Post-upgrade stability issues (freezes, reboots, STOP errors)

[Journeyman]

Recently I upgraded my Duron 750@950 to an XP 1600+ and added an extra 512 megs of RAM to my system. Since, I've been having some stability issues when doing more demanding types of things, specifically running 3dMark 2001 and performing operations on large image files in Photoshop 6. 3dMark 2001 freezes while loading all but the first tests (the two with the truck). Photoshop generally either reboots, or BSODs with a stop error - the most recent of which was a KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. At first I thought these problems might be due to an inadequate power supply - I was only running a 250W - but my new 400W arrived today and hasn't helped at all.

My BIOS is the latest verison, and all drivers (including the 4-in-1s are the newest available non-betas).

System details:
IWILL KK266
Athlon XP 1600+ (formerly Duron 750@950)
512MB, 256MB, 128MB PC133 SDRAM (formerly less the 512MB)
7200 RPM 30GB Maxtor HDD
5400 RPM 20GB Maxtor HDD
12x LiteOn burner
12x AOpen DVD-ROM
ATI Radeon VE 32MB
Linksys LNE100TX NIC
Canon USB Scanner
Wacom Graphire 2 tablet
running Windows 2000 Professional (same problems under XP)

Any thoughts?

I guess I'm about to throw the Duron back in and see if that fixes the problem...

 

[poppasp1ce]

It might be your mismatched RAM. Have you tried with just your new stick of 512? Have you tried taking out your new stick and running with just your old RAM config? At first I thought it could be your PSU (as the jump from Duron to Athlon is a big jump in power), but then I read the rest of your post. Try the RAM thing.

 

[Journeyman]

RAM's fine... I actually added the 512mb stick after the processor, and it was having problems before the RAM was added.

I've got the Duron back in now, and the system's solid as a rock. The only things that are changed are the FSB jumper (at 100mhz now vs 133 with the XP) and the CPU itself. I'm gonna see about RMAing the CPU on Friday. Hopefully I just got a bad one.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you haven,t read it yet, I definitely recommend you checkout this KK266 FAQs and Guide it's an impressive database for your board. Perhaps it'll prove of some assistance.

 

[Journeyman]

Thanks for the link... The FAQ didn't have an answer, but one of the forums it linked to might...

Gonna try reinstalling and lowering (?) my VCore. We'll see! *shrug*

EDIT: lowering the VCore to 1.6 (1.63 actual) eliminated my 3dMark problems, but I'm still having problems with Photoshop... The most recent STOP error was "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL".

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Do you have these patches installed? or are both included with SP2?Win 2000
VIA AGP Chipset Driver Update: When you run a program that uses 3D AGP functions on a Windows 2000-based computer that contains the VIA AGP chip set, the computer may stop responding (hang). This problem is caused by incomplete support for the VIA chip set in the Windows 2000-based AGP drivers. The fix for this problem adds support for the VIA AGP chip set.
Microsoft Windows 2000 Patch for AGP Applications on AMD Athlon Processors and AMD Duron Processors: An issue has been identified that could result in the corruption of video data shared between AGP graphics adapters and AMD Athlon? or AMD Duron? processors when running Microsoft Windows®2000 Professional, Windows®2000 Server, or Windows®2000 Advanced Server. This issue is independent of system chipset and has been observed when running Ziff-Davis 3D Winbench?2000 and Mad Onion 3DMark? 2000 in benchmarking mode.
If not perhaps they will resolve the problem.

 

[Journeyman]

I've got every patch available from MS's Windows Update site available. Thanks for the reply, though!

I just stuck the XP back in - I've got a hot tip from another user at the AMDMb forums who had the same problem with Photoshop and solved it by deleting the MMXCore plugin from Photoshop.

*fingers crossed* Will report back for posterity after I try it out.

EDIT: for the record, deleting (or removing from the Plugins directory tree) the MMXCore plugin from Photoshop 6.0\Plug-Ins\Adobe Photoshop Only\Extensions does seem to have fixed the problems. I'm up and running, and enjoying my newfound speed. Yay!

Thanks again to everyone who posted to help out. Anandtech Forums has some of the best people around.