24 pin power supplies, stability issues?

Ok, still having stability issues on my new build:

MSI K8N Neo4 Plat
Athlon X2 4400+
2 ea 250 gb WD Sata hard drives
ATI X850XT PCIe video card
Audigy2 ZS soundcard
2gb Corsair XMS LL pc3500 ( 2ea x 1gb), running in dual channel
Windows XP Sp2 completely updated

I updated the mb drivers with the latest from the Nvidia website about a
week ago.
I disabled cpu spread spectrum
I am running at optimized defaults, no overclocking as of yet.

My system locks up every few days, usually when using Outlook or Outlook
Express. I have yet to have it lock up while gaming, however, I only game a
couple hours a week at most. Most of my time is spent emailing and reading
newsgroups.

I get no error or warning messages in event viewer whatsoever. Just a lock
up, nothing works, not evening ctrl-alt-del, I have to power down by holding
the power switch in a few seconds, then restart, and it is fine.

I have the Nvidia ide sw drivers installed with the motherboard drivers,
wonder if this could be the problem, wonder if it would be worth
uninstalling the mb driver and re-installing and not installing the Nvidia
ide sw drivers?

I am also tempted to go ahead and order a new power supply that has the
extra 4 pin connector that goes on the end of the 20 pin connector just in
case...



Don Burnette





VanShania wrote:
Could also be a driver problem. Before spending tons of money, make
sure your bios is flashed to the most recent version and use the
latest motherboard drivers. Also make sure your using the most recent
drivers for your vid card and sound card too.


"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
I just recently assembled a new Athlon dual core system .
Athlon XP4400+ dual core cpu
MSI K8N Neo4 Plat Nforce4 mb
Saphire Radeon X850XT PCIe video card.
2gb of Corsair LL matched ( 2 ea 1gb) ddr ram
2 ea 250 gb WD Sata Hard drives

I have not overclocked the system yet, all running at default
settings. I did up my memory voltage slighty to see if that would
help, it has not. I also upped my vcore slightly.

I am having some stability issues. About once or twice a day, my
machine will just lock up. I have to press the power switch and hold
it in, to get the machine to shut down, then reboot. It seems to
usually happen when I am browsing the internet or reading
newsgroups. Has not happened while playing a game yet, but, I don't
game but about a couple hours a week.

It did it this evening when I booted it after getting home, then
after shutting down and rebooting, it went through a checkdisk and
corrected some errors. It did it last weekend, and would not boot,
said it was corrupt, and I ended up having to do a repair install of
XP Pro.

Heat is not an issue, my system temp is around 28c, cpu temp at idle
is 32c, under load the highest I have seen is 40c.

I am baffled by what is happening. I did a complete new clean
install of XP Pro SP2, and have all updates.

I am using an Antec True Power 530 watt power supply, but it is the
20 pin ( plus 4 ) connector, and the power connector on the
motherboard is the newer 24 pin connector ( plus 4). Someone posted
here recently that there might be some stability issues when using
the 20 pin in the 24 pin connector? I know MSI 's manual says it
should be fine.

I looked briefly at Newegg, and did not see any 24 pin connector
power supplies, at least under the Antec name, or perhaps I just
missed it? All I saw showed as 20 pin ( plus4) , the plus4 meaning I
presume the other small 4 pin connector that gets plugged into the
mb as well.

Would appreciate any advice, I am wondering if going with a new power
connector that has the 24 pin connector to match the motherboard
might solve the problem. I see nothing in XP's event viewer either
that gives a hint of the problem.

Also, looking at my voltages using Speedfan, I noticed my 3.3 volt
rail is showing 3.1 volts, wonder if that might have something to do
with it? I believe this power supply has an adjustment where I could
adjust the 3.3 volt setting.


Thanks for any advice,



--
Don Burnette

--

I'm using a gigabyte board and use the ide driver and I'm not having any
lockups myself. Did you update your bios first before doing your fresh
install? Also, the proper order for doing a fresh install is:
1. OS
2. ServicePck 2
3. Motherboard drivers
4.Vidcard/soundcard Drivers

It also appears that when doing a fresh install, you may want to pull all
your PCI devices out as it apparently causes interference with the IDE
driver(according to Gigabyte), just like Win 98. I also disable my onboard
sound and lan and install drivers after everything else.



"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
Ok, still having stability issues on my new build:

MSI K8N Neo4 Plat
Athlon X2 4400+
2 ea 250 gb WD Sata hard drives
ATI X850XT PCIe video card
Audigy2 ZS soundcard
2gb Corsair XMS LL pc3500 ( 2ea x 1gb), running in dual channel
Windows XP Sp2 completely updated

I updated the mb drivers with the latest from the Nvidia website about a
week ago.
I disabled cpu spread spectrum
I am running at optimized defaults, no overclocking as of yet.

My system locks up every few days, usually when using Outlook or Outlook
Express. I have yet to have it lock up while gaming, however, I only game
a couple hours a week at most. Most of my time is spent emailing and
reading newsgroups.

I get no error or warning messages in event viewer whatsoever. Just a lock
up, nothing works, not evening ctrl-alt-del, I have to power down by
holding the power switch in a few seconds, then restart, and it is fine.

I have the Nvidia ide sw drivers installed with the motherboard drivers,
wonder if this could be the problem, wonder if it would be worth
uninstalling the mb driver and re-installing and not installing the Nvidia
ide sw drivers?

I am also tempted to go ahead and order a new power supply that has the
extra 4 pin connector that goes on the end of the 20 pin connector just in
case...



Don Burnette





VanShania wrote:
Could also be a driver problem. Before spending tons of money, make
sure your bios is flashed to the most recent version and use the
latest motherboard drivers. Also make sure your using the most recent
drivers for your vid card and sound card too.


"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
I just recently assembled a new Athlon dual core system .
Athlon XP4400+ dual core cpu
MSI K8N Neo4 Plat Nforce4 mb
Saphire Radeon X850XT PCIe video card.
2gb of Corsair LL matched ( 2 ea 1gb) ddr ram
2 ea 250 gb WD Sata Hard drives

I have not overclocked the system yet, all running at default
settings. I did up my memory voltage slighty to see if that would
help, it has not. I also upped my vcore slightly.

I am having some stability issues. About once or twice a day, my
machine will just lock up. I have to press the power switch and hold
it in, to get the machine to shut down, then reboot. It seems to
usually happen when I am browsing the internet or reading
newsgroups. Has not happened while playing a game yet, but, I don't
game but about a couple hours a week.

It did it this evening when I booted it after getting home, then
after shutting down and rebooting, it went through a checkdisk and
corrected some errors. It did it last weekend, and would not boot,
said it was corrupt, and I ended up having to do a repair install of
XP Pro.

Heat is not an issue, my system temp is around 28c, cpu temp at idle
is 32c, under load the highest I have seen is 40c.

I am baffled by what is happening. I did a complete new clean
install of XP Pro SP2, and have all updates.

I am using an Antec True Power 530 watt power supply, but it is the
20 pin ( plus 4 ) connector, and the power connector on the
motherboard is the newer 24 pin connector ( plus 4). Someone posted
here recently that there might be some stability issues when using
the 20 pin in the 24 pin connector? I know MSI 's manual says it
should be fine.

I looked briefly at Newegg, and did not see any 24 pin connector
power supplies, at least under the Antec name, or perhaps I just
missed it? All I saw showed as 20 pin ( plus4) , the plus4 meaning I
presume the other small 4 pin connector that gets plugged into the
mb as well.

Would appreciate any advice, I am wondering if going with a new power
connector that has the 24 pin connector to match the motherboard
might solve the problem. I see nothing in XP's event viewer either
that gives a hint of the problem.

Also, looking at my voltages using Speedfan, I noticed my 3.3 volt
rail is showing 3.1 volts, wonder if that might have something to do
with it? I believe this power supply has an adjustment where I could
adjust the 3.3 volt setting.


Thanks for any advice,



--
Don Burnette

--

Thanks Van,

I was able to solve my stability issues, by uninstalling the motherboard
drivers, and reinstalling and then NOT installing the Nvidia IDW SW driver.

Not sure why it was having that affect on my particular system, but without
the Nvidia IDE SW driver, my system has been rock solid.

Don Burnette



VanShania wrote:
I'm using a gigabyte board and use the ide driver and I'm not having
any lockups myself. Did you update your bios first before doing your
fresh install? Also, the proper order for doing a fresh install is:
1. OS
2. ServicePck 2
3. Motherboard drivers
4.Vidcard/soundcard Drivers

It also appears that when doing a fresh install, you may want to pull
all your PCI devices out as it apparently causes interference with
the IDE driver(according to Gigabyte), just like Win 98. I also
disable my onboard sound and lan and install drivers after everything
else.


"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
Ok, still having stability issues on my new build:

MSI K8N Neo4 Plat
Athlon X2 4400+
2 ea 250 gb WD Sata hard drives
ATI X850XT PCIe video card
Audigy2 ZS soundcard
2gb Corsair XMS LL pc3500 ( 2ea x 1gb), running in dual channel
Windows XP Sp2 completely updated

I updated the mb drivers with the latest from the Nvidia website
about a week ago.
I disabled cpu spread spectrum
I am running at optimized defaults, no overclocking as of yet.

My system locks up every few days, usually when using Outlook or
Outlook Express. I have yet to have it lock up while gaming,
however, I only game a couple hours a week at most. Most of my time
is spent emailing and reading newsgroups.

I get no error or warning messages in event viewer whatsoever. Just
a lock up, nothing works, not evening ctrl-alt-del, I have to power
down by holding the power switch in a few seconds, then restart, and
it is fine. I have the Nvidia ide sw drivers installed with the
motherboard
drivers, wonder if this could be the problem, wonder if it would be
worth uninstalling the mb driver and re-installing and not
installing the Nvidia ide sw drivers?

I am also tempted to go ahead and order a new power supply that has
the extra 4 pin connector that goes on the end of the 20 pin
connector just in case...



Don Burnette





VanShania wrote:
Could also be a driver problem. Before spending tons of money, make
sure your bios is flashed to the most recent version and use the
latest motherboard drivers. Also make sure your using the most
recent drivers for your vid card and sound card too.


"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
I just recently assembled a new Athlon dual core system .
Athlon XP4400+ dual core cpu
MSI K8N Neo4 Plat Nforce4 mb
Saphire Radeon X850XT PCIe video card.
2gb of Corsair LL matched ( 2 ea 1gb) ddr ram
2 ea 250 gb WD Sata Hard drives

I have not overclocked the system yet, all running at default
settings. I did up my memory voltage slighty to see if that would
help, it has not. I also upped my vcore slightly.

I am having some stability issues. About once or twice a day, my
machine will just lock up. I have to press the power switch and
hold it in, to get the machine to shut down, then reboot. It seems
to usually happen when I am browsing the internet or reading
newsgroups. Has not happened while playing a game yet, but, I don't
game but about a couple hours a week.

It did it this evening when I booted it after getting home, then
after shutting down and rebooting, it went through a checkdisk and
corrected some errors. It did it last weekend, and would not boot,
said it was corrupt, and I ended up having to do a repair install
of XP Pro.

Heat is not an issue, my system temp is around 28c, cpu temp at
idle is 32c, under load the highest I have seen is 40c.

I am baffled by what is happening. I did a complete new clean
install of XP Pro SP2, and have all updates.

I am using an Antec True Power 530 watt power supply, but it is the
20 pin ( plus 4 ) connector, and the power connector on the
motherboard is the newer 24 pin connector ( plus 4). Someone
posted here recently that there might be some stability issues
when using the 20 pin in the 24 pin connector? I know MSI 's
manual says it should be fine.

I looked briefly at Newegg, and did not see any 24 pin connector
power supplies, at least under the Antec name, or perhaps I just
missed it? All I saw showed as 20 pin ( plus4) , the plus4 meaning
I presume the other small 4 pin connector that gets plugged into
the mb as well.

Would appreciate any advice, I am wondering if going with a new
power connector that has the 24 pin connector to match the
motherboard might solve the problem. I see nothing in XP's event
viewer either that gives a hint of the problem.

Also, looking at my voltages using Speedfan, I noticed my 3.3 volt
rail is showing 3.1 volts, wonder if that might have something to
do with it? I believe this power supply has an adjustment where I
could adjust the 3.3 volt setting.


Thanks for any advice,



--
Don Burnette

--