When sound is played, computer freezes.

AMD 1800
512 Geil ram
5200 Geforce
Nforce 2 winfast mobo
2 wd 40 gig hd
xp home, all security updates
zone alarm, AV norton 2003


bios and all other drivers up to date

My computer has no problem on startup. The problem only occurs if a lot of sound is played. I hear the intro windows sound fine and any music i may play but it will freeze the computer and start looping any sound being played after about 10 minutes. It also seems to be freezing before it can finalize the installation of Warcraft III.

I also have a soundblaster live, but i would get the same problem only windows would freeze either way - sound played or not. It would also seem to freeze on startup when using the soundblaster as well.

At the moment i'm using onboard sound. I have tried disabling onboard sound and installing the sound blaster as well.

There seem to be no conflicts with my devices.

I'm guessing it could be the motherboard, but i'm not sure how it would be failing in this way.

I've also tried new installations of xp, a new power supply, new hd, and other configurations.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

Hi'

This is a strange one, does the computer freeze when doing anything else and does it do it if the speakers are turned off or unpluged?

How are your temps? Have you tested the ram?

Rick

 

Sounds like it might be an IRQ or DMA conflict. That doesn't always show up with a yellow "!" in Device Manager. Check the resources used by the sound card, and see what else has been assigned to the same IRQ and DMA channel. Also check for conflicts on the Resources page of the properties for your sound card.

Some peripherals don't share resources very well -- especially sound cards.

If another peripheral is using the same IRQ or DMA channel, see if you can find a way to assign a different IRQ or DMA channel to that peripheral. It's usually easier than trying to change a sound card's assigned resources.

You haven't said what O/S or sound card you're using. That could be valuable information for a trouble-shooter.

 

Sorry for the delay, I've been trying to get my computer back up to speed with no positive results.

I'm running Windows XP Professional, and a sound blaster live! value.

The computer freezes with sound being used or not. It seems as if sound worsens the problem.

I have no checked the ram because I have no floppy drive. Every ram integrity scanner i've found requires it to be run during start up.

As for my irq's, absolutely nothing is being shared. Everything is on it's own. I'm not sure how to check the DMA you are referring to.

 

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp#top

You should be able to test your memory with this from a cd if you can keep it running long enough. I would invest in a floppy there cheap. What are you temps? Is this a new build or did it just start all of a sudden? What speed is your ram?

 

I have a floppy, just after windows 98, I never thought I would need it again .
My system temperature is around 39C and cpu around 45. When I was booting, I noticed that my memory freq was about double what it normally was - 400mhz.

I checked my bios and it was set to default but i think it's far too much.

I'm not sure if this will help but my memory latency is 2.5, 3rp, 3 rcb, and 6 tras. The voltage to my memory is 2.56.

I've had the same computer setup for over 6 months without a hitch. I had even replaced one of the hard drives without a problem. I'm not sure exactly when the problem started.

I don't have any blanks yet but i'll run the test as soon as i can. I hope the changing of the memory clock speed will help. I hope the speed wasn't too much for it.

Does anybody know the average temperature for an Athlon 1800++?

 

Stock cooling, from 50-60C is normal in a home environment.

Perhaps a silly question, but have you tried re-installing the sound drivers?

 

I've tried reinstalling the drivers a few times. I've also tried disabling it, re-enabling it and everything else in btwn.

My Sound Blaster drivers are also incredibly old. They have never released a true xp driver it seems.

Since I've lowered the frequency, I've actually had one startup with no problems and a failed boot to desktop. Just a freeze when the OS is loading.

I'm running out of ideas :-/

 

What ram do you have, is it pc3200? If the ram clock in bios is set to spd then pc3200 will run at 400mhz.

Your cpu is 266mhz so try setting the ram clock to 133, this will make it run insync with the cpu. I always recommend this when there is stability problems.
Also try bumping up the northbridge voltage just a bit.

The cpu temp of 45c is that at idle when the computer has been running for at least 15 minutes?

Rick