First Real PC topic. :)

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Well, I\'m running windows XP right now. Does anyone else that has XP Pro get strange problems, like it resetting for no reason. (i know it can be disabled in settings) or if u do disable it. You get the blue screen in which there is no escape.

Also, I get strange errors with IE once in awhile. It just gives me errors no madder what i do. Really strange. I know the resets arn\'t for any IRQ conflicts.  Also all my drivers are fully up to date. Windows 2000 Pro doesn\'t give me any problems what so ever.  

I think it may be my network card or my crappy Vortex 2 Sound card. My motherboard is also based on Ali Magik chipset. I\'ve updated the IDE drivers, AGP drivers, FIR etc. also the MB bios is updated to the latest version. This shouldn\'t be happening. But i\'ve heard Ali Magik chipsets aren\'t fully completed... Hmm.

What do u guys think?

I also run XP pro, and I have  had a few of your similar problems. Like now sometimes when I play The Sum Of All Fears, right in the middle of the game it crashes. For that to be happening something somewhere is causing a conflict on my machine. I found it one time before and stopped it from happening.

Just recently I bought an Nvidia MX 400 64MB video card, and It doesn\'t work on my CPU. Something with the IDE drivers conflicting with the card. Also i don\'t think the AGP slot on my motherboard is 4x. I have an old machine, most current bios update is from July of 99. I have AGP 2x and it just doesn\'t work.

I\'m currently building my new machine. I have tower and intell Pentium 4 motherboard with built in NIC. I\'m ordering the P4 2 ghz processor and heat sink at the end of this month. I can\'t wait to get this baby up and running. getting my 40 gig HD anyday now.

I kinda got off subject, anyways XP Pro is a very good OS and I love it! I have ME, and 2000 Pro and both had more problems than I have with XP. I just live with it. When you get crashes it\'s hard to determine what is causing it unless you can remember when it started happening and the progz you might have installed.

I have in the past fixed a few crashes using Norton Utilities 2002. You might want to try it out. You can download a 30 day trial if you don\'t have it. Most of the time it will fix any problems you have.

Yeah, I run XP (but on a seperate partition).

One thing for users to know, this OS is one resource hog as well as it\'s highly scalable. The thing runs like a dog on my AMD Athlon 1.4@ 1.54GHz (memory is overclocked as well {512MB Crucial}). And the thing about this OS, the GUI is so graphically demanding, nothing less of a GeForce 2 I believe will run this OS smoothly. My XP expirence on a Voodoo 5 is attrocious, sometimes it\'s hella slow.

One thing I like about XP from ME is that disk performance is better. I notice that copy/pasting files is faster, more efficent.

And XP takes long to boot down, ME takes like 3 seconds for me.

I\'ve heard that rebooting problem so many times.

Apparently XP is set to automatically reboot on some kind of error (which happens a lot in windows).

Most people say you can turn it off under the Startup and Recovery tab by right-clickng on MyComputer.

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Originally posted by EmperorRob
I\'ve heard that rebooting problem so many times.

Apparently XP is set to automatically reboot on some kind of error (which happens a lot in windows).

Most people say you can turn it off under the Startup and Recovery tab by right-clickng on MyComputer.

yep. I know how to turn it off. But you just get the blue screen instead. I also just turn of the kernal dumb.. no need to make a dumb of it. Cause i\'m not gonna send my comp details to MS.

My system is able to handle XP with no problems. It\'s a highend machine. the only thing i need is DDR mem.. I\'m using SDR 133 512meg. I prefer DDR.. (who doesn\'t)  My mb supports both types of mem. I also wanna get a new Geforce card.. I HATE my GeForce2 T400 card.

Maybe i\'ll just have to deal with it..  It doesn\'t seem to be a Hardware problem.. more a driver problem. I\'ve heard that some drivers try to access the same IRQs for hardware and it causes a conflict...     Microsoft should get of there arses and fix this kinda crap before they even release a os.
But in all. I think XP is the Best OS i\'ve used.. I just hate these little bugs.
I hate it mostly when it resets. when i\'m on the net.. I gotta redail and pay another 20c.. MS should pay my bloody phonebill.
I would use 2000 pro because it doesn\'t have the problems XP has.. But i like to play games.. and 2000 isn\'t the greatest os for gaming. OLD dos games.. FORGET IT.

I run 2000 for all my games and I\'ve only ever had 1 issue and that was with a sucky game.

But have you checked to see if there\'s an update for this XP issue on the Microsoft site?

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i\'ve updated xp completely. The only thing i didn\'t update was the Vortex 2 chipset drivers for my sound card..  
The company that makes Vortex2 went down. So they never completed 2000/XP drivers. but i\'ve read that using these so called updated drivers will make u lose even more options on the card.. I had to download the CP for the soundcard because XP doesn\'t have a CP for it.

I don\'t get many errors now.. Only restarts once in a while. (restarted once in 7 hours off use)
I think it may have been the Sdram MA/CMD leadoff timing in my bios. It was set to fast. so i changed it too normal. I think my memory doesn\'t like the fast setting. I can\'t see any changes in my system performance. so it doesn\'t bother me. I also have all 5 pci slots used on my MB.. That can\'t be good for the IRQs. Even though they arn\'t conflicting under system. The hardware i\'m guessing sometimes still trys to access teh same IRQs of another hardwares irq. So they conflict and i get the lovely blue screen.

As for using 2000. I had strange problems with Blade of Darkness. Texture problems really bad. As for running dos games. I hate playing around with the dosbox memory management.

I think it\'s possible the problems you are having is with a bad install of the OS.  I had a problem where I got a hidden error (hidden meaning it was just a picture of the exlamation point and no error message accompanying it) and it happened everytime I ran a search on my system.  I couldn\'t locate any files at all.  Then I reinstalled the OS and the issue was fixed and I have had 0 complaints.  Actually, that was the only problem to date except for the crappy software supplied by Belkin for a router\\switch I bought, but I traded that in for LinkSYS and that installed and worked between my DSL and the two PC\'s in the house in 2 minutes.

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i\'ve reinstalled my os around 3 times in the last 2 weeks. Still got the problems. Once i changed the memory setting in my bios all is fine. My machine does restart once in awhile. But that\'s nothing really.  My old system used to do the same thing.. Windows 2000 works fine. So it\'s a XP issue.

If it\'s anything. It\'s probably my soundcard. Only because the XP drivers i\'m using are part of winxp. It\'s also teh same card i had in my old machine.. My Gf is using my old comp now. I\'ve got a old SIS ISA soundcard in here comp... Does really well too. I was expecting crappy sound.  No hardware support though. (no duh)
I\'ll get a SBlive 5.1 someday. but it doesn\'t bother me at the moment.

The new drivers for the Vortex 2 soundcard at windows update probably solves the problem. but u lose options with it..
"You lose Aureal A3D support, hardware acceleration, Aureal wavetable and S/PDIF support"
S/Pdif is for Sony/Panasonic Digital interface. etc. I don\'t use it.. But losing Hardware support and A3D support would be stupid. If i have to do that. I\'ll just get a Creative Vibra128 SC and get the sblive when i get my reciever setup.

I got the info from here.
http://members.optushome.com.au/kirben/

That would be really weird for it to reboot over your soundcard.  I have a vortex1 card but it\'s not in use on my Win2k machine.

If you want to get a cheap SBLive then check out http://www.newegg.com

my XP used to give me an error report everytime I accessed the control panle twice in a row.  it would also refuse to recognize a connection after hibernation.  and would also not recognize my touch pad after hibernation.  i just went into the task manager disabled things until all the bugs were worked out.

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I\'ve been researching on XP. Seems like MS get THOUSANDS of emails a day on good old xps problems with some or should i say. A lot of hardware.

I\'ve done some searching and found better drivers for my capture card. (i hope)  I\'ve also downloaded the latest drivers from Nvidia. The last time i updated the drivers i got strange problems with ie etc. My system started to lag really strangly. That\'s with the 29.42 drivers too. But i\'ve heard nvidia have fixed the problem and re-released them.

I\'m also updating my Modem drivers. Swann have updated there XP drivers so i\'m hoping they may help.

Ohh, and while was searching for the Bt878 drivers. I found a capture card that looks EXECTLY like my own. Everything is exectly the same as mine.  Only the brand is different... Strange....


I also disabled the Page file in xp. I\'ve read that it can be reasons why people get errors under IE etc.

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FINALLY

I\'ve figured out alittle more that may have been a problem.

Even though my system wasn\'t saying there were any conflicts. 3 Hardware devices were sharing the same IRQ. Now Plug and Play OS are meant to be fine with this.. Well XP doesn\'t like this at all.
My Modem, Capture card and Geforce card were sharing the SAME IRQ.. 11

I went into bios.. Turned off PLUG AND PLAY OS and OS over 64meg bs, also disabled the PCI IRQ auto detect.
Set the IRQs manualy, and disabled all the com/parallel ports. To free up some irqs. Don\'t need them anyway

Everything has it\'s own irq address now. But the modem is sharing a irq with my gfx card. I\'m guessing the PCI slot under the AGP slot share the same IRQ. I\'ll move the modem to the other pci slot. That should fix it. I hope.  

Why am i telling everyone this. Maybe it will help people in the future if they get any problems like i\'ve had.

Also playing around with Capture/TV/FM card drivers. TV Excel don\'t have any xp drivers. I\'ve been using 2000 drivers and was amazed to see they work. Sense the card is based of Bt878 chipset. (brooktree, Phillips tuner made by telSignal)
I\'ve found heaps of drivers. Gotta go through them all now.. gonna take some time to figure out which runs best.

Also found out that Telsignal made the same card.. and released it too different companys.  donno how true it is..

Good job Souly, I have my comp since April.  I\'ve had errors, but they always fix themselves.  So zero problems except for the screwy network last night.

Does XP use the same "virtual IRQ sharing" that Win2k does?