Problems with Asus P4C800-E Deluxe

Your specs look totally fine. Some have had trouble with Corsair memory, others not. You could try running with only one stick and then the other, to see if that makes a difference about the hangs. 3GHz is bleeding edge, the mobo is only supposed to go to 3.2. Personally I'm using a pair of Kingston #KVR400X72C3A/512 which is ECC memory,and a 2.8 CPU.

As long as I am actively using the mouse or keyboard, the system won't lock up. The only option once the system freezes is to perform a hardware reset to reboot the computer.

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Is this a USB keyboard & mouse, or PS2? If it's USB, maybe you have a problem in that area. For PS2, I noticed on my mobo that if I disconnect the mouse, it's frozen after I plug it back in: a minor mobo issue I can live with, but if you happen to be using a KVM switchbox, I'm thinking it might appear to freeze. Maybe with USB if it goes offline after awhile, you could get a similar problem.

Actually this sounds like a power-management problem to me. Like, the system thinks stuff isn't in use, and it's shutting it off.

Now, I only mention this next thing because it sounds like you may be having power-control problems... maybe I'm running OK because, before I installed XP, I set it up as a non-ACPI computer. First I disabled all three ACPI settings in my BIOS, plus some of the APM stuff (like, never turn disk drives or video off). Then, when I installed XP, I installed it as a "Standard PC" instead of an ACPI computer; where you choose this is right near the beginning, when it offers that you can hit F6 to do this or that, instead you hit F5 (easter egg?), then cursor-up until "Standard PC" appears. I had done some web study beforehand to try to understand the pros and cons of ACPI, but after finding enough comments from programmers lamenting about how terrible and complex of a non-spec ACPI is, I easily made my choice: no ACPI for me!

Another thing I disabled was Hyper-Threading, didn't even try it.

And I'm running mostly fine. Everything works. I do get some pauses when loading programs for the first time --not sure what's up with that-- but none of your other stuff. I'm not sure you can switch to non-ACPI after installation, it might require rerunning Windows Setup from the CD, or at worst reinstalling XP (if you can get it to register again).

My understanding of the BIOS updates is that they should be applied sequentially: 1008, then 1009, then 1010, then 1011.

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Not necessary. You can go straight from 1007 to 1010, I did and it works fine. Just be sure to write down ALL your BIOS customized settings first, because after you install 1010, or 1011 or whatever, you want to first visit the Exit screen and choose Load BIOS Defaults, then go back and apply your customizations.

Also before you change BIOS, download the AFUDOS tool, put it on a boot floppy, boot from it, and do the command, "afudos /oORIGBIOS.ROM", it will save your current BIOS to the floppy (512K in size) in case you have to go back to it later. You can use any filename, doesn't have to be ORIGBIOS. The same tool is used to install new BIOS using the /iFILENAME option instead, either option takes about 30 seconds.

Oh... and whatever you do.... DON'T do that "clear the CMOS" jumper thing, it's nothing but headache!

-clintfan

Problem Solved!

After several days of testing, I am prepared to pronounce my problem solved (praise God!).

Here's what I did: I opened up my computer to check all the connections to make sure they were secure. They were. Then, I updated the BIOS from 1008 to 1011 in order. After doing that, everything worked fine. Then, I plugged back in my two USB devices which I hadn't yet plugged back in after I took my case apart. After doing that, my problems re-appeared; the computer would freeze when idle. So, I said, "ah ha...so it's the USB" and proceeded to unplug them. Presto! Problem gone again.

Now, I thought that I had tried unplugging the USB devices before and that it didn't solve the problem. So, it may be that I had two problems: BIOS and USB devices.

At any rate, my computer is working just fine without my printer and scanner plugged in. So now, the question is how do I get my non USB 2.0 printer/scanner to work? I'm going to try going into the BIOS and setting the USB 2.0 to run at "FullSpeed", which is apparently the speed of USB 1.1. Perhaps that will solve the problem. If not, I guess I'll have to use parallel for the printer and sacrifice my scanner and get a new one (which stinks).

Thanks to everyone for their help. It was much appreciated!

Glad you're working now! Good job narrowing the problem down! But it sounds to me more like a Device Manager issue, or maybe a miswired USB port.

Have you applied the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility yet, against ALL of your USB devices in Control Panel- Device Manager? If they still read "Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller" and "Standard Universal PCI to USB Host Controller" then you have not done this, and it could be part of your problem too. In that case, follow the "AFTER" instructions in the link given here.

On your Windows XP, the USB drivers are already in the O/S, but you still need to tell XP which ones it should use for this mobo, and applying the utility is what does that. On Win98, actual drivers are required to drive 2.0.



Were you using the built-in ports or ones you attached via pigtails? And did you try all the back ports?

If you're talking about one of the 4 built-in rear-panelUSB ports, there's no question the wiring is OK, so your approach with the BIOS might indeed be the thing to try. "HiSpeed "is definitely the 2.0 setting, so yes you want the other one which as you said should be "Full", to force 1.1-only speeds. But USB 2.0 ports are supposed to be backward compatible, so you should not need to force this: mine, for instance, are configured as HiSpeed and I have your same mobo, but I can run my steering wheel game device just fine.

But if you are talking about front-panel USB ports, then you might have just plugged them onto the mobo header(s) wrong. Easy to do. Me...? I used a beeper light and compared what I got there, to a USB port diagram I found on a web search. I matched the web diagram signals to the signals on Asus' pinouts in the mobo manual, and my 2 front ports work fine-- I hooked then up to the USB 5/6 header. I didn't use the Asus 4-port header that came with the mobo, since it chews up a PCI slot and I don't need 8 devs total. Tonight I can try to recreate that research for you if you need it.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan

yes, thankx for the pointer ! I work in IT, (makes no dif, I know !) and have hundreds of machines worldwide and am baffled with this one.
I am using only the cables ( ata 133) that were supplied with the board !!
but I can use the same hard drive(s) in my P2Bs MOBO using the old 40 pin cables there and get over 19 meg per sec. take same HDs and put in my old p3v4x ata66 system with 80 pin cables and get correct megs per sec min for that bus.
I am still waiting for a Tech at ASUS on why or how this new board could possibly have such a sluggish data rate in the primary and secondary IDE . this thing was put together, drives formatted, os added, mobo drivers added, and a burner added. all burns failed which led to this ...errors were reports "unknown cdr error ... or ATAPI error... 4 hours later , there is no prob with the burners or ASPI , issue is the HD thoughput and buffer undreruns
I pulled a very trusty plextor burner out of my p2bs system and ,,, put in this one same failure could not even burn an 8x cd ( 1.2 meg per sec). I will post whatever the outcome is, as I am concerned, my trust of ASUS mobo's just plummeted. the first tech at ASUS asked how I came to my conclusion on HD thoughput, and after my reply about hard benchmarking on three different systems, he said he would have to escalate the call,,,,,
I feel he was unprepared for me to have test systems to test all my hardware/software and benchmark the HD perf to this mobo as the issue.