Have to replace my Abit KG7-Raid MB --- Replace with What?????

[Hexman]

Hi All,

After 4 years of nearly constant running, it seems that I will have to
replace my Abit KG7 MB. The system periodically freezes and/or
reboots by itself and goes into setup mode. (I guess it could be a
flaky memory chip also. Heavily virus protected.) Ideas on how to
determine?

I have 1GB of memory (PC2100) that I'd hate to take a loss on. I also
have a decent AGP card. What MB would you recommend for a
replacement? (I want to use the memory & AGP). Want it to be
inexpensive (as I think all PC2100 based system boards should be).

The only thing that I'd like to have included is USB 2.0 rather than
USB 1.1.

The AMD 1800 Athalon is plenty fast for what I do.

TIA,

Hexman

 

[paulmd]

Hi All,

After 4 years of nearly constant running, it seems that I will have to
replace my Abit KG7 MB. The system periodically freezes and/or
reboots by itself and goes into setup mode. (I guess it could be a
flaky memory chip also. Heavily virus protected.) Ideas on how to
determine?

Make sure its's not overheating. Virtually every Athlon board I've seen
has some sort of hardware monitoring in the BIOS. 70 centigrade causes
stabliliy problems, 85-90 is chip death. Clean out all the dust.
Especially the porcessor heat sink.

Also check RAM with memtest86+. (there are other excellent utilities)

And make sure it's not the video card.

I have 1GB of memory (PC2100) that I'd hate to take a loss on. I also
have a decent AGP card. What MB would you recommend for a
replacement? (I want to use the memory & AGP). Want it to be
inexpensive (as I think all PC2100 based system boards should be).

Yours is at a funny spot in it's life cycle. Too new to be found on the
USED market without possible (probable) issues, and too old to be found
new. You will just have to do a lot of legwork, to find a compatible
replacement. IF you have to replace it.

 

[Hexman]

Thanks for the suggestions Paul. Already dusted, but I'll check the
temp and try to find memtest86 to check the RAM. I'd rather have a
replaceable dying RAM chip than any of the other options.

I'll report back on my findings.

Hexman

 

[Hexman]

Well Paul I did more checking. CPU temp was at 56 cent. Ran
memtest86+. First run detected errors. I then started each of the 3
chips individually ( 2 x 256, 1 x 512). No errors found. ???
Replaced all three chips.

Was going to go out for a while and decided to have memtest86+ run
while I was gone. Came back 3 hours later. Machine was frozen, no
errors on the memtest display. It showed only 21 minutes of testing.
That's kind of steering me away from RAM (I have Kingston lifetime
warranty) and more ttowards the MB.

Any video card testing programs out there??

Hexman

 

[paulmd]

Well Paul I did more checking. CPU temp was at 56 cent. Ran
memtest86+. First run detected errors. I then started each of the 3
chips individually ( 2 x 256, 1 x 512). No errors found. ???
Replaced all three chips.

What you MAY have is either

a) Bad ram slot
b) RAM that doesn't play nice together.
B) flaky cpu. Since CPUS are a bit hard to kill, go with A or b, for
now

Was going to go out for a while and decided to have memtest86+ run
while I was gone. Came back 3 hours later. Machine was frozen, no
errors on the memtest display. It showed only 21 minutes of testing.
That's kind of steering me away from RAM (I have Kingston lifetime
warranty) and more ttowards the MB.

Any video card testing programs out there??

Not really. The Only one I now about is a obsolete. And limited