Lock ups,maybe its the mouse?????

[TerrorX]

Still locking up, running a p2 300 with a geforce 2 running the 27.10 drivers,sblive with newest drivers installed,operating system is windows xp and I have 128mb of ram installed. Seems to be an intermittent problem have tried numerous things to get rid of the lock ups changing sound settings and so forth nothing seems to help although removing the ambient sound seems to keep the system up longer. Tried a little test did not touch the mouse and let it stand for 3 hours no lock up started playing around with the mouse some and clicking on some things then bam it locks up, maybe it was just a fluke but im running a Logitec marble Trackman with latest drivers could this be the culprit?

[Schrullenhaft]

Do you know if your computer is using ACPI or Standard (Plug-n-Play) ? ACPI can cause problems with some sound cards and other devices since it shares every PCI/AGP device with just one IRQ. This causes problems with some drivers. You'll have to check this in the Device Manager, it should be the 'device definition' for the 'Computer'.

While ACPI is the 'preferred' scheme for Windows XP, it however is problematic with some systems since quite a few BIOS's didn't implement it correctly. Due to the age of your motherboard (a guess based on your CPU speed) it may not even support ACPI, but it still is a possibility.

If you are using ACPI, then you may want to turn off that feature in your CMOS. Unfortunately getting Windows XP to reconfigure won't be as easy. Generally you're looking at a complete reinstall (though there may be other ways around this - however a complete reinstall is probably the best bet). Again this step is only necessary if your computer is currently using ACPI.

There could be other possible reasons for your problems

[bruno]

Schrullenhaft,

Hi again. I jump on your last reply and wonder if my random lockups are not linked to the mouse. I noticed yesterday that, a few seconds after CM locked up, the mouse pointer disappeared from the screen.

Also, what is ACPI, how can I make sure the system uses it or not etc.

my system : Win2K+SP2, MSI, Thunderbird 1.2, 256 DDR, DirectX 8.1, NVidia 27.10.

[Schrullenhaft]

ACPI is set in the BIOS/CMOS setup. However if it is turned on already there's no easy way to 'uninstall' it from your current installation. You're best bet is to turn it off and reinstall Windows 2000, which is something most people don't want to do. It's only a problem with certain drivers/hardware. Most things should work OK, but it is possible reason for some problems.

If you're mouse was to blame, then I would assume that you would see other problems in Windows. Do you know what drivers you're using ? The drivers that come with the OS (the default ones that Microsoft supplies) should be fine. On occasion some manufacturer's drivers may be problematic, but it is rare that they would cause problems to this extent. I believe what you're seeing is just a symptom of the lockup where the mouse cursor can't be drawn/updated on the screen.

You said that your problems only started after you upgraded your video drivers. Have you downgraded them yet or tried the newer 27.30 or 26.53's (available from Guru 3D) ? Your mouse cursor problem can very well be traced to a problem with the video card (drivers).

[ February 07, 2002, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[murph2]

ACPI stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interfaces IIRC.

It can be switched off after windows has been installed with it enabled by editing the registry but I can't recall the keys offhand and it's a pretty dodgy operation.

Reinstalling over the top with the switch to disable ACPI might work, I don't know for sure.

Are you using an SBlive by any chance? Since the sound seems to be the main bugbear in your case I'd look at the soundcard and drivers first.

Have you disabled the DOS mode SBLive settings/drivers, as this often causes problems?

I doubt it is the mouse but are you using the default mouse cursors (I don't know XP so Ican't be sure if it allows mouse cursors and themes to be installed)? Using themes or anything other than the default mouse cursors often causes display problems but not usually total crashes.