Re: XP Setup hangs with dual PIII-550 on Asus P2B-DS v1.04



Nir Gilboa wrote:

Hi

Thank you very much to everyone who tried to help. You guys really are at least as crazy as me for spending time on this :-)

Roger: The mb does not have any modifications made to it. From what you are saying it does sound like I should fix the ACPI issue. I found a few places that make reference to moving the R79 resistor to R80. If you find those board pictures somewhere i'd be happy to try it.

Robert: I have one IDE 80Gb drive attached to Primary IDE and one CD-ROM on the secondary IDE.

P2B: It might be a memory issue, but in the one CPU config the installation always works without a hitch, which leads me to believe the memory issue if it exists is not the main problem.

I tend to agree, but running memtest86 overnight before installing the OS is standard procedure here. If it hangs, crashes, or reports errors there's a hardware issue (not always memory). If it's still running clean by morning, chances are the hardware is good to go.

Cleaning the slots and underclocking are also good ideas and i will definitely try them. Do you happen to know if moving the R79 to R80 is the correct fix for ACPI and what it actually does ?

You have that backwards, the fix is moving R80 to R79, but I don't know exactly why it fixes the problem. It sounds like your board already has the fix, but I posted a picture of the location so you can check - this one has been fixed:

http://tipperlinne.com/images/acpi-fix.jpg

I have been able to find a workaround - I install with one CPU and force the MPS Multiprocessor HAL. The installation completes successfully. I then reboot after re-inserting the second CPU. XP loads fine and when opening the task manager i could see two working processors, and accurate usage percentages. No 50% use bug or anything.

The second time i tried to open task manager the pc simply rebooted. No BSOD, no error in the event log, NADA. As if I pressed the reset button :)

Classic symptom of dodgy connections between the processor and slot on these boards.

P2B

Another "feature" of this setup is that hangs. XP hangs usually after about 2-3 minutes with only a reset helping.. There is an error in the System log which says: "Error code 10000050, parameter1 ffbfaacc, param2 00000000, param3 bf830313, param4 0000000" Also I do see the "Windows has recovered from a serious error" and all the BCCodes and hex numbers but i have no idea how to use them to understand what is wrong.

Interesting, isn't it ?:) I think the next thing I will try is cleaning the slots and underclocking. If that doesn't work, I think i'll just have to sacrifice the mb and processors to big orange flames :) Or I could settle with using just one CPU :) heh

Anyway thanks again to everyone - if you still have ideas i'd love to hear them.

Nir 
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