winxp hangs randomly for no reason - please help

oakstar · Post by **oakstar** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 3:26 pm

i'm running an intel p4 1.7ghz, 512mb sdram,
windows xp professional and a powersampler card.

i'll start from the top. a few months back my PS card was damaged due to a psu fail (it blew up

). anyway i got it replaced by my cw dealer.
ever since i had it (the new one) installed, winxp just hangs at any random time (no error message, the screen just freezes). at first this didn't seem to worry me too much, because it wasn't that frequent. recently in the past few days i did a format/fresh install of winxp pro, and installed sp2. i thought the format/reinstall would fix that, but it's just became worse! at least once or twice a day now i get a random hang.. for no specific reason! it is very frustrating..

i know some of you might say it's because of sp2, but as i mentioned above, it happened before that. i've tried everything i could, from tweaking my pc, to switching pci slots.

might i note that my (crappy) mobo has a built in creative soundcard that i disabled.
and this is the same mobo i used way back before the psu fail with my old card.
EDIT: (which worked perfectly)

any suggestions? i don't know what to do.. it's become very annoying.

thanks in advance.

[ This Message was edited by: oakstar on 2004-10-25 16:28 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:43 pm

if it's the same mobo driven by the PSU failing I'd guess it's a hidden damage on the mobo's IO system.
The Scope cards are very demanding regarding IO resources (and probably it's the only PCI habitant anyway) - so the damage becomes obvious only under that circumstance.
Fortunately mobo's aren't that expensive...

my 2 cents, Tom

Post by **garyb** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:02 pm

agree. are you sure there is no irq conflict?

oakstar · Post by **oakstar** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:00 am

i'm sorry. i wasn't clear enough before. i didn't mean it's the exact same mobo when the psu failed, but it was replaced to the same exact model..

and no, no irq conflicts, as far as device manager tells me

lysergide · Post by **lysergide** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:07 am

could be somehow the video card got some damage to it as well?

have u checked your system with another video card?

oakstar · Post by **oakstar** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:21 am

after the psu fail, most of my pc was damaged. so i had to replace them. besides this is a recently replaced video card: gigabyte radeon 9000 pro. now that i've checked, it IS sharing irq 11 with my powersampler. it claims to have no conflicts, although i did read up somewhere about trouble irq sharing dsp cards with a video card. i tried changing the pci slot but it remains the same irq.

more input would be appreciated.

[ This Message was edited by: oakstar on 2004-10-27 10:22 ]

lysergide · Post by **lysergide** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:17 am

well this could possibly be the problem...

it is very recommended for CW card to have its' own irq.

On what slot is the PS installed?

oakstar · Post by **oakstar** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:00 pm

powersampler is using:
PCI Slot 3 (PCI bus 0, device 7, function 0)

i installed xp in standard mode. i took a glance at my BIOS setup and under Power Management Setup it has "ACPI Function" enabled. should i disable it?

I don't know if this is relevant but in the same menu i saw: "IRQ/Event Activity Detect" and under that: "IRQs Activity Monitoring" which reads:

Primary INTR - on
IRQ3 (COM2) - Disabled
IRQ4 (COM1) - Enabled
IRQ5 (LPT2) - Enabled
IRQ6 (Floppy Disk) - Enabled
IRQ7 (LPT1) - Enabled
IRQ8 (RTC Alarm) - Disabled
IRQ9 (IRQ2 Redir) - Disabled
IRQ10 (Reserved) - Disabled
IRQ11 (Reserved) - Disabled
IRQ12 (PS/2 Mouse) - Enabled
IRQ13 (Coprocessor) - Enabled
IRQ14 (Hard Disk) - Enabled
IRQ15 (Reserved) - Disabled

i have a feeling this has nothing to do with my problem, but i'm trying anyway. i hope this helps.
thanks again.

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:04 pm

Do you have a MIDI device plugged in? If so, unplug it and see if your computer freezes again. If it only freezes with MIDI plugged in, switch to Standard PC. I had all kinds of freeze trouble before I switched to Standard PC.
No freezes anymore, smooth sailing, damn the torpeoes and full-steam ahead, and whatever other cliché you want to put in there.

oakstar · Post by **oakstar** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:10 pm

On 2004-10-27 13:00, oakstar wrote:
i installed xp in standard mode. i took a glance at my BIOS setup and under Power Management Setup it has "ACPI Function" enabled. should i disable it?

Paul, that's what i did.. i installed in Standard PC mode from fresh. but mayne if i disable the ACPI function it would help? i mean if i'm in standard pc mode, why would i need that enabled? (of course i haven't tried yet since i'm no bios expert, waiting for feedback)

EDIT: oh and it freezes without any MIDI devices plugged in. i don't even have to be in nuendo for it to freeze..

[ This Message was edited by: oakstar on 2004-10-27 13:13 ]

Post by **garyb** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:55 pm

definitely irq conflict. change slots. yes, plug and play/ acpi should be disabled. disable any ports that you are not using.

oakstar · Post by **oakstar** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:16 pm

well i think i did it! i disabled acpi, and disabled various ports like com1&2,lpt1&2 which i don't currently need. i rebooted and Powersampler moved to irq 9 (not sharing with anything else)
i sure hope this fixes my problems and (wont have to continue this thread)

thanks to all who contributed!!!