Problem with K7S5A System

I was wondering if anyone can help me here. My system is:

K7S5A motherboard, 1.1 Gh CPU, 256 SDRam, 60 Gig HD, running Windows
98 SE. It has been running well for almost 2 years; I had not
reformatted my drive since June of 2002.
Just a couple of weeks ago I upgraded my Bios to the Oct 29/02
version, as I was planning to get a new CPU. Everything still ran
well, until various games did not load up, the screen would darken and
the system would freeze. 2 games ran okay (Sims, DS9 Dominion Wars)
but only if I ran them within a window. I then reformatted the
computer. I have no problems running my other applications, but the
same problem still exists with the games.
I'm sure this has to do with the new Bios; prior to that all my
games ran well. I tried to revert back to my old Bios from January
2002, but the same problem persisted. Does anyone have any
suggestions on what to do here?

Thanks,
Keith

PS (Please post any solutions here, as the above email address here is
dead due to being clogged with spam.)

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 16:12:34 -0800, Plantagenet while doing time wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone can help me here. My system is:
>
> K7S5A motherboard, 1.1 Gh CPU, 256 SDRam, 60 Gig HD, running Windows 98
> SE. It has been running well for almost 2 years; I had not reformatted my
> drive since June of 2002.
> Just a couple of weeks ago I upgraded my Bios to the Oct 29/02
> version, as I was planning to get a new CPU. Everything still ran well,
> until various games did not load up, the screen would darken and the
> system would freeze. 2 games ran okay (Sims, DS9 Dominion Wars) but only
> if I ran them within a window. I then reformatted the computer. I have
> no problems running my other applications, but the same problem still
> exists with the games.
> I'm sure this has to do with the new Bios; prior to that all my
> games ran well. I tried to revert back to my old Bios from January 2002,
> but the same problem persisted. Does anyone have any suggestions on what
> to do here?
>
Are the games faulty with the new cpu and bios or just the bio? Are 100%
you flashed the correct bios for your board? Did you reset the bios
after you flashed the bios by either "set defaults in bios screen" or by
moving the bios shipping pin? If you backed up your original bios you
could flash the original bios back and see if that fixes the problem.

Before you do that you might try Memtest86 on the memory, clean disk,
chkdisk and dfrag the hd. I'd do the maintenance from safe mode.


> Thanks,
> Keith
>
> PS (Please post any solutions here, as the above email address here is
> dead due to being clogged with spam.)

I ended up reflashing the 021029.rom Bios with the aminf335.exe from
the ecsusa.com site, rather than the main Taiwan site. I also
disabled the onboard sound, lan and modem that I never use and so far,
the games have been running well. I wonder if it had more to do with
the type of aminf33x program that I was using; prior to that I tried
adjusting the settings in the Bios screen to resetting the CMOS.

Thanks to those that responded.

Keith