Very Computer

Recently I bought and installed a copy of windows XP pro,
initially however I did an upgrade, but about two weeks
ago I had some spare time so I decided to do a clean
Install of XP.

After the initial install of XP, I found (as previously)
that openGL based games didnt work, I installed the
latest Nvidia drivers and the games loaded fine.

At this point the problems started, Internet Explorer
would fail to respond and windows would shut it down. The
system would suffer from fatal crashes with error messages
marked "fault in win32.sys" (or something like that), IRQ
less than or equal too errors etc. Also when playing
games, though the game menu would load when I tried to
play the game, the game would crash giving various error
messages.

I read up on the crashes and I found that my Soundblaster
Live! was sharing an IRQ with my modem, I initially moved
my modem to another PCI slot, but though it was no longer
sharing an IRQ the crashes still occurred.

I then reinstalled (yes another clean install) windows XP,
without loading the updated Nvidia drivers, sticking to
the Microsoft signed drivers for my Geforce 3, I tried to
play various games again and they still crashed. (Please
note, I repeated this process with and without the latest
VIA 4 in 1 drivers). I was also still encountering fatal
errors and application crashes.

I was told on a forum that the soundblaster Live doesnt
like the VIA Kt133 Chipset, so I removed the card, and did
another clean install of Windows XP.

Though I have not had another IRQ less than equal to error
as yet, I am still suffering from fatal crashes. I have
tried both the manufacturers drivers for my video card,
the Microsoft windows standard signed drivers and also the
Nvidia drivers.

If someone can Help please do.

Note: Prior to my initial clean install of WinXP Pro, I
did a virus scan with PC Cillin, with fully updated Virus
filters on both Disks.

Following are my system Specs.

1.4GHz Athalon
Abit KT7a (with bios updated to latest version)
768Mb of 133MHz RAM (I have tested the RAM, its fine)
Gainward Geforce 3 (not Ti)
Lucent Winmodem
2 x 40GB Maxtor HD (not raid)
350W PSU.

Please mail me with suggestions, Thanks Again.

Well, there are so many things in your message so let's
take one at a time.

1. SB Live! can co-exist with via KT133. No problem with
that.

2. You MUST download XP compatible drivers for your SB
Live! card. This is quite critical I think.

3. Do not install VIA 4 in 1 drivers. As far as I am
concerned they don't like some configurations.

4. I would recommend the following: Make a clean install
of winXP (again...I am sorry). DO NOT INSTALL any
programs, drivers, or anything just leave the bog-standard
installation of winXP and test it for a day. If you
experience any problems then it will be a Hardware
problem. If not install one program/driver at a time and
test your computer. Install Nvidia drivers first, then the
XP drivers for SB! Live and so forth. Do not install 4 in
1!!! You have to work methodically and have patience. Good
luck.

Well, first, I disagree with what the other guy said about the Live and I
agree with what you were told on a newsgroup.  The Kt133 is basically a very
minorly reengineered kx133 chipset which was notoriously bad with the live
card.  Creative claims they've fixed this, I say bunk because it is and
always was a design issue with their card and not just something that could
ever be fixed with a driver update.

I agree with the other guy, don't load any via 4 in one drivers, you
shouldn't need them although I've heard reports to the contrary.  I haven't
loaded them in mine.

Third, I'm beginning to believe that something in one of the latest patches
for xp has done something that makes nvidia cards problematic as I had the
card in there for awhile and until one of the latest patches and I don't
remember this many problems.  I initially had a ATI Radeon classic in my
machine then I upgraded to a GeForce3 TI 200.  I've had some strange
intermitting problems and reboots which went away when I pulled the GeForce
card.  I tried all the incarnations of the drivers, in games the card gets
stuck in an infinite loop and that creates a stop error.  Shut off reboot on
stop error, it's the only way you'll get any good information about what's
going on, I never got the error message stating what driver caused the
problem until I turned off reboot on error.  On the video card, be sure
you've got the latest version of direct x installed and you might need to
reinstall it if you've changed your video card at any point.

Last but not least, XP has a registry just like ME/98 etc.  Get norton
system works and run the registry cleaner on that to see if you've got a
mess someplace.

I do have one other idea, if you've got that chipset then your board is at
least two years old.  Are you sure you don't have a motherboard that xp
won't get along with?  It's worth checking it out.