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ASUS P3B-F freezing

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Reply 20 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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Doornkaat wrote on 2020-05-28, 22:30:

The P3B-F should have an i/o voltage jumper I think somewhere near the upper right corner. Maybe that'll do the trick?

Edit: vcore and multipliers are set correctly in BIOS I assume?

I have the board set to jumperless mode...

Reply 21 of 37, by X3J11

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I had an Audigy back in the day, and it was finicky as all get out. Same symptoms as you, random freezes under Windows 98 (and later, bluescreens under XP). I kept up with Creative's drivers, even used the kxProject drivers.

I vaguely remember the bulk of my problems stemming from the PCI slot I had it in. I believe the Audigy really didn't like sharing an IRQ with anything.

Reply 22 of 37, by The Serpent Rider

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What brand are the caps on this one ?

Sanyo and Rubycon mostly.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 23 of 37, by darry

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-05-29, 00:04:

What brand are the caps on this one ?

Sanyo and Rubycon mostly.

I meant on the OP's specific sample . Mine has Japanese caps (do not remember the brands, likely those mentioned), but that does not mean all of them do , unless it's a well known fact that Asus used those brands exclusively at that time .

I really don't know .

Reply 24 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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Yeah, I think the purples are Rubys, bit hard to see given how they are positioned...

Prime95 did cause any freezes, ran for an hour... I have 3DMark2000 running now on loop. About 20 mins so far so good... I am just guessing, but I think if it was power related (PSU, Caps) I should have seen an issue by now...

Reply 25 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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X3J11 wrote on 2020-05-28, 23:35:

I had an Audigy back in the day, and it was finicky as all get out. Same symptoms as you, random freezes under Windows 98 (and later, bluescreens under XP). I kept up with Creative's drivers, even used the kxProject drivers.

I vaguely remember the bulk of my problems stemming from the PCI slot I had it in. I believe the Audigy really didn't like sharing an IRQ with anything.

Interesting... The only other PCI sound card I have is a Dell OEM SB Live! 0200, haven't tried it yet... Based on your comment, might be worth a shot.

Reply 26 of 37, by The Serpent Rider

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I meant on the OP's specific sample

Ir doesn't matter. Unless it was recapped, that's what Asus used for their premium mobos at that time period.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 28 of 37, by darry

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Fun fact: I have actually had a defective PCI X-FI (SB0460) card crash Windows 10 . I replaced with an identical (both were retail cards, not OEM MASB0467) and the crashing stopped .

Reply 29 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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Well I am not sure if the Audigy is the issue or not. After running Prime95 for an hour and then 3DMark for about another hour without any freezing, I fired up Bridge Commander and if freezes. Uninstalled the Audigy drivers and ran it again, and it freezes again. Loaded BIOS defaults, then tried again, still freezes. It is always during the intro video, so I am thinking that issue must be a different problem. Before my initial reinstall, I couldn't get most games to launch. Tomb Raider III would freeze with a black screen immediately. Just reinstalled it and I can launch the game and play.

So now I guess I need to put a sound card back in. Guess I will try the Audigy again and keep testing with games. Not sure if that OEM SB Live is worth putting in, or maybe looking for a retail Live. I am trying to keep this system period correct with the intention of playing DOS games in pure DOS mode and Windows games up just beyond 2000. Bridge Commander and Motocross Madness 2 are probably the newest that will get installed. The Might and Magic IX, once I can find my media or buy another copy.

Reply 30 of 37, by darry

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SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-29, 02:16:

Well I am not sure if the Audigy is the issue or not. After running Prime95 for an hour and then 3DMark for about another hour without any freezing, I fired up Bridge Commander and if freezes. Uninstalled the Audigy drivers and ran it again, and it freezes again. Loaded BIOS defaults, then tried again, still freezes. It is always during the intro video, so I am thinking that issue must be a different problem. Before my initial reinstall, I couldn't get most games to launch. Tomb Raider III would freeze with a black screen immediately. Just reinstalled it and I can launch the game and play.

So now I guess I need to put a sound card back in. Guess I will try the Audigy again and keep testing with games. Not sure if that OEM SB Live is worth putting in, or maybe looking for a retail Live. I am trying to keep this system period correct with the intention of playing DOS games in pure DOS mode and Windows games up just beyond 2000. Bridge Commander and Motocross Madness 2 are probably the newest that will get installed. The Might and Magic IX, once I can find my media or buy another copy.

I do own a copy of Bridge Commander, but I never ran it under Windows 98 SE . I'll have to find it and give it a spin .
At least we now know your board and video card are likely OK .

Reply 31 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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Yeah, I will have to try just skipping the into video and making sure the game itself is stable. I was just focusing on it since it was the first I discovered and provided a reliable way to repeat the issue. But as it turns out, I may have multiple issues. There was an issue running most games, that might still be related to the sound card. Going to try other games one at a time.

Agreed, knowing my board is likely fine is a huge relief... I know nothing last forever, but this board (despite being hard to get, especially a dual ISA version) has a bit of sentimental value as I am the original owner. 😀

Edit: just put the Audigy back in and to my surprise it shows up in device manger with yellow bangs. Despite having uninstalled it, clearly it doesn't remove the driver files completely.

Reply 32 of 37, by darry

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SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-29, 02:36:

Yeah, I will have to try just skipping the into video and making sure the game itself is stable. I was just focusing on it since it was the first I discovered and provided a reliable way to repeat the issue. But as it turns out, I may have multiple issues. There was an issue running most games, that might still be related to the sound card. Going to try other games one at a time.

Agreed, knowing my board is likely fine is a huge relief... I know nothing last forever, but this board (despite being hard to get, especially a dual ISA version) has a bit of sentimental value as I am the original owner. 😀

I really wanted the dual ISA version back in the day, but had to settle for the single ISA one . This is also the model I have today .
Good luck with that process of elimination .

Reply 33 of 37, by Doornkaat

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SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-28, 23:09:
Doornkaat wrote on 2020-05-28, 22:30:

The P3B-F should have an i/o voltage jumper I think somewhere near the upper right corner. Maybe that'll do the trick?

Edit: vcore and multipliers are set correctly in BIOS I assume?

I have the board set to jumperless mode...

Did you try setting the jumper to increase i/o voltage? This may increase stability.
Also i assumed you set the board to jumperless so I asked wether the BIOS is configured correctly. 😉 Maybe try gently increasing vcore too.

Reply 34 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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So I have installed several more games today and have encountered a few freezes or reboots. Each time has been during a video playing or activity reading from the ROM drive. Although never during installation... For instance I just installed Starship Titanic, the CD version. It is a fairly long install on 3 discs, no issues with the install. Fire up the game and it reboots during the animation sequence right after crashing into the house.

DMA and sync data transfer are not enabled on the ROM, but DMA is enable on the hard disks. Windows doesn't show any hardware conflicts.

Its odd, the issue hasn't been persistent enough to stop anything from completely working, just a random annoyance...

Last edited by SuperSirLink on 2020-05-30, 02:35. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 35 of 37, by SuperSirLink

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SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-29, 22:44:

So I have installed several more games today and have encountered a few freezes or reboots. Each time has been during a video playing or activity reading from the ROM drive. Although never during installation... For instance I just installed Starship Titanic, the CD version. It is a fairly long install on 3 discs, no issues with the install. Fire up the game and it reboots during the animation sequence right after crashing into the house.

DMA and sync data transfer are not enabled on the ROM, but DMA is enable on the hard disks. Windows doesn't show any hardware conflicts.

Its odd, the issue hasn't been persistent enough to stop anything from completely working, just a random annoyance...

It really had not occurred to me since I have only done so in the past when trying to overclock.

Reply 36 of 37, by darry

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If you are still keen on running tests I suggest that

a) You make an image of your working Windows 98 SE install, to avoid re-installing every time something breaks . I use Acronis TrueImage, but Clonezilla is a good free option .
b) try running sesp21a-en.exe and U98SESP3.EXE to patch-up your Windows install . I don't know how cumulative they are, so I ran both, in that order (2.1 before 3) with no ill effects (I have a machine setup for 3 years with those installed).
For download : https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-service-packs.html

For more info .
https://forums.lunarsoft.net/topic/1167-windo … l-service-pack/
https://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/