2007-01-22, 04:09 AM
So, I spent a fair amount of time this weekend trying to figure out why my system locks up at the XP Desktop (freezes solid) when I'd exit the WinTV2000 application. It also happened in GBPVR but I was able to reproduce the problem with WinTV2K so I knew it wasn't this app.
Summary: I had to disable APIC (NOT ACPI) in the system BIOS and reinstall (Clean) windows.
Details:
I had upgraded my setup from an Nforce2 board w/ a Nvidia Ti4200 AGP card to an ECS Nforce3-a s754 Athlon 64 3000 w/ ATI x1600 AGP card. I had a clean installed and went through various recommended configs such as:
In the end NONE of that worked, even after various 'clean' installs. No matter what I tried, every time I ended the WinTV2000 application, about 3-4seconds later it would hard lock / freeze the desktop and a hard-boot was required.
I searched and could not find any direct hits on this problem, and I didn't have any other S754 boards to test if I have a faulty mainboard or a chipset issue... and I was already on the latest bios.
Eventually I did find hit on that some folks had problems with the Advanced Prog. Interrupt Controller (APIC) in Linux and other apps. As I'd tried (seemingly) everything else, I disabled APIC in the bios, reinstalled XP again, and this time all works well.
Note: Disabling APIC reduces the number of IRQ's available to 15, so I now have a a few devices sharing IRQ's (whereas before with APIC enabled they all had unique values). In theory they should get along either way. With APIC disabled I found one side affect in that I can't use the NVIDIA SW IDE Drivers. With it enabled they worked fine (except for a 30 second delay before the XP logo starting windows...).
Sorry for the long post but on the off chance that somebody else runs into freeze / hang / lockup problems w/ PVR150 hardware and Nvidia NFORCE3, perhaps the above will be of assistance. And, if anyone else has any other ways of working around this issue (short of replacing the motherboard--which may still happen), please share!
Summary: I had to disable APIC (NOT ACPI) in the system BIOS and reinstall (Clean) windows.
Details:
I had upgraded my setup from an Nforce2 board w/ a Nvidia Ti4200 AGP card to an ECS Nforce3-a s754 Athlon 64 3000 w/ ATI x1600 AGP card. I had a clean installed and went through various recommended configs such as:
- Drivers (Used various combinations of
- Chipset 5.10, 5.11 (and some older) vs XP Native
- video (ATI Drivers and Omega Drivers, new and old)
- hauppauge drivers (Tried older and latest versions)
- Chipset 5.10, 5.11 (and some older) vs XP Native
- PCI Slots (Moved cards around, disabled unnecessary devices, etc)
- Realtek Audio Drivers and alternative Sound Card [This actually made a slight difference... swapping in a SB Live! value I had lying around helped delay the lockup on exiting winTV, but it still locked up.
- System Timings (no overclocks, etc)
- Swapped out video hardware thinking maybe it was an ATI/Nvidia issue
- Tried using DIB DRAW mode instead of OVERLAY mode
In the end NONE of that worked, even after various 'clean' installs. No matter what I tried, every time I ended the WinTV2000 application, about 3-4seconds later it would hard lock / freeze the desktop and a hard-boot was required.
I searched and could not find any direct hits on this problem, and I didn't have any other S754 boards to test if I have a faulty mainboard or a chipset issue... and I was already on the latest bios.
Eventually I did find hit on that some folks had problems with the Advanced Prog. Interrupt Controller (APIC) in Linux and other apps. As I'd tried (seemingly) everything else, I disabled APIC in the bios, reinstalled XP again, and this time all works well.
Note: Disabling APIC reduces the number of IRQ's available to 15, so I now have a a few devices sharing IRQ's (whereas before with APIC enabled they all had unique values). In theory they should get along either way. With APIC disabled I found one side affect in that I can't use the NVIDIA SW IDE Drivers. With it enabled they worked fine (except for a 30 second delay before the XP logo starting windows...).
Sorry for the long post but on the off chance that somebody else runs into freeze / hang / lockup problems w/ PVR150 hardware and Nvidia NFORCE3, perhaps the above will be of assistance. And, if anyone else has any other ways of working around this issue (short of replacing the motherboard--which may still happen), please share!