stupid computer keeps freezing

[DavidRCT]

i recently built a computer with a SOYO Dragon motherboard with an Athlon XP 1700+ CPU. I used a case my friend gave me but the fan made weird noises and the power source died so i got a new case. Now it starts fine but if i play some games for a while the computer will freeze or some time when I play some mp3s the stupid thing freezes too. I don't know why it's doing this, it never used to freeze before in the other case. Can anybody tell me what's causing this constant freezing and what i can do to stop it? thanks

Dave:cool:

[bushmaster]

When ya did your new build, did you also do a fresh install of your os or did you just move your old hd over with all of the old drivers and such on it?

[DavidRCT]

yea, i just moved everything over to new case, i didn't reinstall anything. You think that if i format my HDD and reinstall Windows it would help?

Dave:cool:

[Bellbus]

A new case does not constitute new hardware - a new motherboard would - an OS reinstall should not be required.

Hangs are usually caused by either overheating or resource conflict.

Check the ventilation in the new case is not obstructed by IDE cables or anything like that. Athlons run very hot and need a lot of ventilation, expecially newer chips.

Check that the power supply in your machine is at least a 300watt (you can get away with 250Watt sometimes, but they can cause problems).

Go to Control Panel - System - Devices and check for any yellow exclamation marks indicating a conflict on a piece of hardware.

You may also want to double check the settings you have on the motherboard, just to check you haven't set the chip wrong.

[Mafiosy]

The problem is because of enormous heat of the CPU,
Try to open the case and run a huge fan over the motherboard!:)
It may be funny for you but few of my friends got rid of the same problem this way ! ;)

[Commandos]

Agree that it's a heat problem.when you are playing games or MP3's,this will cause definitely load on the CPU ,and combining a good heat sink and a perfect fan will solve the problem.

[JDT]

If you just moved your HD over to the new system without deleting the old hardware entries, then you are probably having conflicts.
Your best bet is to (1) wipe the HD, or (2) go into the registry....
HKEY_LOCAL MACHINE
ENUM
and delete this folder (enum). This contains all the hardware info.
Reboot and windows will reinstall everything. Have your disks ready to reinstall all the drivers, including the ones for the motherboard.

[Mafiosy]

Originally posted by JDT
[2) go into the registry....
HKEY_LOCAL MACHINE
ENUM
and delete this folder (enum). This contains all the hardware info.
Reboot and windows will reinstall everything. Have your disks ready to reinstall all the drivers, including the ones for the motherboard. [/B]

Thats not it but very helpfull info , thanks JDT

[bushmaster]

He had said he moved his hard drive contents over to the new mobo and cpu which means there are also driver conflicts occuring which along with heat will cause a system to hang, freeze, and crash.. but then again it mat not be heat...along with the soyo motherboard you have a drivers and utility cdthat covers alot of soyo boards but it will auto detect what board you have and show you what drivers to load. Also check the device manager and you might have to manually update the drivers through there even though you seemed to have loaded them with th cd itself. I exclusively use soyo mobos and have discovered quite a few little tricks to make them run almost trouble free.

[DavidRCT]

I went to System and it shows about three conflicts: "Printer Port - device not present, not wroking properly or does not have all the drivers intalled", "Paraller port ATAPI Adapter" - same problem as previous, "Wave Device for Voice Modem - the drivers for this device are not installed". Would any or all of these conflicts have anything to do with my computer freezing? what can i do to fix these problems?

[rextex]

You need to install the motherboard drivers.Did you already?Then you need to either redo the hard drive or try the delete "enum" key for windows to retect and build a new profile for the devices.
You can't just swap a HDD to another motherboard and expect it to work!
Sorry, but I hope you understand this.The motherboard drivers for the new board MUST be installed.

[[KMAC] STAN]

It MAY be a heat problem (not definate)

It is NOT a hardware conflict as it worked fine in the other Case (only the case has changed people)

It MAY be the power supply not being 300watt (as per Bellbus` advice)



Check the power supply is meaty enough first.

Then look into the cooling.

Do NOT wipe your hard-drive (at least for now).

[DavidRCT]

the motherboard only came with one CD and i already installed everything that came in the CD and it still doesn't help. The freezing is not a constant thing, for example, i was on it the other day and i played a game for like 45 minutes before it froze, then i rebooted it and went on the internet for like an hour and a half without ever freezing, i even played mp3's while i surfed and it didn't freeze. What the hell is wrong with this?

[Bellbus]

I'm not too sure where people are getting that you have switched you motherboard, your description mentions your swapped the case.

You can get resource conflicts KMAC Stan because he may not have put the PCI cards back into the same PCI slots when he put the machine back together after swapping the case. For example, the modem was in PCI slot 1 and was put back together in PCI slot 2. Each PCI slot mayl be allocated resources differently.

But the errors should be able to be cleared by:

Make sure the BIOS is set to PNP OS = enabled
If your not using it, disable COM 2 in the BIOS, this will free up some resources. You can always stick it back on after.

Remove any entries that have a error individually and then Reboot the system.

This is done by:

Control Panel
System
Devices
Highlight the device
Click remove
Reboot

Windows should now redetect and install the correct hardware settings.

The Wave Device is from you modem usually, so I'd remove this and reboot. You will then be asked for the modem CD.

I still reckon its either Overheating, Power Supply too weedy or a resource conflict (which would be strange if it worked ok in the previous case).

[Bellbus]

A last minute thought:

I hope you do know that Athlons now use a Performance Rating, so a 1700+ doesn't actually run at 1700Mhz, but something lower.

I'm not too sure if the motherboard autodetects chips nowadays, but in the days of the Socket 7 Cyrix chips, which also used a PR Rating, you wouldn't believe the number of people that made that mistake.

If your CPU is overclocked, that will also cause heating problems.

[[KMAC] STAN]

Its all auto these days Bellbus, so it wont be that.

[TARP2]

I had a similar problem with random blue screens on my 1.4 amd. I noticed the lockups during gaming sessions. I ended up replacing the HS cooling fan with a Volcano 6 ( about twice the cfm of the puny stock fan) and I reseated the cpu with
Arctic silver after fully removing the oem thermal pad. I also installed another 80mm fan blowing out of the case. This dropped the cpu temp dramatically, and reduced lockups from 2-3 times a session, to none. I'm convinced it was an air flow problem, and if your case is the major difference in configuration, I would give cooling a try. It can only help, and is relatively inexpensive. Maybe $15-20 .
Good luck..

[x51out]

I had the same problem, with the 1400T-Bird cooking itself under a stock-coolermaster. Glaciator2 took care of the heat-related lockups, which reminds me: AMD specs rate this processor at max op temp way over 70C, but in reality it began locking up at 50C. I will also never stop blaming Windows for most freezes; heck, I still get micro-lockups on occasion (at 512mbRAM), and I keep my system very streamlined. But from the sound of it, his problem would be heat. In my humble experience, conflicts cause system instability relatively quick.

[DavidRCT]

so which fan do you recommend i get for my Athlon XP 1700+?

[x51out]

Depends on how much you want to spend. Also, the XP line of Athlon processors DO NOT run as hot as the older T-Birds, so as luck would have it, you might not even need to dish out $33 for a Millenium Glaciator 2 (in my case). First step is downloading Motherboard Monitor (MBM 5) and setting it all up per directions to see the development of temp. Just try to get a good draft going in your case, you know, for $10 you could purchase two 80mm case fans, one for blowing in and one for blowing out. Just the other day I dropped the temp 5 degrees C just by blasting the dust off all components (and re-setting the heatsink). Anyway, those lockups of yours might be a mix of problems. To me, tweaking Windows is absolutely essential, as the default settings are often the cause of problems and unresponsiveness. What OS are you using? If XP, here is a link:http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/:cool:

[TARP2]

I'd recommend a Thermaltake Volcano 7. Thats 46 cfm for about $22.00 plus shipping. We just installed one on an XP1700, and it cools just fine.Don't bother with the Volcano 7+. At $49.00 I think its overkill.

Tarp

[DavidRCT]

i don't think it's a cooling problem, the other day i took one of those room fans and opened my case and blasted the fan directly at my motherboard and after like 5 minutes of booting it froze again. Do u think it could be a bad RAM chip? just an idea. The temperature program says my system is running at 35 C and my CPU at 39-40 C. any help would be apreciated, this i s driving me crazy. thanks

Dave:cool:

[x51out]

This might sound like a very stupid question, but have you recently checked the IDE cable to your HDD? Is it plugged in correctly, i.e. the right connector to to right device (not interchangeable) and is it seated correctly? Other than that, I don't remember if you mentioned any error messages.

[DavidRCT]

it hink the IDE calbe is alright because it boots into windows and then it stays in the desktop and it works fine until i try to play a game or surf the internet. I mean, i can go and play like windows games like solitaire and stuff and even write Word documents no problem, it's only when i start a big application like a game or internet explorer. that's why i was thinking it could be a bad RAM chip.

[HRM]

I would try a new CPU cooler and some arctic silver. The CPU could still get too hot even with fans blowing on the board. As the summer approaches heat will be an issue..so even if it is not this problem, it still is a good idea to upgrade to a good HS.

If you are lucky, that will fix your troubles, I think it is a very likely suspect.

[bushmaster]

Go to www.simmtester.com (http://) and download doc memory and check your memory from dos to either find the bad ram or rule out bad ram as your problem

[Motta]

For me it's a memory problem. I have a SOYO DRAGON and tryed a generic samsung RAM and got lots of lockups, now I only uses Crucial.

[DavidRCT]

i'm getting tired of this ****, nothing seems to fix it. I even took it to a local computer shop and had them repair it and whn i picked it up and took it back to my house it froze again. So there i went back to the store and they said it might be Windows Me and they had me reformat my hard drive and put Windows 2000 Pro on it. I did that and it still froze. So I took it back today and they said they were gonna repair it and that's where it is right now. They're gonna probably charge me a fortune and it might still not work. **** it, I'm gonna take that stupid computer and hit it as hard as i can with a baseball bat and go buy me a Dell.

[Rugor]

If you think you have problems now---


Just wait until you get a Dell

[Strawbs]

You won't be upgrading your Dell at any future point in time , you know that don't you? :eek:

Windows Me has a tendency to lock up when run for extended periods, there is a patch for it on the M$ upgrade site.

Having said that, it could be a Graphics card problem, Is the card seated properly, or is it a cheapo\old card. :cool:

[DavidRCT]

i have a NVIDIA TNT2 32mb SDRAM. i know it's not the best out there but it's not that cheap ( i think).

[DavidRCT]

once again i brought back from the shop where they said it was fixed and after like 30 minutes of running it, it froze again. They've done almost everything at the shop and it still freezes. Could this be a memory problem? or maybe the mobo? I suspect it has somehting to do with the sudden power cut-off it had on the other case when my power source died in the middle of a game. I need help!!! i'm gonna go buy a baseball bat today just to have it ready when i bring it back from the shop for the 300th time.

[Rugor]

I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't a problem with your house wiring not giving clean enough power for it.

I don't want to tell you go out and buy a UPS just on that suspicion though.

[Mafiosy]

try to decrease clocking...try to replace memory ramsticks

[dawgtuff]

Did the shop try another video card? One that's more recent perhaps?

[DavidRCT]

i just took it back today and they said they didn't know anything else they could do to it that it was just a normal thing that happened often (MAJOR B.S). I told them i wanted my money back then because i paid for something i didn't get. I called them and they ssaid they were trying to make it lock up but it wasn't locking. But when it did, they were gonna try to replace the ramstick (it's only one since i only have one 128mb). We'll just have to wait and see, maybe i'll try another video card.

[Ifish25]

I may have missed this suggestion, but I would go to BIOS and set system to Fail-Safe Defaults. This may also "dumb" down some of your speed options on memory. I do not know how Soyo DRAGON BIOS works with the DDRAM. Running Soyo K7VTA Pro or ECS K7S5A with heavy arcade gaming may cause freeze up after 10 minutes or so even with heat in spec. I dumbed down my K7S5A to BIOS to read as PC100 on memory and had no problems. I have yet to figure this one out. If it works, you can at least guess that the problem is sync oriented.