Win XP restarts during battles

[Irekin]

I have Win XP Pro, AMD Athlon 900 MHz, Matrox G450 dual, SB Awe 32, 512 RAM, Abit KT7A. I installed CMBO and during playing, after about 5 minutes the system restarts. I also installed some mods from CMMOS.

Please, help. Irek

[Schrullenhaft]

Have you tried CMBO without the mods (which may be taxing your video card a little harder than an un-moded copy of CM would) ? Something might be overheating in your system and it then reboots (though it is more common for the computer to lock up than reboot in these situations).

Have you installed the VIA 4-in-1 chipset drivers ? I'm not sure what the differences between them and XP's support for the chipset would be, but I'd recommend them, especially since they can help with some AGP issues.

You may want to update your KT7A BIOS too (version A9, July 11, 2002) since it may help with some issues. What version of the Matrox drivers are you using ? The latest drivers are 5.85.08 Betas which should be fine (dated July 29, 2002).

As for overheating you may want to check you BIOS and/or load up a motherboard monitoring utility such as Motherboard Monitor which can help you track how much your system may be heating up (though it is only as accurate as the temperature measuring chips on your motherboard).

[ August 29, 2002, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[WWB]

Another thing to do is check your event log, and see what is causing the restart. This can be done by right clicking on My Computer and choosing Manage . . . then select the logs from the right pane. You want to look at the system and application logs, especially for anything with a red mark right about when the restart occoured.

WWB

[Irekin]

Thank you for advise. I installed VIA drivers. The problem remain. System still restarts during battles after about 5 min. I checked the logs in Manage pane.

This is what, I think, causes the error, but I can`t understand what it means:

AMLI: System BIOS ACPI is trying to read the adress port In/Out (0x71), which is in secured area 0x70 - 0x71.

Bytes:

0000: 00 00 00 00 04 00 52 00 ......R.

0008: 00 00 00 00 04 00 05 c0 .......À

0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

and:

AMLI: System BIOS ACPI is trying to read the adress port In/Out (0xcfc), which is in secured area 0x70 - 0x71.

Bytes:

0000: 00 00 00 00 04 00 52 00 ......R.

0008: 00 00 00 00 04 00 05 c0 .......À

0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

[Schrullenhaft]

That's a pretty strange error. If I'm reading the I/O addresses correctly that is the CMOS Clock I/O range.

What version of the BIOS do you have flashed (though I don't see any updates addressing ACPI problems) ?

If ACPI is the culprit, then one way around this is to diable it in the CMOS/BIOS Setup (though many current BIOS's don't allow this to be disabled anymore, so this setting isn't always available). However this solution isn't as easy as just changing a CMOS/BIOS setting, you will have to reinstall Windows XP again since ACPI is at the core of the hardware configuration in XP.

Most restarts in XP are related to 'Stop errors' which are often known by the moniker 'BSODs' - the Blue Screen of Death. Microsoft believes that it is better to reboot the computer than to have the user continue using the system because it can corrupt data (Microsoft's generic assumption). Here's some instructions on turning off Automatic Reboot in Windows XP that will allow you to see the Stop Error (which might help in troubleshooting this error further). There's also some other helpful advice on this page that would be worth considering.

[ August 31, 2002, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]