Athlon XP 1800 - unstable

[dilligaf1701 0]

I recently upgraded my system by installing an Athlon XP 1800

 

Ever since I put it in my system has become unstable. I am experiencing

random lockups and Office applications (Word mainly - refuses to work at

all)

 

I did a fresh install of Windows XP pro after putting the chip in.

 

My system specs are :-

 

Win XP

30gb Maxstor HDD

512mb pc133 ram

300w psu

dvd drive

cdr/rw drive

32mb geforce 2mx gfx caed

Sound Blaster L!ve player 5.1 card

 

If anyone has any ideas how I can stop the locking up, it would be much

appreciated

 

Thanks for your time in advance

[Brian Frank 0]

From what I see, I'd suspect possibly some bad cooling, and possibly the PSU not being enough to power that chip.

[dilligaf1701 0]

What temp should I be getting?

I get (according to bios) 40 and 48 depending on what i'm doing.... if it's just internet it's 40 and playing jediknight for a couple of hours will drive it up to 48.

 

How much do you reccomend I put my psu up to?

 

Cheers

[Alien 1]

Brian - not 100% sure that theory flies, cos I have an XP 1900 & a more power hungry graphics card [Radeon 64MB DDR ViVo] & my temps run usually a couple/few degrees higher than his & I don't have same prob.

[Sampson 0]

Since you re-installed XP, make sure that your DVD and CDRW drives are set for DMA support. They probably are set correctly, but often they are treated as a CDrom PIO.

 

If it is Office products giving you trouble -

You might try to repair Word through the Add/Remove Software module in your Control Panel. I think you have to rename mso9.dll and winword.exe before you repair it. Just rename them whatever.bak or whatever.old.

[Brian Frank 0]

If it's basically your office apps, follow Sampson's advice. Keep an eye on the other apps that give you trouble, if there are any besides Office.

The temps are a little high, depending on who you talk to, but they're within the safe zone;) If it's a name brand PSU, you should be okay. i.e. Antec, Enermax, AOpen, Sparkle...300 is fine for what you have, but don't go any lower than that. Instead of purchasing a new PSU (assuming it's not fixed by Sampson's advice) just see if you can borrow a PSU (another 300W) and see if the problem still crops up.

 

By the way, what motherboard do you have?

[dilligaf1701 0]

sorry - i didn't say in my specs

 

It's an MSI 6330

I'm using pc133 ram

[Brian Frank 0]

I wondered about it, mainly because I've heard of some ECS boards that are picky about the power supply used. Knowing MSI, I don't see it as a problem.

 

Have you tried anything yet?

[Brian Frank 0]

Okay, checking out MSI's web site, I see that board has the infamous Via 686B southbridge/SB Live! combo, which can lead to data corruption. Things you can do are: remove the Live! or move it to a different slot, and also make sure you have the latest Via 4-in-1 drivers.

[dilligaf1701 0]

What i've tried.....

Installing Via updates (gfx definately much faster)

I actually got rid of officeXP this morning and installed Office2k instead (this has yet to lock up)

 

Can't really try a different psu (the only other one i've got is a 250w)

 

I re-installed windowsXP this morning.

 

I ran 3Dmark2002 for a couple of hours with no problems at all (score was 2770 - not brilliant but better than yesterday)

 

Then I tried OfficeXP and it was doing the same thing, which was when I re-installed Office2k

 

Still testing. I think it's something to do with OfficeXP.

[matty 0]

ive just put a 1700xp in my system and had the same problem.soon as i put office 2k on it was ok..but if you wanna stick with office xp try up[censored] it.i did and it solved it.

plus make sure your psu is amd approved.and buy a fan that is over rated for your chip.

[tHêGhð§tÔfT¡mé 0]

i got a MSi 6330 mobo and an xp 1700+ and pc133 ram running windows xp and office xp and i have not had one problem with my system....my cpu with cooling is usually around 48 to 53c, but with office xp i only have word and outlook express installed...so maybe it has to do with one of the other office programs like excel or access etc....

[WaltonSimons 0]

I had your same problem with WinXP and Win2k on a similar configuration:

 

Athlon XP 1600+

ECS Motherboard K7S5A

Creative GeForce 2 TI 200 with Detonator drivers 28.32

256MB

EIDE 20gigs HDD

 

On WinXP and Win2k I solved it this way:

open "Display Properties" from the Control Panel, click on SETTINGS, click on ADVANCED, then on TROUBLESHOOT, finally move the HARDWARE ACCELERATION bar 2 positions to the left from the FULL position.

In other words: lower the Hardware Acceleration of 2 positions.

 

I don't know if it works also on Win9x and WinMe.

 

I hope it will be useful.

[dilligaf1701 0]

Thanks for that - i'll give it a try :-)

[dilligaf1701 0]

Follow up :-

 

I've tried moving the L!ive card now. No luck

 

At the moment I've just set the jumper to 100(200)mhz fsb to underclock the chip - we'll see what happens then.

[asparian 0]

Go to http://mbm.livewiredev.com and try the freeware Motherboard monitor. It will tell you if you have voltage problems. Note that it is fine to have even a (thoretical) 1000w power supply, but if everything is on one cable you will get voltage problems and hence lock ups. Make sure the power is evenly distributed between devices. If this means going to MAPLINS and buying some cable extenders then so be it. If you have devices with string motors, such as tape drives, then you will need at least a 450w supply for a modern machine.

 

( ( - My day in smilies.

[asparian 0]

Or even "Strong motors"

 

:<

[KM-Soul 0]

hey guys i had the 1800+ with the msi 6330 t2 and i had it set to over clocked it at 2100+ and i had it running temp at 32c with 712mb of ram pc133 with 120gig with a 250gig has a slave fand that it runs better when it is running with the upgrade of the bos and lower the temp she run nice but i wanted better