Fixed Biostar Problem

[John P.]

I fought with my new Biostar MB for two weeks, tweak this, change that
setting, upgrade drivers, upgrade BIOS... a million different answers that
resulted in no solution.

I finally came up with the one simple switch that made it all work great...
I switched the Biostar MB for an MSI board. Yup... just took it back to the
store where I bought it and said "Give me something else". Had my system up
and running with no problems in just over an hour after I returned home.

The Biostar board had some nice features for the price, but it just never
worked for me. I paid another $20 to get this MSI board, well worth it.

 

[Ed Light]

Not meaning to pop your bubble, but this from a user review of an msi board

I spent the last 2 days trying to make this board work and
I am getting a bunch of errors like other people have about
memory. Its going back and I am going back to Gigabyte.

One for Gigabyte:

Well I ordered this board and had problems from the beginning.

Three for Biostar:

great mobo. this makes two that i've bought, and both work flawlessly.

This was my second biostar mb, the first one worked fine but
this one , I had to RMA it.

I must say this last experience with Biostar was one of the worst
that I have ever had.

Of course, we can't leave out Asus:

As stated by others conflict with soundcard and10/100 lan.
Diablo II and Warcraftboth have numerous crashes.

So, you're just having one of those experiences. Lots of people have a good
experience with Biostar.

I like mine, though Win 98 seems to be too old for the kt400 chipset -- it
crashes thereafter if I install my soundblaster. I've moved over to XP Home,
which set things up nicely on a clean install. I'm having to abandon the XP
I brought over from a kt133.

 

[Ed Light]

So, you're just having one of those experiences. Lots of people have a good
experience with Biostar.

I like mine, though Win 98 seems to be too old for the kt400 chipset -- it
crashes thereafter if I install my soundblaster.

Correction - it won't load windows 98, except in safe mode.

 

[John P.]

Not meaning to pop your bubble, but this from a user review of an msi board
on newegg:...
So, you're just having one of those experiences. Lots of people have a good
experience with Biostar.

MB's and anything else having to do with PC's. Some people do OK with one
product while others have nothing but problems. Has to do with whatever your
particular mix of hardware and software is. In my case, the Biostar board
was nothing but trouble. Like I said, I liked the board in terms of
features/price... and maybe I could have done something to make it all
work... but why bother when all I needed to do was pop the MSI board in and
everything worked out of the box.

Some times it's not worth taking the time to figure out why. ;-)

 

[Ed Light]

and maybe I could have done something to make it all
work... but why bother when all I needed to do was pop the MSI board in and
everything worked out of the box.

Some times it's not worth taking the time to figure out why. ;-)

It is better when you know that on a reinstall you won't have to remember
what magic you finally performed!

 

[Ed Light]

Nah it couldn't be the Via drivers... blam the OS instead of Via? LOL!

I tried earlier via and nvidia drivers. But remember, the original win 98
has no idea of kt400's. XP likes them just fine.

Actually, you can probably blame the soundblaster drivers. I dumbly threw
out my original CD and just have the new one for Win XP.

 

[John P.]

It is better when you know that on a reinstall you won't have to remember
what magic you finally performed!

Ain't that the truth? ;-)

 

[rAD]

I fought with my new Biostar MB for two weeks, tweak this, change that
setting, upgrade drivers, upgrade BIOS... a million different answers that
resulted in no solution.

I finally came up with the one simple switch that made it all work great...
I switched the Biostar MB for an MSI board. Yup... just took it back to the
store where I bought it and said "Give me something else". Had my system up
and running with no problems in just over an hour after I returned home.

The Biostar board had some nice features for the price, but it just never
worked for me. I paid another $20 to get this MSI board, well worth it.

Which model? I've used 5 recently

3 M7VIG PRO
1 M7NCG
1 M7VKQ

All running great

 

[John P.]

Which model? I've used 5 recently

M7VIT Pro.

Nice board. I'm sure it works great with many combinations of hardware...
just not mine. It was nothing but trouble for me. It would sit for 2.5
minutes before booting, wouldn't reboot without hitting the reset switch.
Starting the system would usually take me hitting the reset switch, waiting,
hit it again, wait... about 5 or 6 times. Once it was up and running, it
worked very well. ... as long as I didn't try to run it with my GeForce
FX5200 card... it which cash it would lock up and crash hard on a regular
basis.

The MSI board is running fine with the FX5200 and everything else. Starts up
when I hit the on button, shuts down when I ask it to, reboots without a
whimper.

 

[Stacey]

I tried earlier via and nvidia drivers. But remember, the original win 98
has no idea of kt400's.

So? 98 had no idea of my 845G chipset (using a SBlive) yet it runs perfect?

 

[Ed Light]

So? 98 had no idea of my 845G chipset (using a SBlive) yet it runs perfect?

OK, logic here. It knows some chipsets not. Some squeak by, others don't.