soundblaster of death

[TheflyingElk]

Well I have narrowed my upgrade problem down to soundcard issue, just got fresh XP home edition install, during hardware install one item at a time no problem until soundblaster, then started seeing suttle instablility signs hang up during driver install and thing not working as well, then installed AH I get as far as tower and about time sound should start BOOM BSOD! with sound card removed graphics smooth and all OK!, cant test AH because of no sound card but everything else works,
current hardware line up
133A MB VIA chipset XP drivers used on chipset not 4in1's
P/III 800, 512 Ram, 2 hard drives Maxtor, cable modem so would a different sound card be the answer? or differnet set- in BIOS I remember in my last thread where you guys all tried to help  Mrsid2 mentioned he had problems with this chipset and soundblaster how did you solve it? Thanks for any thoughts:) also when game locks its bright blue screen

[SpyCat]

http://www.viahardware.com this site has a indepth review.

Try moving the SB to the bottom PCI slot. IF you can disable the serial/parallel ports to free up IRQ's.

[Lephturn]

Put the latest 4-in-1's on, then look for a Soundblaster patch on the site listed above.  If that doesn't fix it, we'll work from there.

[mrsid2]

My final fix for that was getting a new motherboard with a KT266A chipset eh heh..

I suggest you download this application: http://www.vcool.de

It will a) cool down your cpu
         b) set up your PCI settings in order to make your system stable.

Works for KT133 and KT266A boards, I use it at the moment. My CPU temperature droped 6 degrees even though I use watercooling.

[Lephturn]

It shouldn't help much on an XP system.  NT/2K/XP all execute a stop instead of just running the CPU all the time like 9x does.  Normally those programs you mention (like Rain) only cool the 9x series... what are you running it on Mr.Sid2?

[mrsid2]

W2k SP2.. So it does work.

Another thing it does that it provides CPU throttling in case of overheating and if that doesn't help, shuts the system down before damage occurs.

So far the only thing I've noticed it's done is the slight drop in cpu temperature - and it removed cracking noise from my AC97 built in audio.

[Lephturn]

Weird, I wonder what it's doing?  Have you done any performance benchmarks to see if it hurts performance at all?

[TheflyingElk]

Hang on this will be a  long post  OK 1ST new power supply, 300wt, then flashed MB to newest BIOS version 1.06, then loaded XP, no irq conflicts, then installed 4n1;s from via, then AGP patch from via, intalled 21.83 drivers for Video card these are the only ones I can get a workable display with, new drivers for Monitor, installed new Hercules sound card and current drivers , installed rest of hardware and restarted, ok so far, then installed 21.81 nvidia drivers lock-up in windows, so back to 21.83, put tnt 2 card back in and this is what I found in Nvidia display panel AGP 4x current driver listing, all is well, but when I install Geforce Nvidia displays 2x AGP, even tho I have 4n1's installed and agp patch ,  and lock up at beginning of run up with AH, also added 3rd fan in pci Bay, BIOS health read out has me confused tho, CPU temp 91F fan speed ok, but look at the volt read out
2.5=1.5
3.0=3.0
5.0=5.01
12=12.00 V
1st # has me puzzled and looks off, can't Identify its value thru Tyan or other means, is this the AGP bus # if so how do you change it? optimized defaults in BIOS except for AGP apeture to 128, god I have been at this for 2 weeks , Iam looking at P4 set-up with Asus MB 845 to replace this Via nightmare what are your thoughts thanks for the input Its all making me crazy:confused:

[Lephturn]

I'd suggest you suspect a bad sound card and try a different one.  Something that doesn't say "sounblaster" on it preferrably.

That voltage doesn't look right.  Maybe a bad mainboard.

[mrsid2]

If the first voltage is the AGP bus, it's correct. Some special cards use 2.5V but most cards run on 1.5 like your board shows.