Very Computer

|Out of desperation for more speed for M$ NT 4.0, I went to my local
|bargain geek-shop and bought a Gigabyte motherboard along with AMD K6-
|2/400 chip.  This is the first time I've bought a non-Intel MB, but
|everyone told me I'd have no probs.

  I have done the same <With different motherboards, but many different
motherboards> and it has worked well.

|But, I must get BSOD's in NT at least once a day.  And it's stuff that
|specifically mentions the processor.. One of its favorites is complaining
|something about AMD EXCEPTION IRQ1 is LESS_OR_EQUAL .. Not quite sure
|exactly what it means, but it happens all the time.  Other bizarre
|behavior as well.. StarCraft doesn't want to run smoothly, for some
|reason.. Can't figure out if its the vid card to blame on this one, tho
|(Voodoo3/2000)..

   This is not normal.  The first thing I would do, is re-apply the service
packs, and any patches from AMD or Gigabyte.  I would run a chkdsk on the
hard drive if it continued.  Check the temperature.  Does it seem unusually
hot in the case?  If all else fails, wipe out and reinstall NT.  Apply all
of the patches from AMD and Gigabyte that may apply.  Still fails?  Try a
different motherboard.

|Anyway, these BSOD's are going to really get on my nerves. I canst stands
|no flakey system!

   I don't blame you!  You shouldn't have to.

|I bought this AMD chip because so many people swore that it was a good
|bet.  The Gigabyte MB, I was also told, was a great MB..  Trying to make
|my anti-monopoly statement and save a few bucks at the same time.  I
|guess I got what I paid for!

   Everyone has a bad run on occasions,  even Intel. :-)  This also may be a
bad hard drive, or just a bad install...  Don't throw out the baby with the
bathwater.

            Lee

--
SCSI is *NOT* magic. There are *fundamental technical reasons* why it is
necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then. * Black
holes are where God divided by zero. - I am speaking as an individual, not
as a representative of any company, organization or other entity.  I am
solely responsible for my words.

I have had this hardware for some time now and, like you, have found
Linux to be absolutely rock solid.

Windows 95 certainly has problems with some AMD CPUs, particularly the
K6 II 350 MHz - AMD has some fixes on its web side. Windows 98 is not
affected. I have also run NT4, but have never fount NT to be anywhere
near as stable as Linux. Windows 98 works fine for me on the rare
occasions I need to use it. 95 was a royal pain.

It was interesting when I upgraded my machine with the new MB and CPU. I
had a dual boot system with NT4 and Debian Linux at the time. After
upgrading, I booted up and Linux ran as sweetly as ever. NT wouldn't
even boot, and went straight to the Blue Screen of Death. I had to
reinstall it.

Just a thought, you are using 100 MHz memory SIMMs, aren't you? Not the
older, slower ones?

--
Phillip Deackes
Debian Linux (Potato)

Quote:

> Out of desperation for more speed for M$ NT 4.0, I went to my local
> bargain geek-shop and bought a Gigabyte motherboard along with AMD K6-
> 2/400 chip.  This is the first time I've bought a non-Intel MB, but
> everyone told me I'd have no probs.

Quote:> But, I must get BSOD's in NT at least once a day.  And it's stuff that
> specifically mentions the processor.. One of its favorites is complaining
> something about AMD EXCEPTION IRQ1 is LESS_OR_EQUAL .. Not quite sure
> exactly what it means, but it happens all the time.  Other bizarre
> behavior as well.. StarCraft doesn't want to run smoothly, for some
> reason.. Can't figure out if its the vid card to blame on this one, tho
> (Voodoo3/2000)..

Quote:> Anyway, these BSOD's are going to really get on my nerves. I canst stands
> no flakey system!

> And now, for the Linux part of this post--  Has anyone had a similar
> experience with AMD chips -- that Windoze would bomb or act bad
> specifically for reasons tied to the AMD chip -- and replace Windoze with
> Linux and experienced 100% hardware-reliable performance?

Quote:> I bought this AMD chip because so many people swore that it was a good
> bet.  The Gigabyte MB, I was also told, was a great MB..  Trying to make
> my anti-monopoly statement and save a few bucks at the same time.  I
> guess I got what I paid for!

Of course linux runs fine.

Think I'm going to have to go with an EPoX motherborad (EP-MVP3G2 or MVP3G5)
eventually, because every time I've heard the story that suonds like mine,
when someone replaced the motherboard and either didn't use ALi or used an
ALi board that was known to work well, their problems went away.  It's too
bad I didn't really hear about all these problems before ordering the
computer, but oh well.

The odd thing is, Gigabyte is on the AMD approved list, so you'd think
it'd work, but maybe AMD doesn't test them with nice video cards or
something.

Cheers for trying to make an anti-monopoly statement. :)

--
Matt Muellerleile
.sig .schmig

I have three asus P5A boards (ALI V chipsets):
  K62-400, Voodoo3 2000, Win98 - runs just as stable as you'd expect, as
well as on the old Pentium/S3.
  K62-350, S3 Virge, WinNT4.0 - seems OK, crashes less than once a week
(normal for winnt in my experience)
  K62-400, S3, Linux 2.0.37 - rock solid.  Also solid with 2.0.36.

Quote:> Out of desperation for more speed for M$ NT 4.0, I went to my local
> bargain geek-shop and bought a Gigabyte motherboard along with AMD K6-
> 2/400 chip.  This is the first time I've bought a non-Intel MB, but
> everyone told me I'd have no probs.

> But, I must get BSOD's in NT at least once a day.  And it's stuff that
> specifically mentions the processor.. One of its favorites is complaining
> something about AMD EXCEPTION IRQ1 is LESS_OR_EQUAL .. Not quite sure
> exactly what it means, but it happens all the time.  Other bizarre
> behavior as well.. StarCraft doesn't want to run smoothly, for some
> reason.. Can't figure out if its the vid card to blame on this one, tho
> (Voodoo3/2000)..

Quote:> Anyway, these BSOD's are going to really get on my nerves. I canst stands
> no flakey system!

> And now, for the Linux part of this post--  Has anyone had a similar
> experience with AMD chips -- that Windoze would bomb or act bad
> specifically for reasons tied to the AMD chip -- and replace Windoze with
> Linux and experienced 100% hardware-reliable performance?

> I bought this AMD chip because so many people swore that it was a good
> bet.  The Gigabyte MB, I was also told, was a great MB..  Trying to make
> my anti-monopoly statement and save a few bucks at the same time.  I
> guess I got what I paid for!

Glen

Cheers,
--
Russell E. Smith

Get all your hardware news at http://www.alereon.org
"I want to live in a world where software doesn't suck"

                                                   -- Eric S. Raymond

Quote:> Out of desperation for more speed for M$ NT 4.0, I went to my local
> bargain geek-shop and bought a Gigabyte motherboard along with AMD K6-
> 2/400 chip.  This is the first time I've bought a non-Intel MB, but
> everyone told me I'd have no probs.

> But, I must get BSOD's in NT at least once a day.  And it's stuff that
> specifically mentions the processor.. One of its favorites is complaining
> something about AMD EXCEPTION IRQ1 is LESS_OR_EQUAL .. Not quite sure
> exactly what it means, but it happens all the time.  Other bizarre
> behavior as well.. StarCraft doesn't want to run smoothly, for some
> reason.. Can't figure out if its the vid card to blame on this one, tho
> (Voodoo3/2000)..

> Anyway, these BSOD's are going to really get on my nerves. I canst stands
> no flakey system!

> And now, for the Linux part of this post--  Has anyone had a similar
> experience with AMD chips -- that Windoze would bomb or act bad
> specifically for reasons tied to the AMD chip -- and replace Windoze with
> Linux and experienced 100% hardware-reliable performance?

> I bought this AMD chip because so many people swore that it was a good
> bet.  The Gigabyte MB, I was also told, was a great MB..  Trying to make
> my anti-monopoly statement and save a few bucks at the same time.  I
> guess I got what I paid for!

R

On Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:35:53 -0500, Matt Muellerleile

Hi,

Quote:>been running a small file server on my families LAN and have not had a
>reboot in 2 months going. If thats not stability, I don't know what is.

Talk about stable...  :-)

However, in my office I have three K6 machines, one running Novell Netware,
the other two Turbo Linux and Red Hat v6 boxes. Both Linux boxes have been
running since they were built (whenever v6 was released) and no complaints
at all.. I seem to remember someone saying that a lot of the code is
optomised for AMD/Cyrix chips - perhaps I ought to build an Intel machine
and compare them...

My experience shows Intel for Windows, and anything else for Linux..
perfect!

Jon..