Weird Windows Booting Issues On Athlons?

Aj asks: "I have an AMD Athlon K7 800 (Thunderbird) that has been running fine for a week on an Epox EP-8KTA Motherboard with VIA KT133 chipset. The system runs both Windows 98 (for DVDs and games), and Linux. Today, windows will not boot. Linux boots fine, so I thought, 'Hey the Windows Boot Block has been damaged, just boot from CD/floppy, and re-install the boot block.' WRONG. Windows will not boot at all on this system, not from HD, CD or Floppy disk."

"This would normally point to something being flaky in hardware, (OS not booting from any boot device); however, it still boots Linux without any issues at all. If I try booting from a Windows 98 CD, I get the Boot from CD/Hard disk menu, but as soon as I choose CD, the computer screen goes black, places a flashing cursor in the top-left corner, and does nothing. No disk accesses or otherwise.

I have reset the CMOS settings via the Jumper settings on the motherboard, and then set the CMOS to use failsafe settings to no avail. I have tried removing all cards from the system except the video card, and I have even tried booting from another Windows Hard disk with no luck.

This is all pointing to a problem with the CPU/Motherboard not liking the Windows Boot code as far as I can tell. Has anyone experienced anything like this? I really would like the system back to the way it was working before."

Comments

Maybe...

[ptomblin]

I don't own an Athlon, but a friend of mine had a very similar problem with his Atlhon. He kept taking it back to the shop (and fortunately they were local and they knew what they were doing), and eventually they figured out that he needed a better (and bigger) power supply. Evidently Windows *still* doesn't idle the processor when nothing is going on, the way Linux does, so it uses a lot more power and runs hotter.

Possible fix for problem

[strredwolf]

UnderGroundOnline (http://www.ugo.com) has an article about this, plus two different fixes on how to get Windows working again. The problem stems from the Athilon's handling of the AGP port with some drivers (aka the drivers fault). If you can, try this out (from what I remember of the articles:)

1. Disable AGP 4x. Go with 2x.
2. Set the AGP aperature to 256MB

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