[Mako Eyes]

Whew, I finally ordered my custom machine just a while back for my birthday. It's a pretty sweet machine, but ever since its arrival I've been having LOADS of problems. In fact, so many problems that I'll just link you to this log I made about them instead of posting it here. I've tried as much as I can to fix it all, but not ONE thing helped.

People suggest either a wrecked motherboard (which is likely with this many screw-ups) or a problem with power management. I was wondering what any of you think of it all.

-thanks

 

[cooliscool]

Definitely a Via chipset + ATi issue. Disable VPU recover first of all.

Try googling "ATi via issues", and download the latest Via Hyperion drivers from www.viaarena.com.

 

[Mako Eyes]

Definitely a Via chipset + ATi issue. Disable VPU recover first of all.

Try googling "ATi via issues", and download the latest Via Hyperion drivers from www.viaarena.com.

thanks cooliscool, I'll try it as soon as possible.

I'd like to ask a few questions though. First, wouldn't disabling VPU Recover just prevent my display drivers from reseting when something DOES go wrong? And also, that solution's just for the graphics card right? Have any idea on what could be causing the problems with my other hardware?

EDIT: While searching, like you suggested, I ran into this article. I'll read up on this as soon as I can, but not right now because I have to study.

 

[gameman733]

What kind of PSU do you have in your computer? even if it says 500watts or whatever, you could have gone cheap and gotten one without enough amps (this happened to me once before). look on the side of the PSU for a chart and find out the number of amps for the +12V line and +5V line. I would try disconnecting as many things as possible (such as your DVD+RW) to see if that helps with any problems. Otherwise, the problem is more than likely your motherboard.

 

[cooliscool]

Yeah, it'll either use the BSOD instead, or fix some issues.

Try these:

1. Try turning off fastwrite in Smartgart (this is all I needed to do).

2. Try raising AGP voltage to 1.6v (more if necessary).

3. Try turning off VPU recover.

4. Try changing AGP to 4x in BIOS and Smartgart.

9. Try tuning your AGP aperture to 64 or 128.

If none of this works, I recommend just buying an Nforce4 based board for your sweet new rig (congrats! ).. I can't not recommend Via enough these days. This issue is just ridiculous, and Via couldn't care less.

 

[ChankastRules]

You could also try running motherboard manager v5 I guess it can find errors sometimes.

 

[WindHydra]

VIA is budget board... so I bought two Both works fine, one with Geforce3 and other with Radeon7200.

By the way, could it be CPU overheating? Maybe someone forgot to put thermal paste for the cpu.

 

[Mako Eyes]

Yeah, it'll either use the BSOD instead, or fix some issues.

Try these:

1. Try turning off fastwrite in Smartgart (this is all I needed to do).

2. Try raising AGP voltage to 1.6v (more if necessary).

3. Try turning off VPU recover.

4. Try changing AGP to 4x in BIOS and Smartgart.

9. Try tuning your AGP aperture to 64 or 128.

If none of this works, I recommend just buying an Nforce4 based board for your sweet new rig (congrats! ).. I can't not recommend Via enough these days. This issue is just ridiculous, and Via couldn't care less.

Well, I have no idea where to find Smartgart. I search Windows for it and all I end up with is a smartgart shortcut with a non-existant target. And I tried turning off VPU recover before and nothing happened. As for changing AGP settings, the card's a PCI-Express bus. But you're probably right, someone suggested buying an Nforce4 based board before I even bought the thing, I should just send it back to the place I bought it and get those cheapos that work there to put one in. Besides, the above suggestions aren't likely to fix my USB, DVD drive or fan noise problems anyway.

Thanks though, I just hope I can get this thing back to them before I head to university.

 

[D.D.]

to find smartgart, to to start, go to run, then type in "smartgart" and click on ok.

dunno how smartgart affects pci-express tho...

 

[cooliscool]

Ahh yeah, my fault. :emb: SmartGART wouldn't apply to PCI-e..

Just get an NF4 board and save yourself the trouble.

 

[gameman733]

VIA's chipsets arent as horrible as your making them out to be. Im running a VIA chipset right now and i have no stability issues. No i may not have as many features as a competing nforce2 mobo, but it gets the job done.

Mako eyes: do you have any information on the PSU?

 

[cooliscool]

Via's driver issues are the only problem. On paper they make great chipsets, but their (GART) drivers are pretty horrid. XP SP2 contains MS's own GART driver, which replaces Via's.. but, again, this only fixes AGP issues.

Their main fault is that they don't really care about the problems either. They've been around for years, and Via has made LITTLE to no effort in actually fixing them.. sad.