Announcement

**Scott Turchin** · 12 Jun 2001, 01:42 PM

My RC.EXE did this the other day, strangest thing i ever saw....no white screen but it just stopped working..

I deleted it, then copied a FRESH one over (I always keep a working backup of the EXE's etc someplace, ie on my server)...

Problem solved, give that a shot.
Do you have the updated version or the original install?

Also, just for grins (Probably most likely not related) go into Device manager (9x) and see if your system bios stuff is the same or if you now have an ! on one of the devices...
My luck has always been it takes 2 hours for Win9x to come up whe nI put a new MB in, but once it does it never has a problem again (Weird, but they are gigabyte brand MB's)..

Personally speaking, I prefr the 400 Intel (I run a P2/450 on my server)...
I Love AMD chips, but the MB's are really lacking right now...when they get the resources that Intel has, then there'll be a fair race going on.

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Scott

**Eric Schuyler** · 12 Jun 2001, 05:18 PM

Scott,

Thanks for your reply. All the hardware on the new MB is working fine, and every other program I have tried seems to run fine. I reinstalled from the original diskettes, but I still get the weird error box. I'm guessing that it might be something to do with the AMD processor or maybe the high speed, but I really don't know. Oh well...

I'm not sure what you mean about AMD motherboards "are really lacking now." My new MB has the latest AMD/VIA chipset and supports PC2100 DDRAM, ATA-100 IDE, 4x AGP and 4 USB ports.

Regards,
Eric

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**Lance Edmonds** · 12 Jun 2001, 05:31 PM

Can you compile from within the IDE or is the problem only evident if you run PBDLL.EXE directly?

What O/S are you using?

Did you reinstall the O/S from scratch or just replace the M/B?

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

**Lance Edmonds** · 12 Jun 2001, 10:18 PM

Interestingly, I was speaking with a colleague today, and this guy is (IMHO) a "Motherboard Guru" - he was full of anecdotes of bizarre and unusual problems with the VIA chipsets commonly used for Athlon MB's.

While his stories are anecdotal to me (although he assures me that the problems were real and I have never had any reason to disbelieve him in the past), I would strongly suggest that you contact your MB manufacturer and check if there are any applicable patches and updates available... According to my colleague, there are a whole bunch of patches/updates, even for the "latest" boards. In fact, as a serious systems builder, he has stopped recommending VIA chipsets to his clients.

YMMV, but it could be worth a shot!

------------------
Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

**Peter Lameijn** · 12 Jun 2001, 11:23 PM

Be sure the VIA chipset IDE drivers are installed. Using a VIA MB without them
can result in various unstable behaviour. (Although the system seems to work fine
without them...) I've had problems on machines with OnStreams IDE backup drives.
(Varying from strange happenings to not able to access them or even bluescreens)
Installing the drivers fixed it for me...

------------------
Peter.
mailto

[email protected][email protected]</A>

**Chris Boss** · 13 Jun 2001, 05:34 AM

Eric;

Big mistake !

Never install a new motherboard without reformating the harddrive and
reinstalling the operating system !

The reason is that each CPU and motherboard has different features
and Windows 9x,NT,2K must install a number of "low level" drivers just
to operate correctly. There are Harddrive drivers, PCI drivers, and
even drivers for features in the CPU itself at times.

If you simply install a new motherboard, then you will likely have
some drivers that worked correctly for the original motherboard, but
don't work correctly on the new one and there may even be some
missing that the new one requires. You could even damage your new
motherboard, because you are using drivers intended for another
motherboard.

I would venture to say, that because the PB compiler is a 16 bit
app, you are simply seeing the results of this incompatibility.

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**Scott Turchin** · 13 Jun 2001, 05:44 AM

I disagree with the formating portion, reason being as I mentioned earlier is that if you let Win9x sit there it *will* load those drivers, never been an issue here, with intel boards as well.

What I meant by AMD boards lacking is this, how many makers of MB's are there? Chipsets?
As you can see, and one of my friends, a MB guru himself has said the same thing...

Patch it up correctly it works great, but there are issues with the boards...

Which is why I'm staying with Intel, at least until the MB makers get up to speed with the 81x chipset....

Not to knock the board, my friend has an AMD 1.0 overclocked at 1149 right now and it's smoking fast...but it's also patched up and he wiped the OS and reinstalled it...

I would not go that far.
I would delete the C:\PBDLL60\BIN directory and reinstall from there and see if that helps...

Or if you don't keep your source under the pbdll folder like I do, then wipe the whole folder and reinstall.

Again make sure you have those drivers loaded (That's the comment about the ! on MB resources..)...

Scott

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Scott

**Scott Turchin** · 13 Jun 2001, 05:45 AM

PS, grab another 16 bit app and see if it has issues, could be something in the Win subsystem...

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Scott

**Tom Hanlin** · 13 Jun 2001, 06:21 AM

It should not be necessary to reformat the boot drive when changing motherboards,
as the OS should notice the change of resources and rebuild its driver database.
It's not actually a bad idea to reformat, though: you get a nice clean installation
that way, with no questions about weird leftovers from the previous setup.

I'd like to point out that Intel has released buggy motherboards-- choosing a given
name brand is no guarantee, here. It's the nature of the territory when using the
latest equipment.

The "Program Error" message is a Windows error, not a PowerBASIC error, and it's
not clear what could have caused it. I don't suppose Windows offered any error code
or explanation? (Sometimes, Windows' error reporting makes the old Amiga "Guru
Meditation" error system look genuinely advanced).

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

**Eric Schuyler** · 13 Jun 2001, 01:57 PM

Everybody,

Thanks for all the suggestions! Yes, I installed ALL the appropriate drivers for the new MB when I installed it, and every other app works fine so far, including one or two 16-bit programs. I'm puzzled by the negative comments regarding MBs with VIA chipsets - I haven't had any problems with them. In fact, my previous MB (for the Pentium II-400) also had a VIA chipset.

Anyway, the problem would occur when compiling in the IDE and when running PBDLL from the command line.

Now for the weird (and long-winded) part:

1) I installed PBDLL 6 into a NEW directory (keeping the existing installation). I got the same problem when running from the new directory.

2) I deleted the new installation, since it didn't help.

3) For no good reason, I reinstalled AGAIN, this time answering YES when asked if I wanted the PBDLL directory in my path. I'm almost certain I never had it in there before.

4) My PATH now points to the new installation and both the old and the new installations work fine!

5) I removed the new installation directory and the original installation still works.

I don't get it, but I don't think I'm going to question it either!

Thanks again for your responses!

Eric

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**Chris Boss** · 13 Jun 2001, 07:00 PM

My suggestion of doing a clean install is just a matter of
"better safe than sorry".

[This message has been edited by Chris Boss (edited June 13, 2001).]

**Lance Edmonds** · 13 Jun 2001, 09:17 PM

To be clear, my comments regarding the VIA chipsets applies to the AMD CPU chipsets, not the Intel CPU chipsets.

------------------
Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

**Guest** · 14 Jun 2001, 02:55 AM

There is no blanket problem with the VIA Athlon chipsets. There was some problems with The VIA KT133a Athlon chipset when used with certain motherboards and hardware (Soundblaster live). The problems are corrected.

VIA KT133A Motherboard Roundup - June 2001

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1489

Any "expert" not recommending the Altlon because of the VIA chipset has just been demoted to former expert status. I use one at home and have three AMD/VIA servers at work which replaced unstable Intel P3 machines. They kick major booty.

Bottom line is there was problems with one VIA chipset for the Athlon and they were corrected.

**Gregery D Engle** · 14 Jun 2001, 03:11 AM

I've had tons of problems with VIA, make sure you install the
4in1 drivers. Much more stable.

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-Greg

**Steve Hutchesson** · 14 Jun 2001, 03:33 AM

I agree with Chris here, hardware change over time is very substantial
and changing a HDD from an old box to a newer one is going to be
risky in some areas. If the HDD is technically compatible with the
MB, I would back up the useful stuff on the HDD somewhere and start
from scratch, fdisk, format and then install the windows version
that you want with the drivae partition setup that suits you.

I don't change machines all that often and when I do I start from scratch
with the new one so that I don't carry any problems from the last one.

The current PIII I use still works fine but it is a far more complex machine
than my last one and of course a lot larger. Because I use win95b
in preference to the later versions, most of my hardware is not detected
by win95b and there were a lot of drivers to install and get working when I
set this one up. The last machine had a 4.3 gig SCSI which would not run
on the SCSI adapter in this box anyway.

One thing I have noticed is that when a machine is new, it sometimes
misses things that normally would be read or written, they usually settle
down after a while and run for years. The other factor is that
Microsoft operating systems are not always that reliable, my spare box
is an AMD 550 that needed the patch because of the loop instruction
in the AMD.

Bottom line comment is to set the machine up from scratch and don't use
an existing HDD without reformatting it. This will save a lot of wasted
time and hassle.

Regards,

[email protected]

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**Lance Edmonds** · 14 Jun 2001, 03:54 AM

Originally posted by Ron Pierce:
There is no blanket problem with the VIA Athlon chipsets. There was some problems with The VIA KT133a Athlon chipset when used with certain motherboards and hardware (Soundblaster live). The problems are corrected.

Ron, you have to remember that the brand and type of MB's available can vary from market to market. You may not have had any problems with a small handful where you are located, but others (on this side of the world) have apparently had heaps of problems.

{added} I forgot to mention prevously that quite a few of the problems I was told about are confirmed on Release Notes/Service Bulletins made available by the distributors. From what I've been told now, there has definitely been a lot more than "one" sound-blaster problem.

Also, I'm told the problems are summountable... mostly a simple matter of patches, but probably not something a PC novice should tackle.

YMMV.

------------------
Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

**Scott Turchin** · 14 Jun 2001, 05:21 AM

hmmmmmmmm...
Perhaps the 16 bit susbsystem is corrupted...

Something about this is ringinng a big bell however, I've seen this before and cannot remember how I fixed it.

I also have an issue like this at work, not 16 bit however..

You should not *have* to have PB in the path, although it's a great idea....

PS, Yes, I've seen buggy Intel boards, I own one.... But the selection is better AT THIS POINT IN TIME...

I'll rack my brain today and post if I can remember what m ight be causing this...

PS, the other thing you *could* try, for grins, is to run scanreg.exe and restore your registry say 3 days or so and reboot......

That would *possibly* allow y our OS to re-load the proper system resources/drivers or whatever that may be causing this issue....

Assuming WIn98, use F8 on startup, choose Command prompt, type scanreg.exe and walah..

Scott

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Scott

**Guest** · 14 Jun 2001, 08:44 AM

Right Lance. But, none short of a faulty motherboard were ever unsurmountable by a knowledgable PC "builder". One should also follow the many hardware forums and review site for guidance. the lowly manufacturers should never some into play.
Anandtech or TomsHardware are good for starters. The Motherboard forums are a valuable source of information even for a novice.

There is no reason to NOT use an Athlon with VIA KT133a chipset.

**Lance Edmonds** · 14 Jun 2001, 09:35 PM

Well... depending on your perspective it could be a good reason not to use one, although it may not be a compelling reason.

For example, if you are building PC's for people who know enough to add new cards but not fix configuration problems.

However, if it is for a talented programmer like yourself (!), then, well, use anything that is blindly fast & he/she can fix the problems himself.

------------------
Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

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