Is this why my system hangs?

[Felecha]

ABIT KT7RAID, Athlon 900 TBird, 768 RAM, custom built at a local shop 4 and a half years ago.

An average of maybe once a day (but random) my system just freezes - if I'm working, the mouse just stops, the arrow freezes in the screen wherever it is, no keyboard response, dead as a dodo. If it freezes while I'm away and it's on screensaver or asleep, it will not respond to any kind of wake-up action. Nothing to do but hit the reset.

I just noticed in Event Viewer there are a number of instances of 4 consecutive red errors. I will have to wait till the next failure to see if the timing matches, but here's what it says:

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.

The other 3 have different 0x addresses - 0x70, 0xcfc, 0xcf8.

When I got the rig it was Windows 98SE and it never did this. When I got Windows 2000 Pro it started, and it now runs XP Pro and still does it. I've just lived with it all this time, but boy would I love to solve it!

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[RobbyG]

Not sure what the Event Viewer messages are, but have you taken a look at the capacitors on the board to see if they are leaking or bulging? I also had a KT7A and KT7Raid in the past and these boards are notorious for leaking caps that lead to all kind of strange errors. Abit will replace the caps for free under terms of a lawsuit so it is worth taking a look.

I did the replacement for one of my boards that was leaking pretty bad, it was pretty easy to do. Check out this website for more information:

Abit settlement

 

[Felecha]

Um, which capacitor and how do I look? I know the idea of what a capacitor is, but I don't think I could identify one. And a leak would look like . . . a dribble of something running down the board? White, green, blue? Or like a battery leak in a flashlight with crystal stuff around it?

Thanks

 

[Peter]

These aren't causing hangs. This is complaint about some ACPI scripts trying to fiddle with CMOS contents (0x70/0x71 accesses) and PCI device configuration (0xCF8, 0xCFC) (possibly chipset internals). By Windows XP book of rules, thou shalt not do this - and the accesses will not be performed, hence cannot crash the machine. That'll be solved by a BIOS update if available.

I too would look for bulging or leaking capacitors. www.badcaps.net for photos and hints. Don't forget other aging problems like clogged up heatsinks, dying fan motors, that kind of stuff.

 

[Felecha]

You mean a 4 and a half year old board is really old? But it's always been so good to me . . . !!!

 

[Felecha]

I looked at badcaps.net, so I know what to look for at home. Thanks

 

[RobbyG]

Despite the bad caps, my KT7A was one of the best boards I have ever had. Like I said before, I'm not sure if the caps have anything to do with the problems you are having, but it is worth checking out. I would also make sure you have the latest bios for the board as I recall that some of the early BIOS versions did not work well with ACPI.

Here is a link to an excellent FAQ on the KT7 Series boards, there is alot of useful information there that may help you. Good luck.

Paul's KT7 FAQ

 

[Felecha]

I've seen more than one suggestion that I update the BIOS. I've not done that since January of 2001 when it was new. I'm quite hesitant, since the only time I did an update that had the word Flash in it, I ruined a modem. I did everything very carefully according to the instructions, and when I called the manufacturer to ask about it, I got a sort of a shrugging response and an offer to send me a new chip to replace the one that was destroyed. I do not want to get into anything like that with my board.

Is flashing a BIOS really dependable by now? The FAQ indicates there is a reliable windows utility to do it.

And who has the latest? I looked on ABIT and it looks like there's nothing really recent. I found one site where they excitedly offered one dated 2004. Should I ONLY do it from ABIT directly? Is the board too old for them to still support it?

So many rookie worries . . .

 

[RobbyG]

Felecha, flashing the Bios is always risky and should only be done if you are having problems or need some new features that the new Bios offers. Abit does offer a Windows Flash utility, but I would recommend you skip that and do the flash from a DOS boot floppy as it is much safer. Before flashing your Bios I would also go through every page of the existing Bios settings and either write them down on paper or take a picture with a digital camera. After the flash you will need to double-check every setting since they will be reset to default settings (including your CPU settings).

I've done lots of Bios flashing and never had a problem, but each time I hold my breath and pray there isn't a power failure or other glitch. If you can live with the system freezing problems you described and determine that the caps are not a problem, then you should just leave things the way they are to be on the safe side.

HereHere is the link to the latest KT7-RAID Bios on Abit's site dated 07/02. Hope this info helps.

 

[Felecha]

Back home, looked at all the caps very closely, no evidence of anything like the symptoms at badcaps.net

 

[Felecha]

It's been a while, no changes, no new ideas. I did install Redhat Linux on a second hard drive to learn about it and found it will freeze there too. But curiously, only the mouse freezes - i still have the keyboard.

I read on another post recently that folks were suggesting to the poster that the power supply could be at fault.

How can I look into that? What is there to test?

 

[DJMiX]

100% sure caps are bad, don't have to look bad to be bad..


ones affected are near the cpu and near the memory...

I have recapped alot of these suckers, had one all caps look fine remove them and tested with a cap tester and all bad.

lookup the brand of the caps and do a quick search on badcaps.net

 

[Felecha]

I did a visual only, of course.

You're 100% sure?

I've read a few threads about people describing random non-bluescreen freezes and there have been a number of theories put forward. Why are you 100% sure in this case"?

And if caps are bad, is it time for a new board? It's 5 years old, but money is tight, and I'm not feeling like it's become unbearably slow at all. I don't game, I don't do graphics, theres really nothing I'm eager to speed up except rebooting

 

[Felecha]

badcaps offers cap kits. Mine would be $35. Is it something I could do reasonably? No experience, no tools, pretty good common sense and dexterity.