been troubleshooting an Epox 8k7a+ with an AMD T-bird 1200 266Mhz fsb, 512Mb DDR 2100, 60Gb ata100 7200rpm Maxtor and 20Gb WD ata100 7200rpm on the HPT370 (raid controller) with a 32Mb I/O Magic magicvideo 3DMX DR-DA700 GeForce2 MX 32Mb bios 3.11.00.08 video card, an Acer 50x Cdrom, an HP 9300 CDR-RW, an ATX 300W T30ATX pcpowercooling power supply, Personal Mid-Tower AT/ATX case (EPD) from pcpowercooling, and a Samsung Syncmaster 955DF monitor.

All drives pinned CS with 80-pin cables. Hard drives are only device on interface. CDroms share 2ndary main IDE.

Checked and re-checked the case to board pins. Basically, by the manual, nothing special.

Things got to the point where I bought another board (v1.1 vs the original 1.0), loading the latest Bios and HPT370 drivers. Major symptom was that files copies crashed/locked the system. Despite multiple fairly clean installs of Win98se, problem persisted despite new board.

"Fairly clean" - OK down to the last step (system configuration) and it would lock up with some 0E error (it varied). Power cycle and it kicked in the final setup tasks (including system config) and it seemd to complete OK.

Swapped out primary hard drive, cable, and video card to no avail.

Latest issue occurred after a new Win98se install. Log follows:
2-jun-02 5:27pm
calvin .9 REPEATed last install from HD format on with different Cdrom in 50x cdrom drive
win98se
typical
file copy; reboot
pnp detect; reboot
another pnp detect and final setup
sucatreg bsod at one minute
ctrl-alt-del shutdown; hung
recycled power
scandisk ran
completed setup after going thru final setup items
13m to install

ran driver CD in hp unit

AGP miniport driver for 98se 4.8
via bus master pci ide driver 3.01.1
VSD VxD (not miniport IDE)
DMA enabled
686A/B audio driver v1.20A
crapped out on install; couldn't access win cd
reboot
detected
pci host bridge
agp host to PCI bridge
tried audio again
USB driver 11.25
detected game port
eboot

both drives available; (there was no need to install hpt driver)
windows setup
added/removed components
reinstalled NIC and HPT370 drivers from Device Manager

config'd NETWORK
perkling.org
specify IP address, mask, gateway,dns
added f&p sharing
browse master disabled
access to files
client for MS
access control - user level OURHOME
couldn't "find" provider
nt domain
(ie 50 40-bit)

connected to SHARE on Binkley
add tiny 2.0.15
set folder options
tried to copy win98 CD to E (disk0p3)
system hung on win98_41.cab (2 minutes remaining)
power cycled
scandisk
copied 36/339Mb
nVidia 28.32
GE Force2 MX/MX 400
3.11.00.08 bios version
installed first try
directX to 8.1 (from 6.1a)
after extract screen blanked
power cycled
no screen

Swapped out video card, still no video. In fact, I don't even see power or HD LEDs when booting though fans are running. The internal display on the board is set to "FF" but who can tell whether it's booting since you can't see anything (don't really herar anything either).

I'm stumped, any thoughts?

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif different errors - check memory seating?? No mixed RAM silver/Gold??

Check Power supply 12V - reading 11-15V?

Just a couple of things didn't see in your list

I'm sure others will have more

------------------
Old dogs CAN learn new tricks

The 3.3 5 and 12V settings were consistently within .1V

Update: When initially put together the PC functioned well in a dual winME/2000 PRO config. When I plugged a couple devives into the USB ports things went downhill within a few days. The Win2K config started getting various ACPI BSODs and eventually even the WinME side started to locked up/crash.

While troubleshooting, I even removed the board from the PC to isolate from the case... no help.

I'm using Crucial memory (ECC 2.5CAS), 2 256Mb sticks (reseated several times, I've moved the board out a couple times and recently swapped it with a replacement.

BTW: Arctic Silver works at least as well if not better than tape (111F vs 113F using a Global Win FOP32

Scratched/bad Win98 CD?

Try copying the win386 folder of the CD onto the drive and run setup from there.....2 things are making me think that: 1. The sucatreg error 2. Hanging at CAB 41.

Also is the CPU reporting correctly (proper speed in BIOS)?

------------------
mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

thanks for your prompt suggestions!

Actually, copying the 339Mb Win Cd to the hard drive (either one) was part of my test. Never got past 184Mb without a reboot or lockup. Power cycled and scandisk would consistently find a problem in the area copied TO.

Tried different win98 CDs in both CDROMs. Tried removing the CDroms from the IDE interface and doing disk-to-disk or network-to-disk copies. Same problem.

During the early part of the problem, when the inital ACPI issues asserted, I ran MadOnions and Sisoft benchmarks on the Win98 side. Failures (locks/reboots) on the disk portions (those MadOnion videos benches are cool, though).

Swapped disk0, cable, board, video card sequentially to no effect. Even removed board from case, no effect.

the win98 install issue was not limited to the "sucatreg" 0E variant, there were others (including regsvr32). "Details" were usually indicipherable blocks and garbage).

The CPU correctly registers as 9x (133x9)

I have also enabled the ECC "correct & Scrub" and tried forcing the CAS to 2.5 using manual settings (vs AUTO), no effect.

Always started with "Optimized Settings" per Epox support suggestion.

For those interested

Replaced the power supply next, but that only added to the problem.

Last piece of "new" purchases was the memory. THAT WAS IT. The crucial CT level ECC memory went bad. I'd even tried turning on full correction but until I actually replaced it, the problems persisted.

I've had several annoying intermittent issues with PCs over the years. Other than one involving the disk susbsystem (that I was well aware of) all other issues have been memory.

perini,

Glad to hear you're back up and running, and much thanks for posting back with your solution.