fuzzylizard Posted December 5, 2002 Report Share Posted December 5, 2002 Hey, I am being forced, by my computer, to upgrade its guts. (I am having massive memory erros -- ~14,000 reported running memtest86) I am thinking of getting an AMD cpu and an ABIT motherboard. I am looking at the AMD XP 2100+ chip and either the Abit KD7-R, or the Abit KX7-333R, or the Abit AT7 board. Each of those boards has onboard audio and beyond a simple recommendation of which new mother boards work the best with Mandrake, I am also wondering if Mandrake 9.0 will recognize the on-board audio? I have an SB-Live Value card (that works great) but if the on-board will work then I might just use it. (or I may just go out and buy an Audiogy board) Anyway, here is what I really want to know: 1. Best Abit or Asus AMD board to buy? 2. Will Mandrake recognize on-board sound for; - Abit KD&-R - Abit KX7-333R - Abit AT7 motherboards? 3. Which is better, the on-board audio of these boards or an SB-Live Value audio card? One last final question; in a computer that is running all the time, what could cause ram to become corrupted? Mine is very quickly dieing. (rest in peace gentle ram :( ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyv Posted December 5, 2002 Report Share Posted December 5, 2002 Whats wrong with gigabyte? I use a Gigabyte GA7VRX(via333), works great The current is the GA7VA(via400) don't know how that works out. Gigabyte is usually right up there with the ASUS boards in the hardware sites and they are alot cheaper. I have also had good experiences with Soltek boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 5, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2002 Because the stores that I will be buying the equipment at don't sell Gigabyte motherboards. So, that leaves me with either Asus or Abit and since I am familiar with Abit, that is what I chose. However, I can probably be talked into an Abit board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 5, 2002 Report Share Posted December 5, 2002 Abit/AMD is great. Can you get Epox from your source? I tried one of their boards a while back and am still using it. I do not like Asus. If you are going Intel, Asus is better, but not with AMD. Sound stuff: if by cheap you mean a PCI 128 or an old SB16, the on board sound is fine. But, a SB live! or higher is better than on board sound. Gigabyte is usually stable, but not as tweaky as Epox or Abit. RAM: there is more bad hardware on the market than you can imagine. Stick with RAM that uses Toshiba, goldstar, or name brand chips. Seamens, which is plentful and cheap, is a nightmare. Avoid brands that use Seamens chips. Their tolerance for good or bad chips is too wide to catch problematic issues. I once had a Soyo board that would not read any card with Seamens chips. Soyo told me to avoid Seamens! (duh!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2002 RAM: there is more bad hardware on the market than you can imagine. Stick with RAM that uses Toshiba, goldstar, or name brand chips. Seamens, which is plentful and cheap, is a nightmare. Avoid brands that use Seamens chips. Their tolerance for good or bad chips is too wide to catch problematic issues. I once had a Soyo board that would not read any card with Seamens chips. Soyo told me to avoid Seamens! (duh!) My question is though, if I get some bad ram, should it not be bad from the very beginning instead of slowly degrading over time? When I first installed the ram -- about 4 months ago -- everything was fine. It has only been in the last few days that things have gotten really bad. Is this a sign of bad ram, or is this a sign of a larger problem with the computer? This is what I ultimately need to find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmack Posted December 6, 2002 Report Share Posted December 6, 2002 I recently built a new box using Abit KR7A-133 and use the SB Live card too. The new CPU is working just fine for me now that I got over a bad stick of RAM that just would not work when I first built it. I think ABIT boards are picky about RAM, and I know Linux is too. The ABIT documentation and supplied parts are very complete. I am very happy with Abit quality and there is a website at http://forums.sudhian.com which has good Abit support similar to this one. I got some good info from guys there! I think the top end on the KR7A-133 series is Athalon 2100xp but might be pushing it depending on the BIOS version, so the newer ones are probably better in that area. I just upgraded to 9.0 and it went way smoother than the 8.2 install. On the memory issue, one thing I have had give problems on other PC's I have helped with is corrosion and interaction between dissimilar metals in the RAM slots. Sometimes you get corrosion because of electrolytic action between steel and brass for example. Some brands of RAM are bad about that. You might be able to pull the RAM and clean the contacts with a rubber eraser (old fashioned typewriter types work well) and see if you can clean the onboard connector a bit too. It might salvage the board that is giving you problems. Just make sure you don't let the rubber chips fall into the case! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2002 I think ABIT boards are picky about RAM, and I know Linux is too. That is the really odd bit. Linux hasn't complained about the bad ram yet and I can't see any problems with it either. Only windows and memtest86 are complaining. As long as I run Linux -- Red Hat 7.3 -- the computer runs without a problem. I would have expected more problems with Linux then with windows. I really don't understand what is going on here. I had a similiar problem about a year ago as well, replaced the ram and things seemed to settle down. Now, a year later, I am back in the same position. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 6, 2002 Report Share Posted December 6, 2002 Ordinarily, if the first chip on the card is good, a computer will utilize the ram. When in the course of running, it tries to page the faulty chip, wierd errors come up. Bear in mind that the computer may not use that faulty chip every session, hence odd sporadic behaviour. Something being bad and then getting over it is more symptomatic of softeware issues rather than hardware. (Windows is always more messy the longer after the boot! It should be booted every 24 hours!) Ram tests are good because of the systematic testing of the entire card; sometimes cards have errors, but can still run fine! But if several, or more than one degraded chip is used, then you are more likely to find running errors. Better manufacturers are picky about the chip tolerances. Poorer manufacturers see how many lower tolerance chips they can use and still have a card that passes the cmos boot. Could you give me some details about your problems? Other things that are common with strange behaviour are cpu operating temps (check your fan) and video problems. These can show up as memory issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2002 Let's see, more details: - cpu temp: not really sure how to check this from within either Linux or windows - video problems: nothing out of the ordinary - other: whenever I reboot windows I, almost, consistentantly get a memory error message saying that Apache can not write, or read, to a particular memory location. (I can't really remember) This gets more consistent the longer windows has been running. If I reboot within a few hours, I usually do not get the error The last couple days, almost every other time I try to access a folder I would get an error message. Memtest86 displayed ~14,000 errors seeming to start about the >250 meg range. Linux shows absolutely no sign of any kind of problem. If you are looking for more information, just ask and I can fill in more blanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmack Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Memtest86 and a couple other software checks showed my memory was good and it was bad... so you cannot always go by them. But it is ominous that it shows a bad test. If you have multiple chips, try them one at a time, assuming that they are large enough to allow you to boot. (i.e. pull them and leave only one in, if it boots, try replacing it with another, etc. ) That might identify the card that is bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 7, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Yea, this is what I will be doing in a few days, but I am in the middle of exams right now and just don't have the time. I haven't run memtest86 enough to get a good average, but with almost 14,000 errors, do I really have to :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest billforce Posted December 8, 2002 Report Share Posted December 8, 2002 Don't believe all you read on the screen. I recently built a new PC ie: MSI MB, duron 900, Seagate scsi HD and PC 133 ram (several different sticks) When I tried to load MDK 9.0 I kept getting reports that I had a memory dump and to check the memory. I tested all the sticks in another new PC with Memtest utility and all was fine. Turns out my CPU was TOO hot and led to reporting the ram bad. Changed the F/H and no more ram reports and MDK loaded the first time including Star office etc. billforce "In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is king!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 9, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 Changed the F/H What is the F/H? I have someone else helping with this problem as well, and their suggestion, or thought, is that is the power supply. This would lead to the ram slowly failing. It does make a lot of sense and was something I hadn't thought about. Anyone know how to test a power supply? Unfortunetly, I don't have another PC to test the ram in. Otherwise I would. I am going to try and test the ram individually in my computer to help further diagnose the problem though. If ram checks out fine in one slot and not in another, it may be the motherboard after all. (I think this makes logical sense) This is going to be a slow process though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyv Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 Changed the F/H What is the F/H? I think that is Fan/Heatsink maybe? Power supplies give some funny problems, usually freezes, spontaneous restarts, not starting sometimes when power button pushed, the symptoms usually get worse over time as the psu dies. Haven't seen memory errors relating to a faulty psu though. What you can do to test a psu is to run a program that uses the hdd and the cpu alot, tends to bring out the worst in a bad psu quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 A bad power supply can take out your cpu, usually not your ram. I noted for you to verify that your fan is running OK. Open the case, and observe it. Fans can run on again-off again, which causes a heat problem and in turn wierd problems. Testing parts in bench machines is the easiest way to check stuff. If you don't have a bench, borrow a friend's computer. Swap one part out at a time. I don't think power supply on this one. Seems like ram or cpu issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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