First post, by SuperSirLink
I started a thread here Re: Star Trek Bridge Commander after discovering I couldn't run some software after building up a system from old parts I had from my younger days.
In troubleshooting my issue there, I have pretty much eliminated hardware down to the motherboard. I am currently in the process of doing another clean install on a separate hard disk. The issue I discovered is the when running games that are graphical the system randomly freezes. Sitting at a desktop or playing games light on resources, the system is fine, some like the Incredible Machine. Bridge Commander, Tomb Raider III, Motocross Madness will lock up. Interestingly Motocross Madness 2 continued to play and even more interestingly so did Motocross Madness 1, before I started swapping hardware in an attempt to see if I could increase the performance of Motocross Madness 2. Motocross Madness 1 was the first graphical game I installed, then Motocross Madness 2, then Bridge Commander (which is when I discovered the issue). Convinced I messed up the OS, I did a clean install with the same hardware but found the issue still occurred. So I started swapping components one at a time as noted in the other thread.
I am hoping there is someone else who is familiar with this board that might help me determine if the board is suspect and how to narrow the problem down further. I have flashed the bios up to the latest version (1006) and have bios settings at the defaults. My board is a dual ISA slot rev 1.04, so I am hoping it is not beyond help as replacements seem rare or expensive. I don't see any bulging caps...
Here is hardware I have tested:
CPUs: PIII 550, PII 400, PII350
RAM: Mushkin PC133 2-2-2, NEC PC100 3-2-2
Video: Riva TNT2 Ultra, 3D Prophet III Geforce3
PSU: Apevia Venus 450w (modern no -5v rail), Unbranded 300w model LPF2SS-1 (old has a -5v rail)
Sound Cards: Audigy 1, SB16 testing done with both removed
HDs: Maxtor 40GB, Western Digital 40GB
Doing a clean install of Win98SE at the moment on the WD40GB, using the PII350, Mushkin RAM, and TNT2
On the previous clean install, I installed Win98SE, installed chipset drivers, Nvidia drivers, Audigy drivers, enabled DMA on the hard drive, then installed Bridge Commander.