Ehm... Well.. After reading the post I wondered what did u want to say... But I will tell you that odd mb of RAM should not be a problem (i guess its 384mb). Option for big drives is also not a problem, its just FAT32 instead of FAT16, but I have no idea what you meant with the drive used for the sound card...

If you are speaking about driver, then yes - that might be the problem. Plug out the sound card and see if the problem is solved. If so, then plug the card again into the computer and change the driver.

yeah i meant driver i should give that idea a go.

First of all, run memtest86 preferably for a long time to determine if your system is stable. If memtest86 detects problems, there's no sense in continuing your efforts with Windows 9x until the errors (e.g. faulty RAM, wrong timings, faulty PSU) are fixed.

Here are some basic rules for Win9x:

* Don't use FAT16
* Disable unused onboard hardware such as Audio
* Never install more than 512 MB RAM
* Install latest chipset drivers
* See that every card has its own IRQ (very important!), if that's not possible, make USB controller and LAN card share an IRQ, never graphics or sound card. For manual IRQ configuration refer to IRQ sharing table in mainboard manual, set PNP OS = No in BIOS and use BIOS to specifiy IRQs for each PCI slot. Once every device has its own IRQ, never touch it again. :)
* If not enough IRQs are available, disable COM2, LPT or USB in BIOS to free more IRQs
* Preferred IRQ for LAN is 10.
* Preferred IRQ for IDE is 14/15
* Preferred IRQ for Sound is 5
* Preferred IRQ for graphics is 11
* Make sure the graphics card is assigned an IRQ
* Never set any ISA devices to IRQ 9 and if possible don't make PCI devices use it either (at least not in ACPI mode)
* Use latest drivers (LAN, Sound, Graphics) for your devices.
* Always use Windows 32-bit VXD or WDM drivers for your devices, keep your autoexec.bat and config.sys free of any stuff, if possible.
* Don't use TV cards and software. They don't work :-)
* Don't use tweak utilitites that claim to improve performance, they usually don't work and make everyhting worse.
* If avoidable don't use an on-demand virus scanner
* Reduce number of background tasks to the ones you really need
* Registry optimizers/registry cleaners will kill your registry :-) Never use them

If problem persists:
* Update BIOS to latest revision
* When on Windows Me Set [vcache] maximum and minimum values in system.ini (Has nothing to do with swap space by the way, just google it)
* If avoidable don't use VIA 686B southbridge (go for Intel chipsets instead)
* Re-Install Win98 with ACPI turned off and begin from the start (There is a parameter switch for setup.exe that disables ACPI, but also turn off in BIOS)

I run a TUSL2-C and my Windows 9x almost never crashes on me, at least not when I am gaming. Windows 9x is a bit prone to crashing, but random crashes (especially freezes or bluescreens) during gaming or browsing the network should not happen and are a sign for hardware or driver problems.

As for my experience, I noticed that Win9x isn't as unstable as everyone says, it just doesn't forgive misconfiguration or broken or poorly designed drivers. Anyway, I hope some of the stuff above is able to help you. Unfortunately there is never an easy solution to random crashes.

locutus

bios has been flashed, is avast on on demand scanner? there are some 3rd party patches and mods that improve the system. MSFN has a lot ofthat stuff. thanks for the info will use it and test some stuff out.

Almost every virus scanner comes with an on-demand scanner. You should try to disable it and see if it helps.

"On-Demand" means that there's a background-task scanning every file you access, thus constantly draining performance off the real important tasks and possibly interfacing with the system on a deep level that may cause the instability you are experiencing.

Also, don't use mods or tweaks, especially not if they are 3rd party. The gain in performance which they claim to deliver is hugely overrated and usually not even measurable, if existent at all.

well i was more concerned with xp compatibility layer and the thumbnail views but, hey unless i find a need for those i can i live with out atm i'm running a memtest no errors so far.

EDIT: good news i found me some errors now i don't have to worry about picking at my machine for the prob, I just need to digg through my pile of ram and test her again and make sure she is stable.
EDIT
i've been switching out a lot of sticks still getting errors i think my middle ram slot is damage using the other 2 only still gave me 1 error wich is ticking me off it seems like anything over 2 128's in my 2 outer slots gives errors it's crummy mob any ways.

In a working system, memtest86 should give no errors at all. If there is as much as one single error, you can be certain that there's something wrong. Try cleaning the RAM slots with pressure air or contact spray. Select standard RAM timings in BIOS (e.g. by SPD) and make sure your chipset supports the memory size per module you are using.

Other than that I have no further ideas

AH-HA iv'e finally did it 9 hours of memtest no errors and 10 hours of prime95 no errors i'd have to say thats picky mobo as far as ram in concerned i knew that many sticks of ram i went threw couldn't all be bad.i found a good combo at 384 i might go through the trouble of retesting with more ram some other time.

i'm pretty good about keeping such things clean i use a shop compressor lots and lots psi it always cleans things out really well. and the bios doesn't hav those setting it only lets you set the ram to 100 or 133 that about it the asus k7v isn't such a hot shot mobo

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/d … y/asus-k7v.html

the bios always counts through the ram and feels should take forever then repeat and then it makes you choose wich drive to boot off of and trust me i've looks for ways for it hands free boot.

Alot of times if you use all slots on crappily designed mobo's then there isn't enough power to the ram slots so if you can't up the voltage you have to use fewer slots.

well it is STILL crashing i only have 2 cards installed, maybe bad caps on the mobo? almost worth another slot a mobo and fresh install but i'm wee bit poor right now.

YOu might also want to try another PSU just for tests

ahh i do not have one and as far as slot a motherboards this one takes the cake could just ditch it and try one of these 2 other motherboards i have and try my slockets and intels? i'm running spinrite on this thing i reran memtest no problems maybe it needs those fibre board spacers under the mobo but, i checked all the stand offs.

cdoublejj wrote:

maybe bad caps on the mobo?

Inspect your caps for leakage and/or bulging. Also, are you sure you don't have any of the ram timings accelerated? Find another power supply before you give up on the board.

they appear to be good and well i do have another mobo wich i have just installed wich seems to work well i'll give it ago. would any one be interest in asus k7v for cheap for probably a few dollars and shipping? or maybe the cpu?

it appears to working well so far with a slot 1 mobo no major testing ie games or memtest yet the irq info was great i had a small hang up with sound then i set slot 1 to 11 aka gfx card, oh the mobo is an asus p3b-f.

cdoublejj wrote:

it appears to working well so far with a slot 1 mobo no major testing ie games or memtest yet the irq info was great i had a small hang up with sound then i set slot 1 to 11 aka gfx card, oh the mobo is an asus p3b-f.

Holy Run-On Sentences, Batman! cdoublejj, I can see you've got a lot to say and offer the board, but dang dude. Try some punctuation once in a while. I'm having a hard time just following your posts through a complete thought.

yeah i'm bad with spelling, writing, grammar and punctuation. The good news is I can read well. sorry for the trouble.