Windows XP locking up

[goodonya]

I recently added a HDD to my system as a slave drive. Ever since, my machine has started to freeze up on me. I run solely music and videos off this new HDD and it will freeze up leaving me with an insanely high pitched squeal. Sitting idle over night and it will freeze up. This started to get worse even after I reformatted and reinstalled win xp pro on my main HDD. Nothing I seem to do seems to keep my machine from not freezing. My cpu and system temp's are normal. I've also tried to use a Promise IDE contoller card and access the drive through that way and still i get lock ups. What makes the whole thing really strange is that it sometimes locks up when I'm just browsing the net w/ a flash website w/ sound and other times it locks up when I play a new game like NHL 2004 (all video card drivers are up to date). Sometimes after having the machine lock up on me, I'll notice that the machine reports only seeing less RAM than I have like 256 instead of 512 or 384 instead of 512....and then other times, the RAM shows up. I don' t have my machine o/c'd or anything. Even when taking out that second drive, I notice that the machine locks up. Updating xp w/ hotfixes and other security updates and the machine would lock up...

any suggestions or further inquiries on anything? please get back to me asap


specs:

MSI K7T266 Pro2 mobo
Antec Smart Blue 350W PSU
AMD ATHLON XP 1700+ (running at 1.10ghz )
512 PC2100 DDR (Crucial and Samsung)
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 400
Plextor CD-R PX-W2410A
Samsung DVD-ROM SD-616F
IBM IC35L060 60 GB HDD (master)
WD WDJB1200 120GB HDD (slave)

[brunoz]

Hi

I have exactly the same problem with freeze and high tone noise. It started as I connected a second HDD. What I discovered is: something has to high temperature - it could be a north bidge or something else. I've mounted a small cooler at the radiator of the bridge. It helped for a fev days (and only if case is opened). Next I've mounded a big one (80mm) cooler. It is only standing at the vga bard. If I use my pc more there still are some hangups. I am monitoring the temperature of CPu and System. Normally the CPU shows 38 deg. and System about 25 degree. But if the System temperature rises to 30 deg. the PC freezes. I've had a fev ideas when I am burning CD or DVD: open the window... the temp falls then to 33/23 deg. But it is cold in the room. I don't have any idea, what will happen in the sommer... Maybe shall I connect the Watercooling or Peltier module? But where?

I've discovered too, that on other Operating systems (e.g. Linux, BeOS) this problem doesen't exist anymore...

Conf:
Athlon XP 2200+ @ 1800 MHz
640 Mb RAM
MSI KT266 Pro2
GF FX 5600
SB Live! 5.1 digital
2x LAN Card Realtek 8139b
Lite-on DVD burner
Lite-on DVD drive
Maxtor 80 GB Hdd (master)
Maxtor 20 GB Hdd (slave)

Latest driver, Xp patches,
XP SP 2 Polish


Please, let me know, if you discover the solution

Brunoz (PL)