Crashing W2K system now works!

[Dragon-Lord 0]

I posted this as a new topic in the hopes that some of you who are super-frustrated with W2K (as I was) might find an answer or two within. :}

 

I am one of the people who has been having problems (no eax, crackling, etc.), and I now have some concrete info to provide based on months of testing, and especially the last few days (success!).

As part of my upgrade to Win2K, I added a second P3 processor to my dual mobo (SuperMicro P6DBS rev 1.02, bios 3.0). The two processors were bought at the same time and at the same place (450mhz PIII, first generation). I enabled MPS first, then ACPI, and was running SMP. I have had constant IRQL crashes, and seemingly random BSODs (kmode, irql, ntfs, you name it) ever since. Geforce freezes, IE freezes...and on and on. I have a hurricane of wind blowing across every component and nothing is overclocked, still no luck. No bios change made a difference, and no driver updates stopped the overall problem. Since I know the system was stable under win98se (single processor), or at least as stable as Win98 can be, I finally started downgrading the system to see results.

 

MPS1.4, dual processor, no APM...no change, but confirmed that only my USB and Ethernet are sharing IRQs.

 

Standard PC, single processor...solid as a rock. EAX works on my SBLive. BSOD and crashes have stopped, etc.

 

Now, even though I suspect the mobo at this point - Supermicro support is non-existant and their bios manual is nearly useless (I got more useful info from the Abit Be6-II manual for the machine I built for my wife!) - I have just installed the new LiveWare drivers and will begin upgrading the machine to first, single-processor ACPI, then, if that works well, dual processor ACPI again.

 

I am hoping the new LiveWare drivers stop the crashes at SMP/ACPI, but somehow I doubt it. If it doesn't, then I assume the mobo just can't handle everything I am throwing at it. I find it hard to believe that there are remaining issues at the OS level with W2K Pro(Purchased Retail, beta SP1 1.59RC) with SMP/ACPI (both?), so the LiveWare or Geforce drivers failing under SMP/ACPI(both?) are the next most likely suspects.

 

Now that I *can* get my system to be rock solid, I thought I would share the details of my journey in the hopes that it might help others who are at their wits end.

 

Most likely, I will be replacing this mobo in the near future for another dual PIII ready one, hopefully overclockable. Any recommendations (supermicro loses because of the lack of support issue)?

 

:}

 

 

 

 

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W2K Pro(Purchased Retail, beta SP1 1.59RC)

Supermicro SBDBS r1.02, Bios 3.0 (dead on-board SCSI chip)

2xPIII @450mhz (not o/c)

256mb PC100 Ram in 2 sticks

3xIDE HDs (50gb total, all NTFS) and 1 Pioneer IDE DVD-ROM (all UDMA)

Geforce 256 DDR (32mb), CL AnnPro (DET v5.32)

SBLive! Platinum with digital breakout card (LW3.0)

3COM 3C905B-TX 100-base ethernet (newest driver release on 3COM site)

SIIG AP-40 UWide SCSI PCI (W2K CD drivers)

Nikon LS-2000 SCSI film scanner (drivers now released)

Sony SDT-9000 SCSI 4mm DAT (W2K)

SAF 4012 SCSI CD-Write (W2K)

Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Drive (IO 2.2.1a)

MS Natural Keyboard Pro USB

MS Intellimouse Optical USB

HP Laserjet 6L via USB printing (newest drivers on HP site)

Epson Stylus Photo 700 via parallel

Rainbow Sentinel Parallel Dongle for LightWave6