OK, I know I'm a cheap loser so please don't laff at me for paying $20 at
Fry's for this new motherboard.
I had a working AMD Athlon 2600+ CPU from a dead MB and a spare 512 meg
stick of PC2100 to use so I thought I'd just try and make a bargain PC using
the ECS K7VTA3 MB.
Boy, big mistake.
I set it up with Win XP Pro, slapped the MB driver CD in it to get going,
then slipped SP2 into it for a good start on using the full capacity of the
160 meg drive I was using.
Now, up rises the problem.
Pre-Sp2 the USB ports were working OK on 1.1 (meaning slow) and I had a
yellow explanation mark on an unknown device (which I surmised was the 2.0
root hub). After SP1, I did an update of the driver, let it hit the web to
find the correct one from M$ and it seemed to load a good driver - the USB
2.0 driver entry in the Device Driver section looked like it was satisfied
(yellow explanation mark went away). BUT, now, when I insert any USB device
I hang the PC immediately. It requires a cold reboot to resume operation
(after removing the USB device). A warm reboot or reset results in a goofy
Chinese error message like - "Award CMOS Bootblock checksum error- you're
velly sorrily screwed." I tried to flash the BIOS with an update but
apparently the new version doesn't like me - it says "Failed, wrong
checksum, Aborted!"
Weird. No jumpers to prevent flashing, either.
I've Googled several similar USB 2.0 errors concerning the VIA chipset
VT8235 and even had some reports that M$ has hotfix files available, but
cannot confirm that. Has anyone else run across this piece of junk and made
it work? I have RMA-ed this one (new one arrives Wednesday) but figure the
next one's gonna be a clone so I will probably be wasting even more time
fighting a windmill.
Any ideas?
Anyone got these "Hotfix" files?
Anyone got an extra MB that I can have? j/k (Unless you do...)
This MB seems to run well other than the USB 2.0 problem.
TIA,
Bruce
P.S.
To further compound the mess, the Motherboard is stamped REV 6.0 and the box
says Rev 8.0c/6
What the heck?
But neither Bios (6.0 or 8.0) will flash.
I think the Bios is scrogged, the VIA 8235 chipset is buggy and the M$
drivers are kinky.
If it wasn't for the challenge I'd just return this bugger and get a better
MB. I shall be doing just that if it has the same problem this one has.
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