGP in 4x or 8x mode. They recommend capping AGP at 2x mode when using the KT266 chipset.

    Dexter...
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Dexter wrote:
    What version of the VIA driver are you using? Also, probably a sillu question, but did you update to the latest BIOS?

    The VIA 4in1 I used yesterday was the latest on the VIA site... 4.51 I think? At any rate, I've had that problem with any version of the 4in1 I've ever used. The bios is Asus' latest, 1011.

    Dexter wrote:
    Also, what kind of RAM are you using on that system, size and number of sticks? I see a few things on the Asus support site regarding some RAM limitations of the VIA chipset on that board, though they are mostly boot-up hangs, so may not be related to your problem.

    I use 2 256MB sticks of Micron PC2100. Any combination (or ony one) of the sticks in any of the RAM banks doesn't fix the error.
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited January 2004
    See edit in above post and check this link:

    http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=45777&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=

    Dexter...
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Thanks Dexter... do you recommend installing the IDE driver though, since it seems to restart every time there's significant disk activity, ie. copying large #s of files from one hard drive to another, or installing a bunch of Windows Updates at the same time...
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited January 2004
    I have used the VIA drivers on a lot of Asus boards without many problems, and have never seen that particular problem, so it may be more related to your particular hardware and how it talks to the VIA drivers.

    Does your version of the driver have the control panel that lets you turn on and off the IDE accelerator for each device? If so, make sure it is enabled for the hard drives, but disable it for any CD drives.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I am using the Hyperion 4.49 drivers here for recalcitrant boxes. NOT latest, seem stable if you do NOT use the AGP part of Hyperion with boards that are not voltage stable for 8X.

    Choose not to do an express install, or rerun installer, let it pull the old, abend out of it bafore it tries to stick things in. Do not reboot. Get an older Hyperion driver, and try that, possibly from mfr archives, and NOT from Via directly. If that does not work, get a version 4 Hyperion set, pre 4.5 directly from Via Technologies, and try that. NOW reboot.

    John.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    John, Dexter, between the suggestions you both made, I think the problem is fixed...

    /me knocks wood.
    I had to rush out of the house to get to work, but when I implemented both of your suggestions, the system was able to install the video driver without "serious error" and the PC was copying a whole directory of MP3 files without spontaneous reboot or core dump when I left the house. I'm crossing my fingers!
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited January 2004
    Where do we send the bill...? ;)

    Glad to hear it, hope it stays stable.

    Dexter...
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