SillyDog701

[Van Halen Man]

Howdy, I have a computer with an Asus P4S8X-MX mobo, intel pentium 4, 1024 mb of ram (-128 for shared graphix). My computer freezes whenever I am playing any sort of game. It will work for a few minutes, or sometimes maybe even a little bit, but sooner or later it will freeze and I will hear this long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. I think that windows dosn't have good drivers for motherboard resources and what not. And I don't have the driver CD, so does anyone know what I can do here? I don't want to have to buy the CD, so any help here is greatly appreciated!
Thanks.

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[Don_HH2K]

I did some research and read from a couple of places that the Asus P4S8X-MX has a few stability issues... I haven't been able to determine whether or not this is something that's correctable, though I would definitely make sure that you've installed the latest BIOS revision for your particular board.

You say that this issue only occurs while gaming. We may be able to extrapolate that to any high-performance activity. One idea is that the board may be overheating, download PC Wizard or some other app capable of reading ACPI temperatures and see for yourself. Second is that you may have bad RAM, in which case you'll want to test it using Memtest86+.

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[Van Halen Man]

well, I'm pretty sure that the RAM isn't the problem because I have switched sticks several times to check and it still happens....And what temperature is considered overheating? I'm pretty sure that it isn't but I could be wrong....

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[Don_HH2K]

Given what you say I'd agree it's probably not your RAM.

Most chips such as CPUs and graphics cards will automatically shut off at around the boiling point (100C), though anything idling too high is a good warning sign.

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[Van Halen Man]

Well...I didn't see anything that was anywhere near 100C so..I don't think that that is it. Should I try to change the amount of shared memory for graphics from 128 to 64 just to see what happens?

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[Don_HH2K]

You can try it, though I doubt it'd be particularly useful.

If you're up for it, you might try running a LiveCD of some other operating system for awhile, and see if you can somehow reproduce the problem in it. That way, you could try and determine whether the problem is a hardware problem or a software problem.

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[Van Halen Man]

That's an idea. I have a Games Knoppix Live CD and several Live Ubuntu CDs, the only problem with this is that there dosnt seem to be a good video driver for knoppix and Ubuntu dosn't really have any games capable of making the problem occur...but I have never had it freeze while using one....but I'll give it a try.

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[PaulD]

Is this a home-built system?

Supporting what Don said in the first reply -
I did a Google search for [ Asus "long beep" ]; there are over 11,000 hits. Just scanning a few on the first page of results seems to recap that there may be some memory (and/or BIOS) issue. But you seem to be on top of that. Check it out for yourself for other ideas.

Are you able to run with reduced memory (yes, performance will take a big hit) to see if this is somehow address related? Does the BIOS correctly report the real memory installed?

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[Van Halen Man]

Yeah, it is a home built system and you mean try running it with less RAM? Or graphics memory? And there has been an updated bios installed..I bought the mobo from a friend of mine and HE updated it. I don't know how long ago it was though, I could try to do it again, but I don't really know how to do it...

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[PaulD]

Yes, I meant less memory (RAM) (I wasn't referring to changing the amount allocated to graphics). This is dependent upon how the memory is implemented - 1 to 4 sticks.

"I could try to do it again, but I don't really know how to do it..."
- by 'it' do you mean BIOS refresh?

If you are in the US, look at this ASUS site for starters. I am unable to go farther because of a message: "Due to vast number of connections online, the page that you requested cannot be displayed properly." And the instructions that follow this also get the same error when tried. You may have better luck at a different time of day.

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[Van Halen Man]

Ok, I opened up the device manager in windows and there are drivers missing for the following: Direct Memory Acces Controller, Motherboard Resources, Numeric Data Processor, Programmable interupt controller, System board, System speaker, and System timer.
Could these missing drivers be the reason for the beep?

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[PaulD]

" ... there are drivers missing for ..." a list of 7 items.
- I see that. But when I go a little deeper and click on the 'Driver Details' button on the Driver tab, I get "No driver files are required or have been loaded for this device." for 6 of the 7 items you name. (I don't see 'System Board' in the list.)

"Could these missing drivers be the reason for the beep?"
- So I think not.

Your first post stated: "I think that windows dosn't have good drivers for motherboard resources and what not."
- I don't see how an operating system should be responsible for resources that are hardware-critical. That is what the CMOS (BIOS) should handle. You should be able to boot even into DOS, which certainly doesn't have 'motherboard resource drivers'.
- Back to basics. All the indications that I've seen are that there is a memory problem.

Another post: "I have switched [memory] sticks several times"
- 'Switched' means what? With the original sticks?
- Did this system ever work correctly with games?
- Since this is a home-built system, can you confirm that the memory cycle times are properly matched to the bus? Is over-clocking jumpered?

How many memory sticks are in your system? And in which slots are they?
When I was looking at other on-line posts the other day I saw something about 'blue' slots. Does this have any relevance to you?

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[Van Halen Man]

Switched as in changed sticks to see if they were the probelm. I also did a memory test and everything passed so....
And I built it not very long ago, but before I had the mobo, I think that it was in some dell computer. I got it from a friend of mine, and I don't think that he had any problems with it before, but he had the driver disk that came with it, and I don't (but you guys don't seem to think that that is a problem)
And how do I confirm that the memory cycle times are properly matched to the bus?
And I assume you are refering to over-clocking the processor. I think that it is jumpered, I'm not sure...it is actually underclocked. It is a 2.8GHz cpu running at around 2.4.
I have 2 512 sticks of ram in it right now. And what do you mean buy "which slots are they"?
And if "blue" means that the slots are actually blue, then it doesn't have any relevance.

EDIT: I just realized that when my computer makes the beep, it doesn't actually freeze, but there is the beep and I can't seem to control anything (keyboard, mouse etc...)I could never get the onboard sound card to work, so I added an older sound card (Creative Labs Sound Blaster CT4810(PCI))And I thought that maybe this card is the problem, so I disabled it and tried it again. The problem doesn't seem to happen, but eventually it kinda freezes (and I can't tell if it beeps because I am not using the PCI soundcard ,but the onboard sound card (which dosn't seem to work) but I can exit the program with the keyboard, so I think that it is just the emulator that crashes in this case (ePSXe)
Does this make sence?

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[PaulD]

We're kind of going around without getting very far. I've never built my own system, so I haven't gone through the exercise of engineering that all components properly will work together.

Have you done the net search that was suggested, and followed up on any ideas that suggested themselves for research? A couple of the hits on the first page are: here and here. Have you been able to get into the ASUS support pages?

The first one mentions "slots 1 and 3, both colored blue". The second one (too long to quote) talks about voltages, BIOS resets and defaults, and trying just one 512M stick at a time.

When you got your new memory did you ensure that it is the correct speed? If the previous owner of the gear had no problem then it is likely that you have an incompatibility in the integration. I can't help with that; all I can do is suggest avenues for you to research.

Your Edit post and my post hit at the same time. You've now introduced new variables: sound card; not a freeze; and an emulator. Now you have some idea of the challenges that a computer manufacturer or integrator has, that of ensuring that all components are good, and that they will work together.

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[Van Halen Man]

I don't know what you mean by correct speed, but my friend (who I got the motherboard from) is the one who pointed the sticks of ram out to me so I would assume that they are alright for this board..Did you see the edit that I just made in my previous post as you were typing that last one?

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