Soltek 85DRV5 strain

I occasionally read comp.os.linux.advocacy, a newsgroup dedicated to the promotion of the Linux operating system. Lately there has been a lot of "trolling for flames" by what looks to be someone under various aliases, but mainly coming from the same free news host. One of this troll's arguments against Linux is that you "just install Windows XP and it works." I've heard this argument before, and I'm sorry to say it doesn't hold water. I'm not saying this because I'm a Linux guy who hates Windows, I'm saying this as a technician who runs into problems with Windows XP installations. Lately I've been dealing with just such an example:

I customer brought in a Pentium 4 which kept rebooting on him. My first thought was spyware. There was spyware on the system, but the customer decided they just wanted a fresh Windows XP Home install anyway. (They actually had their original disc and license - a nice change from most people I have to turn away) Long story short, a fresh install of Windows XP Home didn't solve the rebooting problem.

To diagnose the problem I first tried running a few tools to test the memory and the client's hard drive, both passed all tests with flying colours. The key seemed to be that the system only rebooted under Windows XP, anything else (Linux Live CDs) had no problem.

After booting the system to Windows I got a screen dump with the following (edited for brevity) error:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

*** STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x00000002, 0x0000000C, 0x00000001, 0xF84CE403)
*** atapi.sys - Address F84CE403 base at F84CE000, Datestamp 367d83e5

A little investigation (Google) turned up that the problem was most likely Windows driver related. Taking the advice of one of the forum members I removed the network card and the modem from the system. Next reboot Windows XP loaded with errors, but did not reboot. I popped back in the network card, same result, XP seemed to load with an error, but it didn't restart the system unit. I decided to take the opportunity to run the Windows Updates.

After the updates were completed I shut down the system (lunch time, and I wanted to be around in case there was a hardware/heat problem - I'd already checked the system temperature a few times; but it never hurts to be cautious). When I restarted Windows rebooted. Damn! I was hoping the problem was not NIC related. But the next reboot the system seemed fine, so I tried rebooting a couple more times - no problems, not even a Windows error message.

The system has been running in XP for about 1/2 hour now, still minus the modem. The problem seems to be an issue with the PCTel modem, likely, as the board suggested, a driver issue. Others I've chatted with have a very negative view of PCTel-driven modems.

For the record, the motherboard is a SOLTEK 85DRV5 with a VT8753 Apollo P4X266 controller (VIA chipset). There is a GeForce4 MX 440 [NV17.2] with 64MB RAM in the AGP slot. The NIC has a RealTek 81390 chip. Without the PCTel (PCT789T-C1 chip) modem, the system seems to be running well.

Though the system has no problems running Linux from a Live CD, it's not the 100% Windows-compatible zealots love to believe. No operating system is perfect. I think it's more a matter of people choosing an operating system that they feel more comfortable with, or know they can get help with. I don't believe that religious wars over operating systems help anyone. Those people who spend all their time, even those paid by companies to bad mouth other companies, do more harm to themselves and their respective companies than they really do to hinder the other side. Propogation of bad mouthing just makes the fanatics on both sides become more fanatical.

Next steps are to ensure the Soltek motherboard is updated and all drivers are working 100%; then I'll try reinserting the modem.