I have two PT800CE-A(1.0) motherboards with 1.1a BIOS. One uses high speed and works well, the other one uses a PCI Modem and crashes with blue screen Hardware Malfunction or Reboots itself intermittantly when ever the PCI Modem is used... while dialing or as long as 2 hours into Modem use... usually within several minutes... Netscape & Explorer both, but never using an external high speed cable modem. The crasher also fails to boot after saving a regular bios change (like changing the clock time... pressing Reset recovers). I have tried every component from mine in his and nothing component wise fixes it his PCI Modem troubles. 3 different bran new Modems, two new mb's, even RAM, CPU and Power Supply ruled out now.
I read a thread here called PT800CE-A motherboard installed with problems... it describes PCI wireless NIC's causing the exact same crashes and reboots... and it describes how bios saves with succsessful reboot problem at least is fixed in 1.1E bios release. PCI bus crashes described there seem to be the same symptoms I see when using PCI Modem cards in this mb. I am hoping 1.1e bios will fix the crashes, but ECS support does not think 1.1e will address this... BUT there 5 fixes listed within 1.1E which do not list the bios failing to save as a problem (or fix) or just failing to reboot after saving OK. The thread says it does fix this bios save... maybe it can fix the PCI bus too?
I will try this 1.1E bios update for the bios not rebooting after saving OK at least, then if PCI crashes not fixed, I will try adding a PCI modem and dial up acct to mu box before attempting to re-install WinXP without any PCI card installed as ECS Support suggests.
PS: WOWarcraft CD install problems I also have might also be adressed with 1.1E per 'DDR400 RAM compatibility with some Prescott CPU's is listed as a fix... and ditching 400DDR RAM is the only known work around to allow WOW to install when it won't otherwise install. I will update here if this allows WOW install with DDR400 installed at same time or not, soon. I will also update here the results trying to solve the Modem problem. Has anyone ever figured out how to make the PCI work well on these mb's? or has anyone else shad this PCI Modem problem and solved it? Thank you for your help.
CutFinger
I read a thread here called PT800CE-A motherboard installed with problems... it describes PCI wireless NIC's causing the exact same crashes and reboots... and it describes how bios saves with succsessful reboot problem at least is fixed in 1.1E bios release. PCI bus crashes described there seem to be the same symptoms I see when using PCI Modem cards in this mb. I am hoping 1.1e bios will fix the crashes, but ECS support does not think 1.1e will address this... BUT there 5 fixes listed within 1.1E which do not list the bios failing to save as a problem (or fix) or just failing to reboot after saving OK. The thread says it does fix this bios save... maybe it can fix the PCI bus too?
I will try this 1.1E bios update for the bios not rebooting after saving OK at least, then if PCI crashes not fixed, I will try adding a PCI modem and dial up acct to mu box before attempting to re-install WinXP without any PCI card installed as ECS Support suggests.
PS: WOWarcraft CD install problems I also have might also be adressed with 1.1E per 'DDR400 RAM compatibility with some Prescott CPU's is listed as a fix... and ditching 400DDR RAM is the only known work around to allow WOW to install when it won't otherwise install. I will update here if this allows WOW install with DDR400 installed at same time or not, soon. I will also update here the results trying to solve the Modem problem. Has anyone ever figured out how to make the PCI work well on these mb's? or has anyone else shad this PCI Modem problem and solved it? Thank you for your help.
CutFinger