Random Reboot: ACPI Error

[Phew]

I am getting random system reboots. I have had no changes in hardware, drivers, BIOS, etc for over a year. My hardware is:

Epox 8k7a Mobo
2x256 Crucial PC 2100
AMD Thunderbird 1.4 GHz, not overclocked
WD 40 GB HD
Elsa Geforce 3, old drivers
Sparkle 300-something W PSU (Rails read 3.33V, 4.83V, 11.6V)
WinXP

CPU temp stays below 50C, case temps are low. For all the reboots, Event Viewer says:

AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0xcfc), which lies in the 0xcf8 - 0xcff protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.

My guess this is a memory problem and I need to swap DIMMS out to find the bad one. Any other ideas?

Thanks

 

[KGB]

Phew,

Download MemTest86 and run it.
It creates a bootable floppy that will test your DIMMs.

 

[rbV5]

I had that same issue with my FIC VIA board. I switched to a Standard PC HAL from ACPI and its been rock stable since. It was an issue that haunted me for quite some time before I just went ahead a switched HAL's.

 

[Phew]

Sorry rb, that was over my head. What do HAL and ACPI mean, and how did you do what you did?

Thanks

 

[SemperFi]

Standard hal and acpi is how windows interacts with your motherboards power features. The setting can be changed in your bios in the power section. Doing this requires you to reinstall windows so don't change it too quickly. Back up what you need.

Actually I don't even know if bios change is necessecary. When you boot the windows cd you can press one of the function buttons I think it is either F4 or F5 and windows will offer a choice for the setting.

Someone will offer up more detail.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Phew
Sorry rb, that was over my head. What do HAL and ACPI mean, and how did you do what you did?

Thanks

HAL is the Hardware Abstraction Layer...basically it provides software access to the hardware.
ACPI is the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface pretty much makes it transparent to the user, Standard PC HAL is a more basic type, you'll have to assign IRQ's and have less power management features basically.

I did a repair installation of Windows XP using the Windows XP CD. You have to makes sure you have boot to CD enabled in the bios at the top of the boot order. When it asks to "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver" press F5 instead and pick Standard PC from the menu. You also want to install XP do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R"

Blaster worm warning: Do not immediately activate over the internet when asked, enable the XP firewall before connecting to the internet. You can activate after the firewall is enabled. Control Panel - Network Connections. Right click the connection you use, Properties, and there is a check box on the Advanced page.

You'll need to reinstall service packs and probably some drivers. Your programs and settings should be intact.

Go google " repair install Windows XP" and read through some to get a better description of the procedure so that you are comfortable first and you shouldn't have any trouble.

 

[Phew]

Interesting. What would cause my computer to work fine for three years, have nothing change, and then all of a sudden have radom reboots every few minutes due to ACPI? Is there a piece of hardware I can replace to fix this (PSU, Mobo, or memory)? Thinking back to my DOS days, I dont think manually assigning IRQs again sounds very appealing.

 

[clarkmo]

Some software and Drivers can do this. Creative software comes to mind. Maybe a recent xp update fudged things up. And then again, naybe you just need a new bios Text

 

[rbV5]

I dont think manually assigning IRQs again sounds very appealing.

I didn't either. I had the latest bios for my board (not very recent), and I'm not even sure when it started being an issue. It was a spare rig, so I didn't worry much about it untill I decided to fix it once and for all. The oldest component is the FIC AZ11 (KT133) motherboard, which I would have switched had I not fixed it by changing the HAL.

As far as the IRQ's, my rig has a Linksys NIC card <---maybe the culprit?, SBlaster Live Platinum 5.1, Sapphire Radeon 8500le and a Plextor CD burner. I don't recall having to mess with IRQ's at all, basically I did the repair installation and installed the OS patches and the drivers and it all went together fine.

Its been totally stable since, so something just wasn't 100% ACPI compliant I guess.