Please can someone help me. I'm going quite mad. For about a year and a half now I have had the same problem of the screen freezing on my computer. This happens not in games but when ever the computer is active. It crashes if left on its own between 20mins to 2 hours and sooner if I am using it. Sometimes it freezes a minute after boot-up sometimes, 5 mins. It's driving me mad and I can't afford a new computer.

I have replaced everything and it's still there. I was running a Geforce2 GTS card - and replaced that yesterday with the nVidia 5600 (Christmas present). The problem has not gone away!!!!! I've bought new memory, a new Motherboard, new power supply, new drives and chip and it still has the same problem. Can somebody please help me sort this out????

I've looked at the error log - this is what I got before I changed the card:

Source: ACPI
AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0xcfc), which lies in the 0xcf8 - 0xcff protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.

and this after I changed the card:

Source: True Vector engine
No details

Here are my tech stats for the thing:

Operating System: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 (build 2600)

Processor
1000 megahertz AMD Athlon
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Board: (VIA K7VZA REV: 1.0) VT8363-686A
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 12/06/2000

Display:
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 [Display adapter]
Proview 15.7 [Monitor] (15.7"vis, November 1999)

Controllers:
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
VIA Bus Master IDE Controller

Bus Adapters
VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller

Maybe the monitor going bad. If you have replaced everything that you said you had then whatever is causing the problem must still be there. Does your system freeze or does the monitor just turn off? And I will assume that you havn't manually changed any of the IRQ?

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The mouse freezes first for about thirty seconds while any other screen movement continues, then the whole screen becomes frozen. No black screen. I don't understand about IRQ, but I don't think I've changed anything.

Whats your take on the error logs?

I'm not sure about the error logs. I'm going to have to research the problem. I've never heard of this problem before.

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Do you know how to update your Bios?

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

I've no idea how to update my BIOS - but I'm not computer illiterate or anything - just confused, angry, confused again and mightily peed off why I can't sort this problem. I've tried everything. It might be the combination of of Athalon, Via MB and nVidia but those problems are to do with games not with entire freezing of computer.

Since the last reply I have updated the driver for my monitor - no change, the bugger still froze after a minute or two.

My standard answer for any type of freeze-ups - check the temperature (CPU and chipset). Use a utlilty like AIDA32 and open up your case and see if it still happens...

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I agree with Div check the temps. I also researched your error logs and what I have found out is this is a bios problem and that you should upgrade your bios.

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I thought it might be a temperature problem also. Both sides are off my computer and I have an

extra home fan blowing into the box but nothing I do changes anything. It is so frustrating as I

use my computer for creative projects like home recording, websites and writing and I spend all

my time trying to fix the growing number of problems that these constant crashes cause in my

computer. I've lost my burner (using it now crashes the computer) and my Zip drive (it won't

recognize any disks) so I can't save any files larger than a floppy. It needs to be rebuilt but

there's no point until this problem is fixed. It fails to boot 1 time out of 4 and sometimes

boots and responds so slowly that it is unusable. As you might tell from my long post - I'm at my

wits end. I've got all this free time now and I can't do anything with it.

To give you an idea - I'm writing this post in notepad and saving every other word as everytime I

try and post to the forum the computer freezes before I can finish it - this is my fifth

attempt!!! Computer has been freezing after just a few minutes.

Yes, upgrading BIOS is something I have considered but I don't know where to get an updated BIOS

for my MB. Any clues. The process involves making a disk and booting from that and doing

something called 'Flashing BIOS?????' - it's a grey area for me. This side of computers

is where my knowledge lacks somewhat. But maybe BIOS upgrade is the way to go. Can you help me on

this?

what is your motherboard. I need the full name if you can find it and I'll see what I can do. Have you tried redoing your system completely?

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.