XP ACPI problems

[Ritchie]

Who is PNY - Are they a manufacturer of good quality memory? I have had a lot of problems with cheap brand memory. I normally now try to stick to Kingston and Hynix (formerly Hyundai). However, if you are having the same problems it may not be memory - I thought something might have changed if it was.

[corrupt]

BIOS ID: 03/28/2001-8363A-686B-6A6LMD4FC-00

You should be able to find: 11/12/2001-8363A-686B-6A6LMD4FC-00 from the manufacturer's website (or newer). I found the page for bios updates for this board on the DFI site earlier but a link to download the file was not available for some reason for me. I can send you the one I have if you'd like. Just let me know...

I had tried changing memory in mine as well with no difference... I had put in a single 256 stick that was running with no problems in my Soyo board with XP pro. Both machines have almost the same hardware installed (brand and model) as well.

[Ritchie]

DFI mainboard?

Yuck!

Got a spare mainboard. If so, give that a try. I would not be surprised if your problem was a faulty DFI mainboard, and I say that because I have had many problems with DFI products. I don't deal with them anymore. My experience with DFI is in networking products but I would be more worried about their mainboards as I consider mainboards more prone to failure and problems than networking cards and products.

If it were me, I would not toss out the DFI mainboard without believing it was faulty, but if I could prove it was faulty I would be happy for the chance to get rid of it and replace it with something (that I consider) decent.

[NickS]

Who is PNY - Are they a manufacturer of good quality memory?

They are a well-known manufacturer, which is not the same. I did come across one stick of PNY which was 64MB but the SPD was programmed as 32MB. An Intel motherboard got very confused. A PC-Chips motherboard ignored the SPD and worked fine.

[s2s2]

run your OS as Standard PC on (F5 during F6 prompt, Windows setup or repair). Turn on APM in windows.

There is an extended answer here

http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/windows-xp/1674-acpi-errors.html

correlating each address range to the specific system function. May help you to track down the error/inform you.

I have a -related- question: How do I, after forcing Standard PC, force APM in windows? I've got a Windows lappy, a compaq armada 1750, which seems to be happier with a standard PC HAL, although APM is not available as a check, and APMSTAT returns 'This is an ACPI machine. APM is NOT applicable'. Although all the linux on- posts say the ACPI is busted and APM is what should be used. This PC also has the same ACPI errors, and they go away when installing the Standard PC HAL.

[Yury]

I've had this board for over 2 years, I only recently started getting these errors. After putting in a 160gb WD HDD through an ATA card I began getting these problems. I've gotten rid of the ATA card and have the 160 going right into the board, still get the errors.

most 686* BIOSs support a maximum of 136 GB HD due to absense of native 48-bit LBA. so the first partition must be smaller than that or else there will be random errors. I installed a 200 GB HD and had to keep it as a "basic" disk in windows, with a small(er) primary partition and big extended. converting to "dynamic" disk resulted in random slow-downs of varying severity. ghosted back to a basic disk and everything is dandy again.

In the "CMOS setup" - "Advanced BIOS features" disable the Quick POST. In my case the extended test found an incompatible memory module that had perfectly compatible specs and still works great in another computer. Prime95 could not find this error. The memory range stated in BSODs was for "PCI bus", which is as vague as it gets.
still the problem could have been not the stick but the virgin slot. it was so tight i almost hurt myself trying to push it in. the replacement (bigger) module i replugged a couple of times and then cleaned it again.

I've seen the mentioned ACPI errors in the system log but never encountered any problems as long as the hardware was good. that seems to be just a bit of benign incompatibility with XP. hibernation works fine. i use 3-08-2001 BIOS because it assigns IRQs better. later BIOS 10-23-2001 (rel. 11-2001) gives IRQ3 to ACPI, resulting in a nasty conflict with a hardware modem. reserving IRQ3 makes the modem not function in windows. technically it's possible to turn off the mostly useless serial port and set the modem to IRQ4. aren't old boards fun?

[edwin]

I don't deal with them anymore. My experience with DFI is in networking products but I would be more worried about their mainboards as I consider mainboards more prone to failure and problems than networking cards and products.

I have no experience with their networking products but I suspect they do that as a side business with according QC/QA.

DFI mainboards have always been of good quality and nowadays they are more into the gaming segment. And that is a place where you cannot afford any mistakes or they will drop you like a hot potato.

So, did you ever use DFI mainboards at all?