PCA Forums

yo. I just got a new mobo (asus P4T-E) and cpu and ram and now my machine randomly locks up in windows. But it's much more funky than that. I have Win2000, and at first I thought it had gotten messed up cause i was getting inaccessable_boot_device errors. I fixed that and it was fine for a weekend. Then on a monday after the weekend, i installed my other cdrom and it started locking up. Now that I think about it, however, i also installed the chipset drivers and hdd controller drivers that came on the cd with the mobo. Nothing i tried seemed to fix this problem. Oddly, it would only lock up when i was browsing the web in IE or looking through my hdd's in explorer. I could play games forever and it would run fine. I disconnected everything except the hdd and vid card and it still locked up. So, I was thinking that the 2000 install got messed up, so I formatted and reinstalled 2000 w/ sp2. So i'm going and loading drivers and whatnot and it seems to be running fine, but then of course it locked up again. Now, the hdd controller drivers that are on the cd are kinda old, so I went to intel's website and got newer drivers and installed those and it still locked up. What i'm really wondering is could new drivers that are made for the chip on my mobo cause my machine to lock, while the generic win2k drivers work just fine? If so, it doesn't make sense and i'm confused. I'm thinking it's either the drivers or the hdd itself that's a problem. I'm going to reinstall when i get home from work tonight and not install new drivers for the hdd controller and see what happens. Any other ideas before i do?

~ChuckD

this is a tough one. seems like you tried almost everything except kicking your system :-)

anyway one of my systems would also randomly "lock-up" for no apparent reason whether it be browsing or gaming. like you i tried almost evrything from re-formatting to removing all the cards and motherboard. after putting everything all back it worked fine for a couple of hours before it locked up again. i got pissed and just whacked the damn case on its side :-)

guess what................. after rebooting from the smack i gave it, it's been lock-up free for almost a month !!!!!!!!

now of course you don't have to take my advice seriously but it worked for me :-) just like kids sometimes they just need a "good smack on the head" (although i really think i just knocked something into it's place by smacking my computer)

good luck!!!!!!!!!

here's some advice you can consider... have you tried diff. ram????

even different IDE cables fix's this some times...I even had a bad molex plug off my powersuply messing with me for a while. lots of strange things to try. Good luck. hope you dont have to do a full formay.

Greg

Actually, i have both kicked it and smacked it, but neither has worked for very long. I have not tried new ram, but if ram is the problem, then wouldn't it lock up in the games too? I will try new ide cables when i get home. I guess i can also try to turn off the dma modes on the hdd's. Maybe i should just smack it a little harder next time?

`ChuckD