Computer hangs up (freezes), hardware or software?

  • Thread starter Thread starter William G.
  • Start date Start date
W

William G.

I am helping a friend revive a computer for his kids. He bought a new one
because this one would just freeze up, especially at the time it was most
needed, such as Tax Time. I assumed it was a hardware problem and started
replacing things. It is a Micron with a 1.0 AMD CPU, 128 RAM, AGP video and
a bunch more junk.
First I had RAM tested and it was "bad" they told me. New 256K RAM didn't
help. Neither did a hard disk format and a clean install of XP, Spybot,
virus scan, new 1.2 AMD CPU, removing all cards but the video, changing
video cards, changing power supply, disconnecting one of the CD drives,
flashing BIOS upgrade, installing all of the available XP fixes. Whats
left? Chkdsk and the Seagate diagnostic utility says the hard disk is fine.
I guess the Motherboard is next? I am hoping one of you can point me to a
XP software issue that will help. My method of just changing out hardware
is a joke. I kept thinking the next replacement will do the job. NOT!!!
I would appreciate any help even if is just pointing to a site with the
help.
Thanks in advance.
 
Maybe this will help.....
I went to Administrative Tools/Event Viewer/System and found a repeating
error message:

AMLI:ACPI BIOS is attempting to write (or read) to an illegal IO port
address (0xcf8), which lies in the 0xcf8-0xcff protected address range.
This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor
for technical assistance.

Any ideas what is causing this and how to fix??
Bill
 
Thanks, Willie!!!!
A new BIOS fixed it. Apparently that PC has a cheapo motherboard that was
very limited and of course the manufacturer would not support it since it
had been upgraded to XP.
Thanks again
 
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