I bought a spiffy new ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe (w/ SATA RAID, 5.1 Dolby Sound, Firewire, USB 2.0, AGP8x, etc.) last December and built myself a new system with that, an Athlon XP2000+, 512 MB of DDR2100, a Matrox G450, two IBM drives (40 and 80 gig), a Plextor cd burner and Windows 2000 (w/sp3). It ran without any major problems for six weeks and then started freezing up regularly (and I mean a real freeze up-can only get out by rebooting). I don't recall installing any new software around that time and didn't add any hardware. And what's weird is that it freezes up when I'm away from the computer, like in the middle of the night (It occasionally freezes up when I'm doing something, but mostly when the computer's idling).
I immediately checked my fans, temperature, and stuff like that (left the case open all night). All was good (well, I'm assuming that 105-7 degrees isn't out of line for CPU temp... everyone always talks about checking your temp, but they never say what is too hot). I turned off all power saving features. I tested the RAM with Memtest86, reinstalled the OS a number of times, flashed the BIOS and I've updated every driver I can find. I have found that if I disable the on-board sound in the BIOS and run without any power saving options, it will make it through the night. In fact, I thought that I had nailed the problem there, but it froze up several times yesterday (while I was doing stuff).
After the repeated freeze-ups yesterday, I called the store where I bought the board and was told that I shouldn't try to run USB 2.0 with Windows 2000. He recommended doing a clean reinstall and making sure that I didn't install the USB2 drivers. Well it froze up right after that install, so I knew I was in for trouble. On calling him back for more advice, he said that I should run the service pack right after installing the system and before the drivers. Well, doing that totally wreaked havoc (one driver wouldn't install and I got a freeze-up that made my monitor spaz out in a way that I never care to see again). So, I called the guy back, but he had left for the day. The guy I then talked to said that it's probably not a software problem at all and that he'd be happy to test out my system for only $39.99. Hmmm.
So, what do people think? I'm not buying the hardware idea (though I am certainly about ready to RMA this board). It's weird that it ran okay for six weeks and then started freezing consistently. That would have made me think software problem, but the fact that I've wiped the drive and reinstalled the OS several times would seem to counter that idea. It's also weird that it seemed to do okay with the sound and power options off, but then it froze up today. Of course, even if the problem did lie with those two culprits, I'd still need some solution; I can't live without sound and I'd really rather my computer shut it's own monitors off.
I've tried to be as complete as possible here, but if I left something out please let me know. After another complete reinstall with the latest Nvidia drivers and without USB 2.0, it still froze up last night.
Thanks in advance,
Ben
(Oh, and I don't know if this means anything but there was another weird quirk I noticed back when this first started: when I'd start winamp after a freeze up, the play list wouldn't be the last thing I played; it would be something from a while earlier... like freezing up turned back the clock. Oh, and sometimes stuff on my desktop reverts to their old positions or default positions after a freeze up.)
I immediately checked my fans, temperature, and stuff like that (left the case open all night). All was good (well, I'm assuming that 105-7 degrees isn't out of line for CPU temp... everyone always talks about checking your temp, but they never say what is too hot). I turned off all power saving features. I tested the RAM with Memtest86, reinstalled the OS a number of times, flashed the BIOS and I've updated every driver I can find. I have found that if I disable the on-board sound in the BIOS and run without any power saving options, it will make it through the night. In fact, I thought that I had nailed the problem there, but it froze up several times yesterday (while I was doing stuff).
After the repeated freeze-ups yesterday, I called the store where I bought the board and was told that I shouldn't try to run USB 2.0 with Windows 2000. He recommended doing a clean reinstall and making sure that I didn't install the USB2 drivers. Well it froze up right after that install, so I knew I was in for trouble. On calling him back for more advice, he said that I should run the service pack right after installing the system and before the drivers. Well, doing that totally wreaked havoc (one driver wouldn't install and I got a freeze-up that made my monitor spaz out in a way that I never care to see again). So, I called the guy back, but he had left for the day. The guy I then talked to said that it's probably not a software problem at all and that he'd be happy to test out my system for only $39.99. Hmmm.
So, what do people think? I'm not buying the hardware idea (though I am certainly about ready to RMA this board). It's weird that it ran okay for six weeks and then started freezing consistently. That would have made me think software problem, but the fact that I've wiped the drive and reinstalled the OS several times would seem to counter that idea. It's also weird that it seemed to do okay with the sound and power options off, but then it froze up today. Of course, even if the problem did lie with those two culprits, I'd still need some solution; I can't live without sound and I'd really rather my computer shut it's own monitors off.
I've tried to be as complete as possible here, but if I left something out please let me know. After another complete reinstall with the latest Nvidia drivers and without USB 2.0, it still froze up last night.
Thanks in advance,
Ben
(Oh, and I don't know if this means anything but there was another weird quirk I noticed back when this first started: when I'd start winamp after a freeze up, the play list wouldn't be the last thing I played; it would be something from a while earlier... like freezing up turned back the clock. Oh, and sometimes stuff on my desktop reverts to their old positions or default positions after a freeze up.)