Re:

Joanie · January 19, 2002, 18:13 hrs

Hi Brian and welcome to Poasters. Someone should be around pretty quick to give you advise with the system you refer to. We have AMD experts here.

The week-ends are always a little slow so please keep checking back for some good advice.

Joanie

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K. Roberts · January 19, 2002, 21:14 hrs

What do you have for a power supply? It looks like you have a lot of stuff there to power. That seems to be the only thing you haven't tried.

Keith

query · January 20, 2002, 04:31 hrs

Have you tried new (name-brand) RAM? If you carried the RAM over from the old system to the new mainboard, it sounds likely that it is the issue.

pat · January 20, 2002, 05:05 hrs

Besides the power supply, the only thing I could add is that I read a lot of suggestions to use the first and third ram slots, if your using two pieces of ram on those N-force boards.

my2ktoy · January 21, 2002, 08:35 hrs

The power supply is new. It's a CompUSA 500 watt atx. And i've tested it with another power supply. As far as the ram goes: one stick is new i bought it when i purchased my processor. the other stick is from my old setup. I tried the first and third slots on the RAM, It didn't fix it, but i actually got through logon before it crashed. So that may be the right direction. I tried each stick individually, and in different slots, and it didn't help. However, i did notice that depending on which piece of RAM i used, the system would crash at different points. Also, I got an BSOD and it referenced ACPI.sys, so i had a thought that it might be ACPI. but i looked in the bios, and i can't find where to disable ACPI! Also: when I boot up with safe mode, the computer hangs while loading the mup.sys file. this is all the new data i have, any more ideas?

Thanks again,

Brian Kitchener

Network Admin

College of Education

University of Denver

query · January 21, 2002, 11:07 hrs

What brand is the RAM (the modules, not the chips)?

I would try a new module of name-brand (Crucial, Kingston) RAM first. If that doesn't solve the problem, ask for a replacement mainboard.

scuzzy · January 21, 2002, 11:12 hrs

I agree with query's advice. Are you using generic brand RAM? If so, you need to go with something like Crucial Technology. Cheap RAM will do nothing more than cause you heartburn.

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Alex Garcia

woz2001 · January 21, 2002, 13:31 hrs

My2ktoy...

This may sound like a daft comment but here goes....The Athlon XP chips run at a low Mhz than the supposed 1700 ie 1800 = 1.4approx etc. Is the Bios at boot up reporting that the chip correctly as an Athlon XP 1700?

I know that the Athlon chipsets are supposed to be self setting ie they tell the mobo what they are. as for the Clock speed.....you seem to have tried almost everything..have you tried ripping out everythingh apart from Mobo ram cpu h/d & vid card...then setting up. If this resolves your problem then integrate each bit of kit a step at a time until you hit the problem again. Hopefully this will then show you where your errors lie.

Also have you tried running any utilities to see if you can visually see ewhere there may be problems...something like Norton or Sisoft Sandra 2001 TE.

My friend spent 2 weeks building his 1800Xp setup together only to find that the mobo was shagged, so we tried all of these avenues before we went back to the manufacturer/retailer.

Hope it helps in anyway. Woz :-)

Get a job you enjoy & never have to work a day in your life.

my2ktoy · January 22, 2002, 11:01 hrs

thanks for all the people who replied, i really apprecaite it.

The RAM is one stick Micron, one stick Crucial. As for a replacement motherboard, i've already tried that, from a different manufacturer (read above), but the same chipset. Think i should try another mobo with a different chipset? And the mobo reports the proc as a 1700+ when its running at 1466mhz (it's correct speed). when i run it at 1266mhz (fastest i can get it to boot into windows) it reports as a 1390+. I'm going to stick my proc and ram in my buddy's nForce, so i'll be able to eliminate those tonight. Thanks for all your ideas, i really appreciate it. Keep 'em coming!!!!

Brian Kitchener

query · January 22, 2002, 15:00 hrs

Does the system work properly with just the Crucial DIMM installed?

Micron chips do not necessarily mean Micron built the module.

dude2000 · March 29, 2002, 08:35 hrs

I have what sounds to be a similar problem. I bought a new maxtor 80G HDD. I previously ran just fine with Windows XP on a smaller 13G HDD. For the new HDD I had to purchase an ATA/133 controller from Promise to recognize the larger HDD.

The fact that windows XP worked great on this system with a smaller HDD, tells me that the problem is probably not a combination of the cpu/memory/system board.

On the new drive I was attempting to set up to multi-boot win98se, win2000, and winXP. The first two operating systems (98 and 2000) set-up flawlessly. When I install the 3rd (XP) everything seems to work fine during the install, up to the point of actually booting into windows xp, where it hangs with a black screen. When I reboot into safe mode for XP, it reports loading the driver mup.sys and then locks up.

However, upon reboot I'm still able to boot into win98 or win2000 just fine.

Of the 80G I allocated

10G to win98 as fat32,

10G to win2000 as fat32,

30G to win xp as NTFS.

I even started all over from scratch (fdisk'd the whole drive) and this time formatted the xp partition as fat32... and it made no difference.

query · March 29, 2002, 11:16 hrs

Remove the ATA133 controller (it's not needed for performance reasons, so unless you need the extra four ports, it's redundant) and try XP with the onboard IDE controller.

dude2000 · March 29, 2002, 15:21 hrs

I cannot remove the ultra ATA/133 controller. The motherboard is an Amptron PM9900 and the bios is not able to recognize hard drives larger than 32G.

It's a flash bios, but there are no newer updates available than what I already have.

The ata controller however, has an onboard bios which allows the system to recognize the hard drive.

(I thought plugging it directly into the motherboard controller was a good idea... but when I tried it, it just hangs trying to identify the HDD.)

query · March 29, 2002, 18:20 hrs

In all honesty, I'd give up and scrap the PCChips board and install something with a better reputation - you may simply be running up against PCChips quality control/engineering margins, which are some of the worst in the industry (they're known for having RMA rates of twice the industry average now, or more).

I'd scrap it and invest in an ASUS, MSI or other decent name-brand board.

Unless that BIOS is a lot older than the board (pre-4/1998) it doesn't have the 32 GByte limit on drive size - but then again, PCChips has been known to go as far as soldering on fake plastic chips to make it look like their boards had L2 cache on them when they really didn't - so all bets are off on how many corners were cut building this board.

dude2000 · March 30, 2002, 07:27 hrs

I guess I'd tend to agree with you except for one thing. This problem of hanging up during the boot process on the MUP.SYS file ONLY occurs with windows XP.

I'm am multi-booting with windows 98 and with windows 2000 and NEITHER of those operating systems have any problem at all.

If it were a bad combination of hardware, or a bad component in the system wouldn't the other two operating systems have just as much trouble?

query · March 30, 2002, 07:49 hrs

Not necessarily - NT-based OSes are more intolerant of marginal hardware than DOS-based OSes are, and it's entirely possible that XP is less tolerant than 2000 is.

It isn't out of the realm of possibility that the mainboard itself is marginal - as I noted before, PCChips is hardly a paragon of excellence in electrical engineering. Replacing the mainboard with a decent one need not cost that much - you can find some excellent Socket-A boards these days for under $100 brand-new.

If you want to run XP, that's the tack I'd take - scrap the mainboard and replace it with a brand-name, well-supported board with a good reputation.

Schmuck · March 31, 2002, 00:48 hrs

I am running a similar set-up...MSI motherboard, Geforce3, Crucial RAM, etc. Anyway, I am having the same problem lauching XP, it hangs up on the Mup.sys file in Safe Mode. In normal mode, it runs check disc and then reboots over and over again. I can't seem to find the answer.

-Britain

query · March 31, 2002, 03:37 hrs

Make sure you've got the latest video drivers, and if you already do, then try a different video card (ATI Radeon). nVidia has been having very widely publicized driver-quality problems with the GeForce series, particularly with Windows XP.

If the original poaster has an nVidia-based card, I'd recommend the same.

MikErosoft · April 03, 2002, 08:44 hrs

I've got almost the same problem. The system never makes it to the log on screen and appears to get stuck on mup.sys. I've got a asus p3v4x motherboard tried various ram, cpu's etc. and it still doesn't work. The system works fine with Win2k or Win98 so I don't think its a hardware issue. The weird thing is that I had XP installed a few months ago and it worked flawlessly. I needed to reinstall for whatever reason and it hasn't worked since. The only change is I've added another 40gig IBM hard drive since then but I don't see how that would make any difference. The system works fine after a new installation but eventually starts getting stuck on mup.sys.

kprice@imsa.edu · April 03, 2002, 20:35 hrs

I think this is just a weird XP issue. I'm having the same thing, only I wasn't having this problem yesterday. Mup.sys is the "Multiple UNC Provider" and so I doubt it has anything to do with video drivers. If anything, it might be motherboard related, as many of us seem to have this problem with ASUS motherboards. (Mine is a KT266A.)

dude2000 · April 07, 2002, 20:39 hrs

I wonder if this problem is not somehow related to IDE or PCI drivers. On this particular system board I am able to run winXP just fine on my original 13G Hard Drive. When I updated to a larger Hard drive, I was forced to use a hard drive controller because my bios didn't recognize the larger drive and no more recent updates are available for the bios.

So...

1) XP works fine with the smaller hard drive and using the controller directly on the mother board

2) Win98 and Win2000 work just fine with same memory, same motherboard, larger 80G hard drive, and the ata/133 controller from Promise Technology.

3) XP hangs on a reboot to safe mode with the combination of the larger 80G hard drive, and the ata/133 controller.

This combination of these factors makes me believe that the device drivers for the controller card are not up to the task for Windows XP.

The video card on my system is a G100 Matrox.

harvestor · April 25, 2002, 13:49 hrs

my2ktoy--

Computers can be fun- It seems tho the bigger the more

difficult. It seems that I ran set up and under bios

setting the default is 100 and can be changed to 133

there are two settings.(both need to be changed)

Front end and whatever - obviouly

I am not at that point in screen and have to use faulty

memory. Does you 'load up' show the right mhz for your chip-

that would mean that your 'flashing' has worked. So then the

next step would be changed the bios setting. If you want I

can and will go into setup and find the exact place for you

---- happy computering -----

ah · May 08, 2002, 22:55 hrs

I have the Soyo MB with a KT266A and Raid/ATA. Same problem. I often have to turn off Raid/ATA to install SW.

Joanie · May 09, 2002, 09:08 hrs

ah,

Welcome to the Poasters Forum. Did you have a question that someone here can answer for you?

Joanie

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my2ktoy · January 19, 2002, 17:57 hrs

Ok everyone-

I'm new here, looking for some ideas. Let me give you a run down on what i've got: I have an AthlonXP 1700+ with an Asus A7N266-E (nForce chipset), 512MB Ram, Geforce3, Adaptec U2W Scsi card & 3 48Gig U2W drives, wireless NIC. I'm using a Swiftec MC-462 heatsink/fan (big sucker, screws down). Now...I can't get my computer to run at 133mhz. Whenever i do, windows XP or 2000 blue screens, and gives me a stop error. This happens even when i run setup off of the cd. I've tested the processor, i put an athlon 1400mhz in it and i had the same problem. I just recently swapped the mobo out with an MSI, (nForce chipset). I had the same problem. I've tested the scsi card, i stuck an IDE drive in there with the scsi card removed, and it still did it. I've flashed the bios with the newest version. I have the newest mobo drivers, and windows updates. Directx 8.1. I know its not the ram, because on the ASUS you can run the proc at 133 and the RAM at 100, and it still blue screened. Yet as soon as i drop the bus to even 115mhz, it boots fine. Oh, and i can sit in the bios for hours at 133mhz and the mobo never gets above 30 degrees celcius. ***!!!! I'm sick of my 1700+ only running at 1266mhz. Oh yeah, one more thing. my friend has the EXACT same mobo, with an 1800+, and it works perfectly fine!!!! we have basically the exact same computer. So i'm out of ideas, anyone else got one?

Brian Kitchener

Network Admin

College of Education

University of Denver

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