Comp freezes, doesn't restart or give error messages

[ymmotrojam]

I just got the following setup...
Motherboard:
Soyo SY-P4VGA
Supports the following processors...
Pentium 4: 1.4GHz - 3.06GHz
Celeron: 1.7GHz - 2.8GHz
(non-Prescott support)

Chipset information...
VIA P4M266A / 8235 chipset
Motherboard Supports 533/400 MHz FSB

The motherboard supports these types of memory. Note that SDRAM and DDR cannot be used simulataneously...
Two 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets support up to 2GB (DDR 200/266)
PC2100 non-ECC, unbuffered DDR SDRAM memory
One 168-pin SDRAM 3.3V DIMM Socket support up to 1GB (PC100/133)

I'm currently running a p4 3.06ghz, 533mhz fsb (hyper-threading); 512mb DDR pc2100.

My problem is that my comp locks up, but it doesn't restart or give any error messages. It locks up to the point that I cannot move my mouse and it will not respond to typed commands. The screen does not go blank, but stays frozen on what it was displaying last. This happens usually when I am trying to do something that would require more processing than usual (eg playing a online flash game as opposed to typing in notepad...)

Possible problems...
1. Some of the IDE cables I'm using are from a older computer. Could that be a problem?
2. This was my first experience with installing a processor. Could I have applied the thermal grease incorrectly to cause such a problem?

I would really appreciate any help you guys can give. I'm new on these forums, so if I didn't do something the way you do it here, I apologize in advance :haha:

 

[vegasgmc]

You will have problems like that if you use 40 wire IDE cables on an ATA 66 or higher hard drive that needs an 80 wire cable. Did you install the motherboard drivers?

 

[ymmotrojam]

You will have problems like that if you use 40 wire IDE cables on an ATA 66 or higher hard drive that needs an 80 wire cable. Did you install the motherboard drivers?

Now that you mention it, I haven't actually installed any drivers for the motherboard. *pulling out the cd now. I'll let you know if it works...*

it doesn't seem that my manufacture has a driver for the motherboard. They do have drivers for integrated things on the board like the integrated LAN and so forth, but nothing that really has to do with my problem. fyi, I am running the latest bios version for my motherboard...

btw, how would someone check what type of IDE cable they have? Would it actually say on the cable? Also, I have a ewer ide cable attached to my hdd's, but there's a older one attached to my cd-rom drive. Would the two different IDE cables be conflicting with each other?

 

[ymmotrojam]

This is a bumpety bump

 

[ymmotrojam]

I found out from my motherboard manufacturer that the motherboard only supports a 137gb hdd, but I havea 200gb hdd in it. I will try a older hdd for now and see how that works out. When I havea chance, I will also try replacing the ide cables...

 

[Imp]

to enable your mobo to see ur hd you need to

1. update your bios
2. install sp1 or higher
3. download and install big_drive_enabler

this will change a setting in the registry allowing xp to see larger hd's over 137GB

 

[ymmotrojam]

to enable your mobo to see ur hd you need to

1. update your bios
2. install sp1 or higher
3. download and install big_drive_enabler

this will change a setting in the registry allowing xp to see larger hd's over 137GB

Thanks for your suggestions. I have been running on Windows XP Home SP2, and I already had the latest bios revision for my motherboard. I'm not sure what "big_drive_enabler" is, but sounds like it is worth a shot.

It's not that I'm not able to see the hard drive, I can see it easily, infact that's the drive I boot up into Windows on, it's just that the manufacturer said it wasn't supported.

I have downgraded to a older 8.4 gb harddrive to see if it made a difference, but my pc is still crashing on me.

 

[ymmotrojam]

anyone got any suggestions?

 

[ymmotrojam]

well, switching to a lower hard drive didn't work. Here are my thoughts at this point. Let me know if you guys need more information.

1. Could be bad IDE cables (still haven't had a chance to replace them yet, but let me know what you think). I am using a 80 conductor IDE cable for the hard drive and a 40 conductor cable for my DVD drive. Is mixing the two types bad?

2. Could be a bad CPU Fan. I keep hearing something powering up and down when the comp is requested to do a lot of processing (such as FTP files, or play a online flash game). It could be that the CPU is at a good temperature for the most part (I've checked), but when it gets to that critical moment, it is failing on me.

3. Of course it could also be the most undesireable of issues, which would be that the CPU or motherboard is defective in some way.

4. I am considering the RAM, but since I have already replaced it once without any luck, I highly doubt that is the issue.