Hi all, 

Since some time I have 2 Abit AN7 boards. Great boards and I can mod the NB voltage and all...

But the Windows XP installation and stability is a horror. While installing I had to make backups of every reboot in the installation process and to come to that point it costs me at least 10-30 tries. I tried several bios versions (modded or not modded), ATA and SATA drives. nothing help, any idea what the problem is? 
 

Note that I also have a dfi, Abit nf7-s (2) and an Epox board working fine with all hardware. 

Junk AN7's then.

AN7 is more stable than any of your other boards usually.

Burn a disk for your install.

They are rock solid when not going to Windows. As soon as Windows starts instability starts.

I am thinking of a driver issue, a bios version or something else. 
Thinking of it, nothing will ever beat the stability of my 8rda6+ pro in my experience so far. 

Hello.  

Have you tried installing windows on the NF7 and then connecting HDD on the AN7? 

Have you tried several HDD channels? Have you tried out IDE-SATA converter?

Edited January 30, 20206 yr by GRIFF

Yes I tried all of these. 
Question: which bios version should be stable? 

Edited January 30, 20206 yr by Sparks.nl

You can try this:

 

I will try these again. Thanks

the new an7 board was stable for a Short while, just not anymore. I think this could be bios related.

 

I now use an Enduracel bios, 16de8cpc1t. I also tried hist other bios files.

 

Edited February 1, 20206 yr by Sparks.nl

I just dioscovered that while using the Infrared (1T) bios I can actually boot to Windows while using auto settings foor cpu speed and voltages and memory settings on optimal. This leaves the CPU @600MHz  and memory 266MHz.

When I start WPrime is hangs after a few seconds. Bad caps? 
 

Edit: just lowering cpu or memory speed was not enough.

Edited February 1, 20206 yr by Sparks.nl

Maybe something is too hot? Can't you see any bad Caps? I had to replace 5-6 Caps on my AN7.. but i didn't test it much with the bad Caps.

It doesn't seem to be getting hot. I checked it in BIOS and with my fingers. The strange thing is that both AN7 boards have the exact same issue. 
On 1 board I replaced part of the CPU caps (all 6 6.3v 3300uF) and 1 for NB (6.3v 1800uF) a while ago. This does not make any difference. 
I am thinking of NB or memory caps. I am testing different speeds and voltages now. 

Edit: Just found out that my XP install for AN7 seems to hating newer versions of CPUz (1.78 and 1.90 hang after 5-15% loading). Version 1.51 works fine while running 800MHz. 

Edit 2: I can run the CPU @2400MHz with 18x 133MHz FSB WPrime stable. 
Memory is stable with 4:6 settings (running at 400MHz C2-2-2-5 1T) and CPU still @2400MHz (133MHz FSB). 

 

Edit 3: I allready replaced 6 caps, after replacing another 7 it gives a first ever boot on 11x200MHz. 1 cap came out with 1 leg still in the motherboard. After testing some more I can now boot 8x245MHz C2. Seems stable to me. Now for the other motherboard...

Edited February 2, 20206 yr by Sparks.nl