VIA 686B South Bridge and "Freeze Ups"...

[xombii]

AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz Thunderbird (fan/heatsink combo)
FIC AD-11 Mobo
256 Megs PC 133 DDR SDRAM
SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1
nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra
Antec SX1030B w/ 4 80mm Fans
+ 1 92mm Fan directed at processor

About a week after I got my "dream machine" home, it started with the "freeze ups".
No mouse response, no keyboard response, no drive lights on, and if perchance there is sound playing when it happens, it loops the last sound like a broken record. This happens regularly, during minimal use (either playing "The Sims", surfing the net or listening to winamp), usually after about 2 hours from a cold boot up.

I thought it was over heating at first, but nothing is overclocked. The CPU temp while running idol is about 109F/111F (around 44-45C), a good 30 degrees above "dangerous" levels, but during game play can reach up to 120F.

Could the "PCI Latency patch for 686b south bridge" fix this or is it the CPU temp?

Thanks ahead of time to anyone who can help...

 

[BlueTDimly]

I believe I remember that people have been having problems with the SB Live. Any way you can swap that for a different (non-Creative) card?

BlueT.

 

[xombii]

I could see if a friend has a card I could use, but my other machine has a SoundBlaster X-Gamer, so both of them are Creative.

 

[DavEagle]

That is one of the problems that has been indentified by VIA. You should check for an updated bios for your board.

The patch can be found at http://www.viahardware.com/download/viatweak.shtm

Good luck.

 

[LightningBoy]

I am having a very similar problem to yours. My system is almost identical to yours, except I have an Abit KT7A-RAID mobo. I've been having crackling and lockup problems.

I bought a retail Athlon, I have an Antec case, and my CPU temps are similar to yours.

I'm fairly certain that the SBLive 5.1 is causing my lockups. I installed the PCI latency patch and set all PCI settings in BIOS I could find to disabled.

I still get some crackling on the Windows startup sound. My random Windows lockups have all but gone away, and I can play Q3 and UT (with EAX enabled!!) without problems. However, Black & White locks my computer within 5 minutes of playing.

The strange thing is, when the computer locks, my mouse and keyboard input seem to be locked out. If I'm playing a sound, it will continue on normally. This machine shares a dialup connection with another (the modem is in the problem machine) but when it locks, I am still able to use the dialup connection from the other machine. Seems as if the entire OS is not brought down by this problem. Maybe it's an input issue? I have a PS2 mouse & kb on a KVM switch.

So.. I'd try installing the PCI latency patch and tweak your BIOS settings. See if that helps. And let me know if you resolve it.. Black & White forced me to build this machine.. and now I can't even play it! :disgust:

 

[xombii]

Damn, we must share a brain! LOL

I built mine to play Black and White (luckily this all happened before I bought it) and some Rogue Spear, UT... I'll be installing the patches, also a BIOS upgrade.

I'll try to get on from home, maybe you can assist me with the BIOS tweaks, I'm none too swift in that dept. I'm going to get this box working come hell or high wiring, tho.

Check you later, lightining...