Mem, hey well i've been out of the picture for a while for x-mas break and was wishing i'd come back to a solution but oh well. So anyway before I respond to some previous posts, i'd just like to mention that as a last resort I sent my CPU off to AMD, and of course it passed all tests w/ flying colors...just as I figured. It's back in now & froze w/in 20 minutes.
Epox recently told me to change my PSU, but that is probably pointless (?). Has anyone else w/ an X2 and the same problem tested w/ multiple power supplies to rule that out???
In regards to some other posts, here are some things I've tried:
- several versions of the nVidia nforce drivers (all those I could find), which includes all different options during the install (with & without the SW driver, firewall, etc.), so it doesn't appear to be an nvidia driver problem
- Win2000; WinXP Pro w/ SP2 preinstalled, have even (as Epox directed) installed oldest version of XP home & performed the SP1 update & applied the USB patch
- I'm using the 9NPA+SLI board (essentially same chipset?) although I've used 2 other 9NPA+ULTRA boards w/ the same problem
-disconnected ALL USB devices and enabling USB 2.0....still the same problem, although large downloads w/ a USB wireless adapter seem to cause more frequent freezing. Freezing is less frequent w/ my external 2.0 hard drive during large transfers.
- have always had SMART disabled
For those who haven't seen my old posts, I've changed every piece of hardware, some things several times, except my PSU....well that & I haven't tried a single core Athlon. For every piece of hardwire, I've used all the different drivers I could find & even taken out unnecessary hardware. I've changed nearly every BIOS setting in every menu such as turning off all non-crucial things like audio, CNQ, & legacy devices, have changed every voltage at nearly every voltage combination, & have underclocked the RAM & CPU just in case. I haven't changed the RAM timing or settings much since I'm not familiar w/ them, but have tried 2 brands of RAM.
Anyone have any idea why large downloads w/ a USB wireless adapter is almost a sure freeze, at least on my system? MEM, were you refering to something like a voltage problem worsened by high loads a while back? Could a voltage tolerance explain why it works properly only under USB 1.1??? But again it freezes w/ no USB devices attached anywhere.
Anyone tried modifying the boot.ini file to boot w/ one core???
Anyone tried another nforce 4 board??
Sorry for the long message but hopefully some of it will help. I also just called Epox & was told they are working hard on the problem right now. I've gotten to know them all well over the months & I might actually believe them. anyway that's all for now
-curran
athlon x2 3800
corsair pc3200 valueram (2x512 MB)
geforce 6600 256MB
winxp mce 2005
epox 9NPA+SLI
xclio 450W PSU