*resolved* Thanks to: Zepper, DAPUNISHER, daveybrat, and Willoughbyva

[TechKnight]

Machine Specifications:
IWill KK266R
Athlon TBird 1.4Ghz (IWill picks it up as XP 1600 but this CPU was before the XP series was released )
2x 256MB Crucial PC133 SDRAM CAS 2.0
GeForce2 MX 400 64MB AGP
Integrated Audio
Generic Soft56K PCI Modem
CNet PRO200WL Ethernet Card
IBM 75GB Deathstar 7200RPM Hard Drive
Liteon 16X DVD
Iomega (Sanyo) 12x4x32 CDRW

I've ran Prime95 torture test on the system for a whole week and it didn't crash. I was told that the machine tend to crash while a person is using it. (i.e. surfing the web, playing a game) I can not pinpoint a specific cause or time when the system will freeze. When the system freezes, the mouse doesn't work, the keyboard doesn't work, it just bascially locks up.

I have ran memtest86 and it freezes during the test #4 (around 7 minutes into the test). Since this sytem uses two sticks of 256MB, I tested each one individually and both sticks freeze at the same point in the test. I have tried other memory slots and still get the same result. How likely is it to have both chips of the Crucial SDRAM to be defective? I think it's the motherboard but I can't explain it otherwise. Any ideas and tips is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

TK

 

[Zepper]

Three things might help:
1- Many weird things seem to happen when the CMOS/BIOS setting "PnP Aware OS" is set to Yes/On/Enabled, set it to No/Off/Disabled.
2- Lockups can also happen when you run out of virtual memory (hard disk space for swap file). I make a partition just for the swap file so nothing else will be using up the space. Lacking that, you want to have at least as much free, contiguous (IOW, keep the partition defragged!) space on the partition that holds the swap file as you have physical memory. You can tell Win where you want the swap file to be in the Performance -> Virtual Memory section of the System Properties area (in Control Panel -> System in Win98). I have 96MB of physical RAM and found out I needed 192MB of swap file space to keep from running out. I am now also running Memory Boost Pro and Cacheman to ride herd on memory use and leaks.
. Also regularly run a "thorough" scandisk/error check on the partition where the swap file is, as a bad or flaky sector in the swap file space can cause havoc!
3- If the above don't help, then you may have an inadequate power supply or flaky RAM. I don't think Prime excersizes a large amount of RAM so it could still be flaky RAM. Run Memtest86 for an extended time.
.bh.

 

[TechKnight]

Thanks for the tips! I will check into those settings. Gosh I hope it's the power supply. Power supply is cheap to replace. If all else fails, I may need to borrow a stick of SDRAM to do the memtest86 to make sure it's the memory sticks.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Random lock-ups can be the most difficult problem to isolate but good places to start include that the 1.4 T-birds are power hungry& hot runnin' so check the CPU temp and touch the heatsink itself to be sure it's not scorchin' hot so you can eliminate temp problems as the culprit. You could also flash to the latest bios to see if that helps, update drivers to latest version for everything and if needed you can remove the nic, modem, and disable the on-board sound to see if one is causing the lock-ups, not to mention if the PSU is flakin' out disconnecting the ATAPI drives and removing the pci cards may result in it stabilizing and give you your answer but of course trying another quality PSU is always a good idea. It's highly improbable both sticks of a quality ram like Crucial are flakey so have you tried each in different slots? Using fail safe bios settings and tweaking other settings as suggested may help as well, anyways good luck and let us know if you figure it out

 

[TechKnight]

Okay I've tried:
1. Changing PNP OS Installed: to NO
2. Checked HSF temperature (Case is open now, it's cool as ice)
3. I don't think it's the Virtual memory since Memtest86 does not test it and that's where the lock-up occurs at test #5, 14minutes into the test.
4. I have disconnected all drives so I don't think it's the 300watt PS... or could it be? I've used the case for previous systems and I don't recall such lock-ups ever occuring.
5. Motherboard has the latest BIOS revision and all drivers have been installed and updated to the latest including Via4in1. All Windows updates have been installed as well as SP1.
6. I have checked each stick of SDRAM on each of the 3 slots and the same lock-up occurs on configurations

I think I'm gonna give up on this one... I have a feeling it's the motherboard... I can't explain it otherwise... <sigh> :frown:

Okay this is what I've been noticing on the MemTest86 results:

When both sticks of 256MB are installed, it freezes at 14:24 minutes on test #5, pass 56%.
When only one stick is installed, it freezes at 7:21 minutes on test #5, pass 57%.

 

[daveybrat]

don't bother going any further. It's the motherboard. I had the same symptoms on a computer i just worked on. It would freeze on memtest so i replaced his ram and it 'seemed' to work. Long story short, he came back with same problems. Replaced motherboard and no more freezing

 

[TechKnight]

Hmmm... now this is very interesting...

I'm PRETTY sure the processor is an AMD TBird 1.4Ghz. So I lower the FSB from 133Mhz to 100Mhz to do a test anyways. BTW, I have checked and verified that the memory IS PC133 as well. It has ECC but the manual says ECC features will be ignored since it's not supported. Anyways to make a long story short, the MemTest86 test tests successfully at the lower FSB. (1050Mhz) It runs through all the tests without any problems. I will do more extensive testing on this in Windows. I'm also pretty sure that the CPU is the 266Mhz version not the 200Mhz. So... any ideas? Is it the CPU or is it the motherboard?

Thanks for all your help! I really appreciate this.

I'm looking over the manual for this motherboard and it says that it originally only supported CPUs with 200Mhz FSB. The new bios recognize XP processors so perhaps it could be a bug in their new firmware?

 

[Willoughbyva]

Do a google groups search for your motherboard and processor. If I remember correctly people were having problems with the combo. Don't know if there was a solution or not.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Here's an extensive gudie for your board that may provide the answer KK266 series bible good luck

 

[TechKnight]

DAPUNISHER & Willoughbyva, Thank you so much. You solved my problem. I forgot that this WAS an XP processor and I'll be switching out for one of the original Tbird instead. It was simply because of an incompatibility issue. This is why when I downclock it, it ran w/o problems. Thanks again everyone!!