abit AW9D Max - couple of issues

[Dareos]

Recently built a machine with this board and its lovely, it really is, but i have a couple of problems that need resolving.

The first is the sound, the AC97 soundcard is fitted correctly, and all linked up correctly as far as i can tell, but i have a Creative DTT 2200 5.1 Dolby system and no matter what speaker settings i use the rear right speaker setting comes out of the subwoofer (and yes i have checked all the cables individually). I also cannot seem to get the mic working.

will i need to buy a new speaker system to have this working, or alternatively pick up a live 5.1 card?

The second issue and far more important issue is my graphics card, i purchased a BFG 7900 GT OC card from Amazon.com while i was in the USA earlier this year (took me another 9 months to get the cash together to build the system), and the computer is resetting or crashing out of World of Warcraft. The microsoft error report tells me that its a graphics issue (something to do with threading ) that suggests that my drivers may need upgrading (using the latest), or the acceleration toned down. I have not plugged in the lower left power socket on the mobo (due to the soundcard being in such close proximity, and then having a PSU issue which had me panicking that i had fried the board. Is this connection possibly the issue ( i was under the impression you only used that connection if you had 2 cards running in xfire mode and having an Nvidia card i cant do this) or does it sound like a card problem (not easy to replace the card as i got it in the states)

thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Dareos/Jonny

[kempez]

With the graphics try the stuff in this thread. Also I would plug that molex in for stability sake.

Might possibly be an IRQ conflict

With the sound - what are you running the speakers off of? I had it set to Dolby Digital/DTS out to an external decoder on my 5.1 system and had no problems

[Dareos]

The connections on the DTT 2200 are orange (rear) black (sub and centre) and green (front) jacks, which plug directly into the woofer, with the 5 speakers coming from the woofer. Its not a digital 5.1, but it does have 5 individual channels + the subwoofer.


That link looks very useful indeed, i'll print it out and attempt to follow everything this evening (posting from work atm), hence my system profile doesnt have all the necessary info on it.

I was very excited about this project, having researched different builds over the past year or so, but i'm afraid i lost my head a little and was so impressed with the mobo when i saw it (packaging works, even to an ex PC salesman) that i forgot to check it was SLI and not crossfire, i skimped a bit on the PSU (felt i was paying another 50 quid for some flashing blue LED's) when i only paid £40 for a 650W, the memory isnt Crucial or Corsair or anything, but a friend uses it and is happy with it and i've had the monitor for ages (will buy a 21" samsung tft in the near future). Its truly heartstopping the first time you hit the powerbutton, all the time praying its all going to work, and if i can iron out these little issues (ok, major issue with the card, cos im a gamer) then i will be sooo happy.

[BUFF]

check the connections again - abit's & Creative's colour coding are usually not the same.

Also, which exact PSU have you got?

[Dareos]

a 650W Works one, seems now the power button on it will not switch off, and comp is resetting itself a lot.

as far as the connections go, any idea which are which on abits?

taking whole thing back to priceless today, see if they will replace the psu

[BUFF]

a 650W Works one,

yes, but which exact make & model?
there are PSUs & good PSUs ...
A good 650W is unlikely to be under £60.

[Dareos]

afraid its back in the shop now mate, so not sure. They are gonna run some hardware tests on it, and call me during the week. Missing my comp sooooo much (got the old one up and running tho, so at least i can post and play WoW.

whereabouts are you in Glasgow btw mate, im in Partick meself

[BUFF]

Scotstoun - there's quite a few on here on the west side.

[Dareos]

ahh nice one, i'll keep this post updated with progress

[Dareos]

Priceless just got back to me and told me that the heatsink was incorrectly fitted, i did have a little trouble with this as one of the pegs wasnt sitting quite nicely, so perhaps this is the only fault.

they wanted £35 to rebuild it from scratch, kinda skint atm tho.

lets hope its all roses from here on in (never gonna happen)

[Dareos]

well, roses aint my thing it seems, same fault still exists, comp is resetting itself every so often, 3 times in a row last night. Crashed out of Warcraft, then reset itself as soon as i tried to load it up. I tried a reinstall of WoW and it wont even get past the first stage after putting the disk in, so cant be the program.

I have it with a couple of friends at at Europc atm, who are gonna see if they can discern the problem, before i visit priceless yet again.

pretty sure its not a mobo problem tho, that seems to be sweet

[Dareos]

Just an update for those interested, stress tested the CPU and the RAM, everything seems to be fine, stopped the test, ran quake 3, it started, reset, reset on reboot, and then created 3 error reports (not connected to net atm).

They are going to switch out the graphics card and see if theres any issues, fingers crossed that theres not, but at least i'll have the fault if there is.

on a side note, the PSU now switches off again correctly, no idea why

edit : and Buff, the sound was working fine last night, damn colour coding (and feeling silly for not thinking of it)

[Dareos]

UPDATE :

comp is still resetting, it seems to happen pretty randomly, sometimes rebooting 2-3 times in a row then nothing for 3-4 hours. Updated from MSupdate last night, as i read that there can be an issue with drives that are over 120Gb. Not yet had a chance to test how its running now. After this i take it back to work to try another PSU in it.

[merdat]

Hi there chaps, That last post re harddrive maybe correct. It could be a drive problem i.e maybe not so much the drive but the op system. I use a caddy system and have see this reset problem a couple of times . It maybe worth you trying another drive with a fresh windows install.

[Dareos]

Thanks Merdat, will have to try that, means buying another drive tho =)

I also just found out that the RAM was seated in the wrong slots, and not both in dual channel slots, its been running ok for a couple of hours, but sometimes its 3-4 before it starts resetting

[Dareos]

well, it was a faulty stick of ram, its running wonderfully now, all stress tests running constantly with no errors.


thanks all for your help