You're all cleverer than me, sooo....

[excession]

I've just put together the following system, and yes, it's old hardware, but it's w00t

Asus P2B-D motherboard (rev 1.06 with 1013 BIOS)
Dual P3-600 Coppermines
256 (2x128) ECC PC100
Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI card
Dual Intel Pro/100 NICs
Matrox G200 AGP
Antec TruPower 430

and the problem is, when running XP, the system will enter suspend mode, even when the system is busy (ie i'm sitting there using it). By 'suspend' I mean the following; Monitor blanks, CPU fan stops, CD-ROM light stays on (odd huh), PSU fan stays on, power light blinks. This always happens after about the same time (10mins or so, haven't timed it). It's very hard to wake it up from this state. Pressing keys does nothing. It powers off via the front switch but goes straight back to the same state when you hit the power button again. It takes a CMOS clear (or sometimes fiddling with the SMI (suspend) switch header does it. The SMI header isn't connected to a switch. I tried leaving it shorted but then the boot wouldn't continue after detecting IDE devices.) or cold power-off and leave for several hours.

I've tried the following troubleshooting steps:

Disabled power management in BIOS and in XP (already had to disable ACPI or XP wouldn't install)
Changed PSU (also tried a Suntek 300W jobber)
Changed BIOS battery
Checked for overheating (nothing is hot to the touch, only warm)
Updated BIOS
Ran Windows Update

Any bright ideas would be very much appreciated!

-james

 

[Harvey]

Did you test your RAM? If not, download either MemTest86+ or Docmem. They're both free, but for Docmem, you have register with their site unless you can find an alternative download site.

If you have other system diagnostics, such as Norton Win Doctor (part of System Works), that may also be able to find and fix other possible problems.

Hope that helps.

 

[excession]

Hey - it completed a full memtest86 cycle with no probs, plus it's ECC so maybe less likely to cause issues?

I'm gonna run Sandra diags if i can get the ah heck to stay up for long enough.

-james

 

[0roo0roo]

it it do that with another old o/s? ghost ur o/s then install win98 or somethinga nd then stress it.

wow that takes me back.. i had a p2b-s sweet mbs ....cept mine eventually burned out

 

[excession]

98 would be a bit pointless as it's a dualie, gonna try 2000 tomorrow, if that's no good then i'll try OpenBSD as that's what i eventually want to run on it anyway.

Was hoping someone might leap out of the bushes with a "OOh yes, mine did that and i fixed it like so:"... fingers crossed

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had that same problem, with an NEC Pentium-100 'Versa' laptop, after upgrading it from Win95 OSR2 to Win98se. It would go into suspend mode right while I was typing. I got so mad I ... smashed it violently. (Didn't pay much for it..)

 

[excession]

that's reassuring, cheers

 

[Harvey]

Could it be yet another catastrophy from SP2?

 

[excession]

Hey,

Solved this! It was a case short somewhere. I noticed because i stubbed my toe on the system as it lay on the floor and it promptly dropped into the 'suspend' state. Dissasembling and reassembling with cardboard spacers below the motherboard seems to have solved the issue.

Thanks for all the help!

-james

 

[Harvey]

:beer:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, you found a use for those cardboard spacer things after all. Good job.