I think I'm having compatibility problems between Windows XP and an ABIT BX-133 RAID motherboard. I've got the most recent motherboard BIOS (ber.72) and drivers for all my hardware. Windows XP is crashing at frequent, random intervals to a blue screen that only says:
"Hardware malfunction. The system has stopped responding. Contact your hardware vendor for assistance."
The System Event Log has this error at random intervals:
"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0x71), which lies in the 0x70 - 0x71 protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance."
There's no pattern to when or what triggers the crash; it happens in audio, video, or office programs at different times, or when the PC is doing nothing. No other hardware or software is causing any problems.
The erros in the Event Log are sometimes 5 minutes in between, sometimes 45 minutes or longer. It doesn't crash every time this error is logged.Sometimes I can go for several hours without a crash (even when Errors are logged), some nights it crashes every few minutes for long stretches.
I removed all non-essential hardware and software and did a clean install and kept getting the same error (down to mobo, CPU, 1 EIDE hard drive, 1 stick of 256 RAM, and ATI video card. I swapped out my 2 RAM sticks as well). It doesn't seem to matter whether the PC is doing nothing or I'm running audio and video applications simultaneously.
My same hardware/software setup (including the BX-133) and all my other hardware worked OK on Windows 98 (specs below).
This problem began during the first time I did a clean installation of WinXP. I disabled ACPI in the BIOS and during installation chose the
"Standard PC" option and disabled ACPI. It crashed during several installation attempts with the above blue screen message; I don't think I ever made it through the whole installation. Then I tried combinations of enabling/disabling ACPI in the BIOS with choosing Standard PC or default install. The only combination that is stable for more than a moment is with ACPI enabled in the BIOS and installed and active in Windows. That's the setup I've got now.
Also, I've read that one thing ACPI does (and the main problem with it?) is it puts everying on one IRQ. Well, I've got ACPI
enabled and my hardware is on lots of different IRQs, nearly identical to how they laid out with in Windows 98. Does that mean anything? Is my mobo old enough to treat this differently?
Please let me know if I'm leaving out some important information. I'm prepared to get a new motherboard (and CPU while I'm at it!) to get stability.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Specs
WinXP Home
PIII 933 Mhz
Abit BX-133 Raid Mobo
512 MBs RAM
SB Live value
Gina 20
ATI Radeon 64
US Robotics 56K modem
Adaptec 2940 SCSI card
"Hardware malfunction. The system has stopped responding. Contact your hardware vendor for assistance."
The System Event Log has this error at random intervals:
"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0x71), which lies in the 0x70 - 0x71 protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance."
There's no pattern to when or what triggers the crash; it happens in audio, video, or office programs at different times, or when the PC is doing nothing. No other hardware or software is causing any problems.
The erros in the Event Log are sometimes 5 minutes in between, sometimes 45 minutes or longer. It doesn't crash every time this error is logged.Sometimes I can go for several hours without a crash (even when Errors are logged), some nights it crashes every few minutes for long stretches.
I removed all non-essential hardware and software and did a clean install and kept getting the same error (down to mobo, CPU, 1 EIDE hard drive, 1 stick of 256 RAM, and ATI video card. I swapped out my 2 RAM sticks as well). It doesn't seem to matter whether the PC is doing nothing or I'm running audio and video applications simultaneously.
My same hardware/software setup (including the BX-133) and all my other hardware worked OK on Windows 98 (specs below).
This problem began during the first time I did a clean installation of WinXP. I disabled ACPI in the BIOS and during installation chose the
"Standard PC" option and disabled ACPI. It crashed during several installation attempts with the above blue screen message; I don't think I ever made it through the whole installation. Then I tried combinations of enabling/disabling ACPI in the BIOS with choosing Standard PC or default install. The only combination that is stable for more than a moment is with ACPI enabled in the BIOS and installed and active in Windows. That's the setup I've got now.
Also, I've read that one thing ACPI does (and the main problem with it?) is it puts everying on one IRQ. Well, I've got ACPI
enabled and my hardware is on lots of different IRQs, nearly identical to how they laid out with in Windows 98. Does that mean anything? Is my mobo old enough to treat this differently?
Please let me know if I'm leaving out some important information. I'm prepared to get a new motherboard (and CPU while I'm at it!) to get stability.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Specs
WinXP Home
PIII 933 Mhz
Abit BX-133 Raid Mobo
512 MBs RAM
SB Live value
Gina 20
ATI Radeon 64
US Robotics 56K modem
Adaptec 2940 SCSI card
