random (?) freezes with 3500+

[ins0r]

Hi guys .
ive got some pretty serious problems with my newly bought system , which is ;
an amd athlon 64 3500 on a asus a8v socket 939 mobo , 1024m pc3200 corsair-ddram (400mhz fsb) , a club-3d radeon x800 pro on the newest catalyst drivers , a raptor wd740 and a maxtor diamond 9 200gb (both of them s-ata) , a creative soundblaster! audigy 2 zs platinum pro and everything running on winxp prof. service pack 1 , with all of the security updated installed .
so now , gaming performance is just so perfect (as hoped for) the system is however NOT stable at all.
it freezes at random times (like once a day/once in 2 days) and im at the end of my wits
the freezes take place as follows ;
if there is ANY sound-output during one of those freezes , the system just makes an endless beeeeeeeep , cursor hangs , whatever was displayed before the crash stays exactly the same for like 3-5 seconds , then the screen just turns black.
now ive already tried a lot of **** , like giving my creative soundcard a pci slot with an irq-interrupt of its own..the only thing that changed doing that , is the fact that now Futuremark's 3dmark2003's sound tests run (before they crashed) just fine.
now , my temps SHOULD be ok .. in idle i got like 40° on the cpu , in full workload <52° .. the mainboard is pretty constant at 30° .. also harddrive get cooled by 2 case-coolers
by the way , i got 3 case-fans (thermaltake 80mm) connected on my enermax 360W powersupply , which , theoretically should suffice (..at least thats what i think)

so , overall , im pretty desperate , having spent a lot of money (student's income;( ) , ive already asked around in one or the other local forums (austrian forums ; limited help ) but i didnt get any real helpful output overall .

oh , and by the way , i really welcome ANY help , but pleaaase spare me with stuff like ; "take everything you dont need out , and then put it back in one by one again -> this would take weeks.

cheers , ins

[PCBruiser]

Try this. Go to Start/Run. Type dxdiag. That will bring up a DirectX diagnostic. Run all the tests in all the tabs and see if you get any error messages that might help pinpoint the issue.

[PCBruiser]

I just noticed you just joined, so a big welcome to ABX. Also check this thread:

Operating System / Software Installation Guide

Yes, I know Intel chipset, but the same sequence exactly should be followed for AMD OS installs. XP is very sensitive to the sequence in which things are installed, and any drivers installed out of sequence can cause exatly the problem you are having. So, check that out also.

[ins0r]

ok ive run all the dx-tests ... all work perfectly.
:'(
and this was like the 5. amd sys i set up so far , so i actualldy did everything as described ..
and thanks for the warm welcome

[PCBruiser]

Well, end of my suggestions, I know very little about AMD setups personally. Hang in there one of the AMD folks will be along and offer some of their suggestions. But, I am almost sure this is either a hardware conflict unique to the chipset/board, etc., or a similar driver issue.

Well, one other question, which version of DirectX did you install? There is a new release 9.0C which came out this week. See another thread about that and for a direct link. You might give that a try.

[Lagwagon]

Power supply issue maybe

[PCBruiser]

Originally Posted by Lagwagon

Power supply issue maybe

That's a possibility, but the sound he gets with the freeze is a sure indication of the sound card freezing up. So, it could be a bad sound card too, but I think more likely a driver problem.

[oasis_abx]

Originally Posted by ins0r

Hi guys .
ive got some pretty serious problems with my newly bought system , which is ;
an amd athlon 64 3500 on a asus a8v socket 939 mobo , 1024m pc3200 corsair-ddram (400mhz fsb) , a club-3d radeon x800 pro on the newest catalyst drivers , a raptor wd740 and a maxtor diamond 9 200gb (both of them s-ata) , a creative soundblaster! audigy 2 zs platinum pro and everything running on winxp prof. service pack 1 , with all of the security updated installed .
so now , gaming performance is just so perfect (as hoped for) the system is however NOT stable at all.
it freezes at random times (like once a day/once in 2 days) and im at the end of my wits
the freezes take place as follows ;
if there is ANY sound-output during one of those freezes , the system just makes an endless beeeeeeeep , cursor hangs , whatever was displayed before the crash stays exactly the same for like 3-5 seconds , then the screen just turns black.
now ive already tried a lot of **** , like giving my creative soundcard a pci slot with an irq-interrupt of its own..the only thing that changed doing that , is the fact that now Futuremark's 3dmark2003's sound tests run (before they crashed) just fine.
now , my temps SHOULD be ok .. in idle i got like 40° on the cpu , in full workload <52° .. the mainboard is pretty constant at 30° .. also harddrive get cooled by 2 case-coolers
by the way , i got 3 case-fans (thermaltake 80mm) connected on my enermax 360W powersupply , which , theoretically should suffice (..at least thats what i think)

so , overall , im pretty desperate , having spent a lot of money (student's income;( ) , ive already asked around in one or the other local forums (austrian forums ; limited help ) but i didnt get any real helpful output overall .

oh , and by the way , i really welcome ANY help , but pleaaase spare me with stuff like ; "take everything you dont need out , and then put it back in one by one again -> this would take weeks.

cheers , ins

Hello,

newest catalyst drivers

Try the video card drivers off the cd that came with the video card.

enermax 360W powersupply

Your PSU is not a problem but a 450W would be better.

After trying the above and if there is onboard sound try using that instead of the soundblaster be sure to uninstall the drivers.

______________________________

If you answer yes to the following questions.

Have you been in the bios and O/Ced anything or changed voltage values?

If you have then reset to defaults. if the problem still persists reinstall the bios.

If after all this you are still having problems click on the following link and explain your situation. I'm sure they will be of help to you.

VIA Chipsets Asus A8V

[synergistic]

I have a setup similar to yours. Low and behold, my system will randomly stall with a black screen and sound skipping whenever I play music for any prolonged period of time. I tried updating my Audigy 2 ZS drivers to see if it would help. I used Driver Cleaner to remove all traces of the old drivers first.

The fact that we're getting nearly identical symptoms with different boards leads me to believe the Audigy is the culprit.

[ins0r]

nope i havent oc'd anything , ive fiddled around with the ram settings a bit ; didnt help however: )
no , i got the tip to put down the hyper-transport rate from 1000mhz to 600 , but i do fear this would slow down my sys considerably(?)

the pc doesnt only crash when theres sound playing ; also without .. then theres no beep but the pc still freezes

[oasis_abx]

Hello,

Have you tried the solutions I descibed above in the order I presented them?

[ins0r]

oasis ;
ok , first of all i dont believe its a gfx issue - more a mainboar`d/ram/soundcard issue .. but i will install the drivers that came with the card anyhow ..
i will buy the new psu ..
and ive never installed a bios the thing is i dont wanna try it out cos im pretty sure really that the bios is not messed up ! ..
and as concerns the soundcard , ive tried lots of **** with it , but the pc doesnt only crash when sound involved , also withouit sound (it just freezes silently then) .. well :/