WinXP random lockups with ACPI events

[Martin Verboon]

One of our systems (WinXP Home Edition) here at home has a very nasty
problem, the PC hangs every now and then. It seems to be a complete
random event, sometimes you can work all day and the other day you
keep rebooting every few minutes.

Viewing the event log made me discover that when the PC hangs the
following messages appear in the system event log. I have searched
almost everywhere without success, so I'm trying to get some help
here.

---
Source: ACPI
Event-id: 5
---
AMLI: ACPI BIOS probeert naar het ongeldige I/O-poortadres 0xcf8 te
schrijven, dat in het beschermde 0xcf8 - 0xcff-adresbereik ligt. Dit
leidt mogelijk tot een instabiel systeem. Neem voor technische
ondersteuning contact op met de leverancier van het systeem.
---
0000: 00 00 00 00 04 00 52 00 ......R.
0008: 00 00 00 00 05 00 05 c0 .......À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
---

Sorry, it is in Dutch... here's a rough translation:
AMLI: ACPI BIOS tried to write to an invalid I/O port address 0xcf8,
that lies in the protected 0xcf8-0xcff address range. This may cause
an instable system.

then:

---
Source: ACPI
Event-id: 4
---
AMLI: ACPI BIOS probeert op het ongeldige I/O-poortadres 0xcfc te
lezen, dat in het beschermde 0xcf8 - 0xcff-adresbereik ligt. Dit leidt
mogelijk tot een instabiel systeem. Neem voor technische ondersteuning
contact op met de leverancier van het systeem.
---
0000: 00 00 00 00 04 00 52 00 ......R.
0008: 00 00 00 00 04 00 05 c0 .......À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
---

Rough translation:
AMLI: ACPI BIOS tried to read from the invalid I/O port address 0xcfc,
that lies in the protected 0xcf8-0xcff address range. This may cause
an instable system.

Then event-id 5 again, but with memory 0x71 that lies in the protected
0x70-0x71 range and then event-id 4 again in with 0x71 (0x70-0x71)
too.

All 4 events occur within the same second.

The system runs on Windows XP Home Edition btw. I tried to scan it for
virusses, but it took me a few reboots to find out that this was not
the problem.

So I thought some program was installed causing this, because it has
not been ever since we bought the system about 2 years ago. I've put
back the image provided with the system (new WinXP Home with drivers
that is, DVD software and CD-RW software) and started with updating
Windows. Took me a while, but everything went smooth. The problem
reoccurred while installing Office 2000 and just after installing the
Canon i550 Printer software + drivers (printer is connected through
USB).
With this in mind it might be possible that the software and/or
drivers of the printer caused this. Office had been on the system for
about 2 years now without causing (these) problems. I'm not 100% sure
this is causing the problems since the system does not always locks
up, but taking in account that the printer is from about the same time
the troubles started it might as well been the problem.
I only installed NAV2003 this time right before the drivers, but the
previous time they were there way after the lockups, due to the fact
that I suspected a virus causing the lockups.
Other than software that have been on the system from the start I had
nothing else installed yet this time. So I'm pretty sure the
printer(software/drivers) are causing it...

Can someone please help me out with this one? It would be so nice to
have a system working without the random lockups.


Martin Verboon
Software Engineer
The Netherlands

 

[Martin Verboon]

I've found some solutions in the mean time that a BIOS update might
help. But does anyone know if an update of Windows XP caused these
problems, since the configuration is the same as it ran 1,5 years
without problems. Only the Windows updates are different...

 

[Guest]

I'm having the same problem with my father-in-laws computer. I'm upgraded his video card to an ATI Radeo 9600 Pro and ever since, whenever there is that same APCI error it locks up the computer. If I put back in the old PCI video card, the error still occurs, but no lockup

He is running Windows XP Home, AMD Athlon 900 on a FIC AZ11 (VIA KT133) motherboad with 512MB RAM. I tried the most recent BIOS update (not very recent unfortunately) and that did not seem to help

I am also curious what is causing this issue. If I could resolve the root issue with the APCI error then I could use the newer video card without a problem.

 

[Guest]

I just upgraded from WIN 98 to XP Home Edition, I had the same problem.(random sysem locku0

"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write 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."

What version of the bios update did you install and where did you get it? I looked on the FIC website but found that the AZ11 was not listed as being compatable with windows XP. I will forward the issue to FIC. In meantime if you could forward info on BIOS uddate, i would appreciate it. I am currently running Award .00 PG, 10/05/2000, smbios version 2.3

Thank