Sampson

Found this shassouneh http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;;Q305358&ID=KB;;Q305358 SYMPTOMS If you have two removable media in the computer (for example, floppy disks or magneto-optical media) that have non-unique volume serial numbers and similar files, you may receive the following error message: STOP 0x00000023 ( Parameter1 , Parameter2 , Parameter3 , Parameter4 ) CAUSE This behavior occurs because the FAT file system driver recognizes the two media as being identical. However, because there are some differences between them, you receive an error message. RESOLUTION A supported fix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem described in this article and should be applied only to systems experiencing this specific problem. This fix may receive additional testing at a later time, to further ensure product quality. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Windows 2000 service pack that contains this fix. To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, please go to the following address on the World Wide Web: http://support.microsoft.com/directory/overview.asp NOTE : In special cases, charges that are normally incurred for support calls may be canceled, if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. Normal support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question. The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later: Date Time Version Size File name -------------------------------------------------------- 20-Dec-2000 04:59 5.00.2195.3083 140,432 Fastfat.sys WORKAROUND To work around this problem, reformat one of the disks and then use it again. STATUS Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. I looked at the fastfat.sys on my system and it said the following 140,368 5/4/2001 ver. 5.0.2195.2817 Apparently it is looking at your floppy and DVD drives or maybe it is looking for a CD drive you used to have, or it thinks your hard drive is a DVD or viceversa, anyway perhaps the fastfat.sys was corrupted or the system is confused that two devices have the same volume label but different serial numbers. Will keep digging.

Been a long time since I did this. Check Microsoft before you do this: How to implement autologon for WinXP A. Click on "Start" B. Click on "Run" - and type "control userpasswords2" C. click OK D. Select the Users tab, E. Clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box F. Click "Apply". G. A dialog will appear that asks you what user name and password should be used to logon automatically, H. Supply a Username, Password, and Confirm Password I. Click "OK". J. Click on " Start" K. Open the Control Panel L. Dbl Click User Accounts M. Click “Change the way users log on or off” N. Clear Check box for “Use the Welcome Screen” O. Clear Check box for “Use Fast User Switching” P. Click Apply Options.

Sorry about the typing. It was late last night. Click Start , point to Settings , click Control Panel , and then double-click System . Click the Advanced tab, click Performance Options, Change , and then point to the partition containing the Pagefile.sys file. In the Initial Size (MB): box, type 0 . In the Maximum Size (MB): box, type 0 . Click Set , click OK , click Close , and then click Yes when you are prompted to restart the computer. After the computer has restarted, reset the Pagefile.sys file to the correct size. Click Start , point to Settings , click Control Panel , and then double-click System . Click the Advanced tab, click Performance Options, Change , and then point to the partition containing the Pagefile.sys file. In the Initial Size (MB): box, type a value equal to the amount of random access memory (in megabytes) in your computer plus 11. (You can set this to your own liking, however) In the Maximum Size (MB): box, type a value equal to or less than the amount of disk space available (in megabytes) on the specified partition minus 1. (You can set this to your own liking, however) Click Set , click OK , click Close , and then click Yes when you are prompted to restart the computer.

I stand corrected. I quit using Speed Disk when I went to 2K. I use O&O now and ask it to defrag by Last Access. It does not move the cache file on the hard disk, nor as far as I know, does it "optimize" it.

These reviewers sure got fooled then: http://www.sofsol.co.nz/p0001662.htm http://www.ciol.com/content/reviews/software/101121401.asp

shassouneh, Why couldn't you contract a simple problem? I got this from Microsoft as to how to interpret stop messages: This Stop message has four parameters: Address of the first or only interrupt service routine (ISR) involved in initiating the interrupt storm. ISR context value. Address of the interrupt object that initiated the storm. 0x00000001 if the ISR is not chained (not part of an interrupt sequence). 0x00000002 if the ISR is chained (part of an interrupt sequence). If the fourth parameter is 0x1, the driver module to which parameters 1 and 3 point probably indicates a driver problem or malfunctioning hardware. If the fourth parameter is 0x2, the driver module to which parameter 1 point is the first ISR in the sequence, and might not be the source of the problem. When a Stop 0xF2 message occurs, it indicates the driver involved in the ISR on the storming IRQ. In addition to four Stop message parameters, a message similar to the following appears: (endof Microsoft instructions) By the way did you zero out your cache file (virtual memory) then reboot and then reset it the MAX and MIN values to give it?

The best performance of the system cache is to move it as a contiguous file to the outer ring of the hard disk. Speed disk by Norton's does this (fat 32; I'm not sure about NTFS). I don't believe that Windows does, so I am not sure what "best performance" means. Usually Windows tells you to let the system manage the cache and many feel that they can do a better job setting the size manually.

System restore is like wearing a belt and suspenders. It "backups" the registry and support files before you install new hardware or software so that you can revert back to an earlier configuration in case something goes south. Some feel this background task takes up too many processor cycles and disable it. As your registry grows, each time it is saved it will consume more of your hard disk. Its a judgment call.

No, that won't change the IRQ's, but I have seen where it will allow the SB Live to "play with others well." Your machine was setup to allow ACPI to manage your devices. This is the default manner of installing W2k and XP. On many VIA chip systems because there have been issues between the 4-in-1 drivers and windows over IRQ management, some interrupt the Windows Installation and choose Standard Computer which disables ACPI management and permits the BIOS to set the IRQ - and you set the IRQ's in your Bios. This problem is well documented. Here is the Windows page: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q269491 . Epox has made some spendid boards. It would not surprise me that they would have an updated bios that you could flash that has already addressed the problem. Easiest thing to do - try the SB Live in different slots to see if the skipping disappears. Harder but not as risky - set your IRQ through your Bios, reinstall Windows and interrupt the install as Standard Computer to disable ACPI Risky if you haven't done it before - get the latest Bios file from the EPOX website and flash your Motherboard's Bios.

See if this helps: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q260142

Sorry, in responding to someone you start from the basics. There was no intent to insult you. Maybe if you can report what you have done or tried, someone like me won't give dull witted advice or suggest something you've already thought of and done. I saw errors like this after a multiple CD install of a new program. In other words, had to put in one CD after another to load it. It was a big graphics program. The computer worked fine after installation. Next day at power up it came up with errors similar to this - particularly IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL_TO. It was the pagefile.sys - the cache on the hard drive did not jive with what XP knew about it. Since your system was running stable for 6 months, other than some random electrical spike that you couldn't know about, what had you been doing before log off?

Why would you want to do such a thing?

CUViper has nailed your answer. 384 is great for Word Processing, Spreadsheets, even internet surfing. But, the more memory you pack into your machine when you are running games, the easier the computer will "breathe." XP is putting your desktop and whatever it can into virtual memory which is nothing other than a cache on your hard disk. After exiting the game, XP has to retrieve the desktop from the hard disk, read it to ram, paint the desktop, and a host of other things. Even with more ram, you may still experience some delay, but your machine will love you for it. I don't really like "tweak" programs. You never know what you might break playing with them since many are registry hacks. But, there is one "trick" that has been part of windows since the beginning - fonts. Some folks love fonts and have hundred installed. When Windows comes up it reads all those fonts and caches them. If you aren't a big font fiend, copy those that you hardly ever use off into a folder and out of \winnt\fonts. You can always put them back, but you'll find that your programs seem to get a little snappier. On really fast machines, this will probably not be as noticeable.

It sounds like you are raising and lowering the FSB. Some mobo's are rated at 133 though they were intended to run only at 100. When you raise the FSB some PCI devices will not tolerate the speed. In your case it could be the memory or the hard disk. Some motherboards will allow you to raise the FSB for the processor and leave the standard PCI devices run at a different speed. These settings are found in your BIOS. So depending on the Mobo and the Bios the flexibility of raising or lowering the FSB is enhanced or impeded.

Dazultra, I one of the other forums here, found this conversation: how did you get your live to work with your dragon plus? my audigy locks up my system every time i try to install it! had to put it in PCI slot 6. PCI 1-3 cause problems

As I understand it, your mobo has an IEEE 1394 Firewire header. Some ATI 8500 Radeons use the same communications bridge for its transfers making for incompatibility.

Go to your Device Manager and click on View to get devices by connection and look at the number of devices sharing the same IRQ. If your network card, USB, video and sound card all share the same IRQ, the activity you've observed is the system monitoring them and umpiring amongst them. This may certainly be the problem with the skipping which can be your soundcard as much as your video card.

Scii devices can be chained together. "But not all Scii is equal" especially when it comes to burners. Before investing in one, you need to see if the software that you are going to use to burn with will support that particular device on Scii. (Nero has a few issues with Scii). Scii is tricky under NT and hard disks can sometimes be slow. There are also device driver issues (Adaptec) between devices. Again, check out the device you want to purchase before hand over the web and find the "work arounds" and conflicts. You won't be pulling your hair out trying to make something work when it can't.

Unfortunately. This is the reference: http://www.nero.com/en/helptool/index.htm Look under Crashes with InCD and look at the next to the last sentence. I'm sure they'll fix it; there are just too many VIA chipsets out there. You guessed it, I have an old BX intel system.

This is an "old" board. Most often the AGP is set up through the BIOS in the Chipset Area. But, it being an older Board, I doubt that what your after (changing 1X to 2X support) would be found. Don't worry about the Side Band Addressing, it is ususally Disabled since it seems that most video cards don't use it and there doesn't seem to be that much benefit to it to those that do. On the MSI board there is a driver for your chipset and AGP: http://www.msi.com.tw/support/driver/download/chipset/amd751agp.exe On AMD's support there is a utility for your chipset and WinXP/2000: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/miniport_533.EXE Your Graphics Aperture Size is "high" but well within what is usually expected. It can be anywhere between 16-256. 64 is pretty well "average" but this depends on the motherboard. I only mention this because if you choose to run either of these two utilities, this value may change.

Try this page. It is a FAQ on Audigy Cards: http://mipagina.cantv.net/guizzo/

Dazultra, Found this page: http://mipagina.cantv.net/guizzo/ It is a FAQ for the Audigy cards. Interesting read.

I don't blame you. I don't know why it would mess up your IRQ's, but experience is sometimes all we can rely on. I didn't upgrade my SBLive drivers 'til 4 days ago. I used the ones that W2k installed for the card though after 6 months everytime I would reboot I got a message that something like NevLdr.dll (or something like that) wouldn't end its task. This is one of those SB issues. I lived with that for a long time because I just didn't want to get into driver issues between SB and W2k. When I saw that creative's drivers were approved (after apparently several iterations), I held my breath and did it. I do a lot of breath holding when I install new things.

You've probably done all this. Nvidia drivers are the worst for installation problems. Go to the PNY website and download the newest install program or drivers for your card for XP and any supporting programs for desktop display that many cardmaker now add. Go into Control Panel, Install/Uninstall Software. Uninstall the Nvidia stuff. Go to Hardware and install your card as Standard VGA. If you don't do this, XP will keep looking for drivers for that card. It will probably want to reboot. Don't. Go to windows explorer and find all the Nvidia drivers (nv*.*) (usually, found in winnt\system32 and winnt\system32\drivers). The general consensus is to delete them. I'd copy them to a floppy and not delete them. This is chancey because an old driver can mess you up. Reboot. Let windows come up using the Standard VGA. The desktop ususally looks pretty anemic. It shouldn't look for a new driver set for your card. Generally, the install driver program you downloaded is an .exe file. Double click on it from windows explorer and let it install the drivers. Since this is a late post, you've probably resolved the problem by now.

It has for some. It would seem to be the easiest thing to do since it only requires physically moving the card. I have been told that moving it higher on the PCI chain gives it more juice. I'm no engineer. I have seen heavy duty gamers do nothing more than reshuffle cards to get the best performance from their system. You didn't mention if your devices were on the same IRQ. Anyway, moving the Audigy card should have no effect on Windows setup. Perhaps, going to a SB based message board with the symptoms you now have established might yeild a solution if you feel hesitant about moving the card.