Computer Hangs

I am very much pissed off with my computer.

MY specs are :
AMD athlon 64 2800+
MSI K8mmV mobo
Seagate 160 GB Hdd
Geforce FX 5200 128 mb
Hynix 512 mb ddr 333 mhz RAM
LG Cd/RW
Sony DVD/Rw

The problem i am facing from past few months is that my computer gets hung.
The main place its getting hung is when i burn cd's or dvd's. It doesnt get hung always but it sure does get hung sometimes and the result of this is around 50 spoilt cd's and dvd's lying in front of me.

The computer also get hung while playing NFS most wanted.
Also gets hung when some heavy program makes the cpu fan run faster.

I changed my SMPS thinking the old one would suit the new specs and still the same.

I am real pissed off of losing cd's and dvd's...donno what the problem is.

Any help would be appreciated.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Make sure that both IDE controllers are set to DMA mode, not PIO. Other than that, do general "house cleaning," I suppose.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

First check the memory - with memtest86 e.g.
Then check the CPU stability - prime95 is good for testing, but you can also use something like burncpu - also locks up the system if it isn't hw-stable.

'heavy program makes the cpu fan run faster' <- are you using cool & quiet? Try disabling it.

To test the ide subsystem you can try extracting data from already recorded dvds to the harddisk (using IsoBuster, etc.)

To summerize: try to isolate the problem to a small portion of the system

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Snowknight

Make sure that both IDE controllers are set to DMA mode, not PIO. Other than that, do general "house cleaning," I suppose.

If the system is currently in PIO-mode and it locks up, switching to DMA doesn't seem wise to me because it would increase instability.
At least its an indicator that their is trouble with the cpu (PIO transfers all data through the cpu).

cya
liquid

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

If the system is currently in PIO-mode and it locks up, switching to DMA doesn't seem wise to me because it would increase instability.
At least its an indicator that their is trouble with the cpu (PIO transfers all data through the cpu).

cya
liquid

I find it more likely that being in PIO mode would cause things to hang, since the CPU is too... inundated with data--it's too busy. DMA isn't going to decrease stability, really; PIO is simply slower, since the CPU does need to be the liason for all memory access operations, or so to speak. (Plus, I've had similar issues before on IDE devices; having both IDE controllers in PIO mode makes all sorts of intensive things crawl.)

How ya doing, buddy?

Well its in dma mode.Do i need to put it in PIO mode?

I need to check memory and cpu yet..will post results of it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Snowknight

I find it more likely that being in PIO mode would cause things to hang, since the CPU is too... inundated with data--it's too busy. DMA isn't going to decrease stability, really; PIO is simply slower, since the CPU does need to be the liason for all memory access operations, or so to speak. (Plus, I've had similar issues before on IDE devices; having both IDE controllers in PIO mode makes all sorts of intensive things crawl.)

You're right that data transfers in PIO mode put a whole lot of stress on the CPU, but the CPU shouldn't fail when under stress. If your system was locking up using PIO - and DMA seems to resolve this, you're not really solving the problem because it shouldn't lock-up in the first place.

@Sharath: No, leave it in DMA and start testing the system.

cya
liquid

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?