Delving into K7T266 pro2 bios nightmare... ... ...

[SWORDFISH]

thought this would be a piece of cake... boy was i wrong...

the computer boots up and the cdrw & dvd are not accessible, not in device manager. they are at first, but dissappear after i set it to hi-performance settings. i set it back, reboot, but they dont come back. i re-installed windows me, reset the cmos 5 times which brings them back briefly. any changes to the bios power setting toast the crdrom/dvd.

ok...i read the book and know that somehow the bios and windows must be fighting for irq's, but this is not apparent anywhere...

please help.

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Have you had your hack today ?

[redsolar]

I doubt DVD and CD-RW have to do anything with irq fight. Check the standard bios options (i hope you have award), if they are set to autodetect on the ide channels. If they are, then check maybe something is trying to get on the ide channel's irq. This is normally present at PNP/PCI configuration field. IDE's IRQs are 13-15. If any of them is taken, might be a problem. Also check, if all ide controllers are enabled. This setting is normally under integrated peripherals or something.

Hmm, i think this exhausts possible bios settings. Also, check www.biosmods.com for maybe modified bios for your board? They have bioses that allow you to change options which are hidden by the manufacturers. Also, if you have an award bios, they have a utility you can use to create your own custom bios, this is what i do to enable "ACPI enable" field and to create custom "High performance" settings in bios, instead of pretty crappy default ones.

Cheers.

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Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space

[redsolar]

Uh yeah, SWORDFISH, be careful with those IBMs you bought for ECS boards. They have a bad tendency to die for no particular reason. Mine both died in under 2 months of work time. Just to warn you. The deathstarts with a click of death, the drive led starts blinking for long time and the computer is in the state of virtual hang up, not even a mouse move is possible, and then bad clusters appear. The drive fitness test reports error 0x70 or 0x77 and RMA goes pending.
Backup is my word.


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Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space

[crane]

Make sure you have APIC enabled in bios.

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dirt rules

[SWORDFISH]

oh god...i hope not. the last two were workstations for a new business startup.

i kind of normally dont use inexpensive(cheap) parts for anything that i have to service myself but the upgrade to DDR and athlon xp appealed to the customer, so i used the ecs board.

i had my personal athlon xp 1900+ in an ecs, then took it out and put it in the msi k7t266 pro2 which i mounted in a lian-li pc60.

this was to be my multimedia toy for myself so i added a radeon 8500, sb live value, smc nic, supra 56k modem, and the msi usb/light pod.

now everythings out cept the radeon 8500. the irq's look normal:

0 -- system timer
1 -- standard 101/102 keyboard
2 -- programmable interrupt controller
3 -- communications port (com2)
4 -- communications port (com1)
5 -- irq holder for pci steering
5 -- avance ac97 audio controller
6 -- standard floppy disk
7 -- ecp printer port(lpt1)
8 -- system cmos/realtime clock
10 -- irq holder for pci steering
10 -- radeon 8500 ddr
10 -- sup2750 pci modem enumerator
10 -- supramax 56i voice pci
11 -- irq holder for pci steering
11 -- via tech 3038 pci to usb universal host controller
12 -- ps/2 mouse
13 -- numeric data processor
14 -- via busmaster pci ide controller
14 -- primary ide controller (dual fifo)
15 -- via busmaster pci ide controller
15 -- secondary ide controller (dual fifo)

there is "ACPI function" in the BIOS. it stands for "advanced programmable interrupt controller.

lordy...i was hopin' someone has this board and if they do shed some holy light!

as for the ibm's, i have a wack of them and if one dies will let the whole virtual hemisphere know.

SWORDFISH out.

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Have you had your hack today ?

[DuronClocker]

Have you downloaded any and all updates for the system (www.windowsupdate.com)? Also make sure you have Via 4in1 4.37 installed.

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MSI K7T Turbo-R w/ 2.35v mod
AthlonXP 1600+ @1700+ @ 1.55v
256MB Corsair PC150 CL2
12x DVD, 12x CDRW
Water-cooled 118w Peltier
S3 Savage2000 64mb TVout

[SWORDFISH]

Originally posted by redsolar:
Check the standard bios options (i hope you have award)

Cheers.

uh no...its amibios, version 1.45 and its definitely in the bios, i cleared the cmos again, booted up and avoided "hi-perf". set my own settings.

right now:

APIC is --------------------on
pci IDE BusMaster is -------Disabled
plug and play aware os is---No

and it is working. the bios is quite lame itself, it is too bad msi went with it, i base buying decisions on this and i'm tempted to try a dif mobo now.

this just in:

in "power management"

i disabled:

wake up on ring/lan
wake up on pme

and set "CPU critical temp" to 70oC

BAM! no cd-rom drives!

one more reboot ...

i disabled "cpu shutdown temp" (no protection) and ... BAM!

the drives are back! (no kidding)

Is this board defective ???



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Have you had your hack today ?

[redsolar]

Wow, sounds damn weird buddy. Well, nothing much you can do except holding your cpu critical temperature off and having your drives back.
By the way, why is PCI IDE busmaster disabled?


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Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space

[SWORDFISH]

totally agree on the weird part, having optical drives is good...

you got me on busmaster ?

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Have you had your hack today ?

[crane]

I have bios version AMI 3.0 on my K7T266 Pro2. You sure you have the latest?

Mine : APIC enabled
Plug @ play O/S enabled
Cpu shutdown disabled
Busmaster enabled

I set high performance settings, then go back and change things to my liking, memory timings, ect. Save then exit.

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dirt rules