Abit be6-II, Matrox g400 Max and games

[sedka]

I have the problem of all my games crashing when I play them in win98 and win 2000. One person in another forum said it might be the issue of the motherboard and the video card not working together. Can anyone help me fix this problem? here is the specs of my computer.

PIII 800mhz EB pc133
128MB pc150
abit be6-II motherboard
Matrox dualhead G400 32MB
Diamond Monstor sound
creative 32X CD-ROM
creative PC-DVD 6x
robotic 56k modem
350w power supply
20g western digital HDD
-partitioned to 3 drives
c: windows 2000
d: windows 98
e: games
all three drives are formated in FAT32
I also have 5 fans. two 40mm( one on the video card), two case fans (60mm and a 92mm), and a globe on the processor.

Also, sometimes when I load win 98 it stalls when loading and I have to reset my computer inorder for it to load correctly.

I have download all the latest drivers and for matrox and other hardwares and the latest bios for the abit motherboard.

Thanks.

[ALBPM]

To start this off could you show us what your IRQ assignments are in WN98.

This could be a case of "FREE BEER on IRQ 11"

In other words you may have too many devices or conflicting devices sharing an IRQ.

Paul

[sedka]

Can you tell me how to get the IRQs in win98?
I have never retrived it before, so I don't know hoe to get it. Thanks, I will post the IRQs tonight, once I know how to get it.

[dZeus]

the EB tells us that you're running at 133MHz FSB on a BX motherboard. The AGP will be overclocked to 89MHz in this case, and maybe you have got a G400 which doesn't like this (while not very likely, since mine does AGP2x without a problem at 89MHz). Try to lower the AGP texture transfer rate to 1x in the BIOS (I think it is called "AGP speed" in my Abit BX6 r.2, a similar board). If that doesn't help, try downclocking to 100Mhz FSB. If that doesn't help too, than the G400 is not the problem, and you can clock your system back to 133Mhz.

Oh, maybe (just maybe) you've set your AGP mutliplyer to 1/1 ? that would not be very healthy if that is the case! If so, set it back to 2/3

[ALBPM]

Here's a link to what Jorden compiled for the FAQ Forum. This is how to show your IRQ assignments in WN9X.
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum11/HTML/000035.html .

Then get back to us and we'll see what's going on.

Paul

[Ali]

is your CPU a real 800. or a 600 overclocked? It sounds like a overclock error to me.

If you cant even boot into windows sometimes it suggests your CPU is unstable.

Remember even if you do have a real 800EB, and real PC150 RAM you are pushing your motherboard way past its rated limits.
Assuming everything is set up right (IRQs, FSB divisors (PCI and AGP) etc, then you are still pushing the actual BX chipset itself past its limits. Also the DIMM slots on Abit boards are very picky, and you might try moving your RAM to a different slot.

I would clock your processor down to 6*100 in BIOS and see if things work there before spending much time on other things.

Ali

[DuRaNgO]

Also, could you list some of the games that won't run and whether they run in D3D or OpenGl?
jim

------------------
P3-700e with an MC-1000 @ agiga! Check it here!
Abit BE6-2
TwinMos 256mb pc-133
G400 32mb DH
Maxtor 15.3gb 7,200rpm
SB Live!
Toshiba 12x DVD
Iomega 650cd burner
Winblows 98se & DX8
and 384k DSL!

[dZeus]

Ali: BX chipset does 133Mhz without a sweat. The BX chipset itself actually is stable to 150 - 170MHz FSB.

The only thing that is overclocked at 133Mhz will be the AGP (if everythng is properly configured, hence my post), and the G400 takes the 89Mhz AGP bus rather well generally... mine still does 2x AGP at this speed.

[ALBPM]

sedka are you still out there????

How's it going with the IRQs?????

Paul

[sedka]

I lowered the FSB of the chip to 100 and it seems to be working. But the speed is 600mhz....
here is the IRQs
IRQ
0 System timer
1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
2 Programmable interrupt controller
3 Communications Port (COM2)
4 Communications Port (COM1)
5 Creative PC-DVD
5 Monster Sound MX400 Series Device Manager
5 U.S. Robotics 56K Fax PCI
5 Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
7 Printer Port (LPT1)
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus
10 Matrox Millennium G400 DualHead - English
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
11 Highpoint Technology Inc. HPT370 Ultra DMA66-PLUS Controller
11 IV-600 Video Capture Device [BT849A]
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller

[sedka]

DuRaNgO: The games I have tried are:
Sim City 3000 unlimited
Baldur's Gate II
Magic The Gathering
Heretic II
Age Of Empires II
Tiberian Sun
Drakan

all of these games crash either in a few minutes to about an hour or so.

[ayoub_ibrahim]

irq 5 looks very overpopulated! have you tried disabling com 1&2 to free up irqs for other devices if your not using those ports?

[The PIT]

Sedka when you say everything is okay at 100 do you mean that you can now run all the games properly?
If you can try, forcing agp x1 mode and then clocking back to 800.

[SteveC]

When you're at 800mhz, try these:

set the AGP mode in the CPU settings page in your BIOS to 'normal'. (I think that's right - whatever the other options is to 'default')

Push the I/O voltage up to 3.6V

Push the core voltage up to 1.7V

Turn on Spread Spectrum

---

In the Chipset settings page, set your three RAM timings (e.g. CAS Delay) to '3' (unless you know your RAM is CAS 2 at 133Mhz).

And I think you'll be set! - these settings get my BE6-II running *almost* stable at 130Mhz FSB with PC100 RAM!
Good luck!

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[This message has been edited by SteveC (edited 29 November 2000).]

[sedka]

Thanks, I will try these tonight when I get home.

The only game I had time to try was Sim City 3000 unlimited. I played it for about 2 hours and it did not crash. It did stall about 3 times, but I waited for a few minutes and it unstalled. I will try one or two more games tonight. I'm very busy this week so I don't have much time to check out the games.