Asok Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 CM freezes up within minutes of entering the map view. Everything works fine, but then the whole machine just locks up in the middle of a turn movie or during orders phase. The system I have is Windows XP Home Asus A7A266-E mobo - ALi MAGiK 1 Chipset (M1647 North Bridge, M1535SD+ South Bridge) Matrox G550 video card 512 MB of DDR No sound card, I'm trying to use the motherboard built-in sound. If anyone knows of a solution, I'd much appreciate it. regards, Asok 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 11, 2002 Share Posted April 11, 2002 I have the same problem. I can find no solution, tho I've been searching for months. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 11, 2002 Share Posted April 11, 2002 Since you've listed the chipset info on the motherboard I assume you actually installed the ALI drivers, especially those pertaining to AGP (which you can get here - Support on top bar > Drivers in left column > Select Ali Magik1 chipset > Select the Northbridge chipset number). What Matrox drivers are you using (the latest version is 5.82.018 dated 2-26-02) ? I know that there are issues between the NVidia and ATI drivers and these chipsets and I'm not sure if possibly the same could be said of other video card drivers. The on-board audio for this motherboard is the CMedia 8738, which is almost as good as any SB Live (and less problematic in some respects). The latest driver is v. 0632 dated 12-27-2001 which you can get from here (and it is also on the ASUS website). You may want to play around with the sound settings in CM to see if this makes any difference (no ambient sound or no sound at all). Have you updated the BIOS for your motherboard ? The latest rev. is 1011. The only thing applicable I see for the latest rev is compatibility with Samsung DDR modules. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rucrazee Posted April 11, 2002 Share Posted April 11, 2002 I have a very similar system with the exception of having an A7A266 and a Matrox G400 before switching to a Nvidia card and managed to fix my problem after a long time of troubleshooting and experimentation. Update all your drivers as mentioned and flash your bios if needed. I found three things that helped me fix this problem and it may sound weird, but you might want to give it a shot. First of all, it is possible you may have a cooling issue. The A7A266 motherboard and AMD Athlon processors have been known to run pretty hot. Rather than spending money throwing in new cpu cooling fans and/or case fans, I have chosen to run my tower with both panels off. Second, the A7A266 is also choosey in memory especially when you get into the 512 amount. If I remember correctly, Crucial chips were an issue at one time. Anyway, as an experiment, try running with 256MB and see if you still lock up. *I run with 512 but I remember reading about this on an ASUS forum when I was trying to fix my system. Third, try unistalling windows messenger if you don't use it or can live without it. I have no idea why this worked for me, but it did. Like I say, these three things may not sound extremely technical, but you may want to try it and see if it works for you. [ April 11, 2002, 05:23 AM: Message edited by: rucrazee ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asok Posted April 11, 2002 Author Share Posted April 11, 2002 Originally posted by rucrazee: First of all, it is possible you may have a cooling issue. The A7A266 motherboard and AMD Athlon processors have been known to run pretty hot. Rather than spending money throwing in new cpu cooling fans and/or case fans, I have chosen to run my tower with both panels off. I installed everything I could find, all of which added up to nothing - the problem persisted: freeze after a few minutes. I then thought of the cooling issue. The machine really seems to run pretty hot, so I tried running the CPU at 1 GHz instead of 1.33 GHz. I was able to complete an hours worth of CM without a glitch. No noticeable performance hit, either. I'll try again with this configuration and post the results some time next week. I'm pretty sure I'll try some extra fans and try again later with 1.33. Thanks for the tip, Asok 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted April 11, 2002 Share Posted April 11, 2002 Not sure if it will help, but a program like Motherboard Monitor can give you some semi-accurate info on how your system is running. The actual temp monitors aren't always very accurate (depends on where they are on the board and their quality), but it might give you some idea. I noticed that on my Epox board both the BIOS and MBM report the CPU voltage as 1.8v, even though it's set for what is supposed to be 1.75v. Some boards tend to over-volt the chips, so I set it back to 1.7v (a bit lower than it's official rating), and it helps with the temps without hurting stability (too low a voltage can cause lock-ups too). Extra case fans are nice too, though. Just a thought. - Chris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 12, 2002 Share Posted April 12, 2002 Schrullenhaft: I'm running my system with 512 megs of RAM installed. Do you think this might cause lockups? How do I run with less without physically uninstalling RAM? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 12, 2002 Share Posted April 12, 2002 512Mb of memory isn't necessarily a problem. On occasion some drivers have had problems with certain amounts of memory being installed in certain motherboards. Most computers won't let you de-configure the amount of RAM without actually removing it. There are ways of actually doing this with some Windows versions by editing the SYSTEM.INI file, but I'm not sure if that's true of the OS that you're using (which I can't recall off-hand). Some of these 'problems' were fixed by installing chipset drivers. Typically if you want to test for memory problems or memory-configuration/compatibility problems then it is best to physically remove the memory. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agua Posted April 12, 2002 Share Posted April 12, 2002 Schrul - XP Home (and Pro) has the same [386enh] directory as Win98, Me, blah, blah. I used to have a link to the edits, but no longer have those. Just throwing that out there in the event you thought it would be worth his while to hunt that stuff up. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted April 13, 2002 Share Posted April 13, 2002 This really does sound like a heat problem, but in Win98 you can Start | Run | msconfig. Choose Advanced button and Limit the amount of mem available to the OS. Dunno if XP has a similar feature. Win9x can respond to some of the stuff in the System and Win.ini files, but it often overrides those settings with settings in the Registry. But a list of the options can be found at: Microsoft 386Enh A-L Microsoft 386Enh M-Z - Chris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asok Posted April 16, 2002 Author Share Posted April 16, 2002 Originally posted by Asok: I then thought of the cooling issue. The machine really seems to run pretty hot, so I tried running the CPU at 1 GHz instead of 1.33 GHz. I was able to complete an hours worth of CM without a glitch. No noticeable performance hit, either. I'll try again with this configuration and post the results some time next week. Running the system at an underclocked 1 GHz solved the issue. regards, Asok 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted April 17, 2002 Share Posted April 17, 2002 Might want to look for a better/another cooling fan sometime later, that extra ,33 GHz might come in handy later.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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