Just purchased an Athlon 650 Mhz CPU and FIC SD-11 Mobo to upgrade my
existing WORKING system:  128 MB Micron PC100 RAM, 48X Creative CD-ROM
(Alone on IDE2), Matrox G400 32 MB Max AGP card, Diamond Sonic Impact S90
Sound Card, D-Link 530TX 10/100 NIC, 18.6 GB WD UDMA/66 HD (master on IDE1)
and 13.5 GB IBM UDMA/66 HD (Slave on IDE1) along with an Enlight Case with a
G250 PowerSupply (On AMD's approves P/S list).  I wanted to preserve my
existing Windows setup if possible so I attempted to remove all hardare in
Device Manager and let Windows 98 detect the new hardware. This was a
complete failure as Win98 would spontanteously reboot each time it tried to
detect the new hardware, resulting in a corrupt Windows directory.  OK, I
figured it was worth a shot, and it didn't work.  I formatted C:\ and tried
to reinstall Windows 98 SE clean--Setup would copy all files to the HD,
however, again when Windows Setup tried to detect and setup my hardware, it
would reboot throughout the process.  After checking a few message boards,
it seems the FIC board may be very sensitive to memory, so I replaced the
Memory with an identical 128 MB Micron chip, but moved it to the 3rd bank
(from the first).  Success (so I thought), I was able to install Win98, load
the FIC AGP miniport Driver and the 3-1 driver supplied with the
motherboard.  Reboot, setup my NIC, load my sound drivers etc, then I surf
the web to see how things are working.  About 4 minutes into the session,
reboot again.  Now, when I turn on the PC, Win98 loads to the point of my
intro music (which plays), then reboots (no GPF, Protection errors, just a
reboot). This makes me think I have a hardware problem...however when I boot
into safe mode, the PC will run for hours, making me think I have a Driver
issue.  Does anyone have experience with this board and setup and/or any
advice on how I might continue to troublehsoot this. It's not possible for
me to swap the CPU or MOBO with known working ones as they are new and I
don't have old ones to use.

Dan Shaughnessy

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