GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

[DarkSideOfTheQ]

Hello All,

I was a good boy this year and Santa has brought me some new toys to put together. My desktop was running fine, but I thought I'd upgrade to a real mobo (was using an ECS 671T-M...stop laughing). I swapped out the mobo and ram (got a new 4GB OCZ kit from Santa). I'm noticing that my system seems to "freeze" briefly. I can be moving my mouse across the desk and then the mouse will freeze on the screen for about 2-3 seconds. This behavior is really noticeable when listening to some music, it almost sounds like a CD skipping. I'm not sure what the issue is and am hopeful that someone here can shed some light on this. I'm running Memtest on it now to see if it's the new ram, which I'm not ruling out. I have not done any OC stuff with this rig, but will once things are stable. I did noticed that the mobo picked up my CPU as a 266x8 2.1Ghz. When I selected the optimized defaults, it then showed it correctly at 2.4Ghz. Since I only swapped out the mobo+ram and the system was stable before, it obviously has to be one or the other. I'm just hoping it's a setting somewhere that I need to tweak.

Here is my rig running Vista 32-bit (considering a rebuild with x64)
mobo: GA-EP45-UD3R (new)
ram: OCZ Reaper 4GB kit (new)
cpu: Intel Q6600
hd: WD 500GB(for OS/Apps) + WD 1TB(for data)
video: eVGA Nvidia 8400GS
psu: Antec 500w Earthwatts
case: Antec Sonata III (may need to swap out before OC'ing for better cooling...thoughts/comments?)

btw - I noticed some posts about this board and rev1.0 vs rev1.1, mine was a rev1.1 running the F3 bios. I tried upgrading it to F5, but same behavior.

TIA
DarkSide

[DarkSideOfTheQ]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

So Memtest showed no errors after 3 passes. I bought...err...Santa brought me two of these boards (both rev1.1 w/F3 bios) and a 2nd Q6600 as well as an 8GB Patriot Viper kit (2x4GB). I just tried swapping in the 8GB kit(actually just used 1 of the 4GB sticks) and still got the "freezing" behavior. So I've tried different memory+mobo and even a different CPU, still get the freezing error that was not there with my ECS board+Corsair 2GB memory kit.

Assistance is very much appreciated!

DarkSide

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

Are you running the memory on Auto settings?

Are you running the board in Ahci mode? and have installed the Matrix driver?

Have you installed the Intel Chipset Driver (inf)?

[DarkSideOfTheQ]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

Yes. The memory settings are set to auto. I did try changing the Performance Enhance setting to Standard from the default of Turbo, but the system still freezes up for 2-3 seconds. (I changed it back to Turbo afterwards)

I don't have the system in AHCI mode. The RAID/AHCI setting is disabled and the SATA/IDE ctrl mode is set to IDE.

I installed the INF utility from the CD provided, if there is another driver for the chipset that I should grab, I'll give it a shot.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

Ideally whilst in "Ide" you should be in Native mode rather than Legacy if you are using 2000/xp/vista.

I would still set to Performance Enhance to Standard, as you could be adding to other problems down the line.

You could keep the Chipset Driver installed from the CD - as long as a version has been installed.

I must admit, I get a Freeze type issue both on my laptop (Vista 32) and on my PC (Vista 64) from time to time. It seems to happen when there is another process taking place.
When it's a freeze that then rectifies itself and there isn't a log entry either, it makes it very difficult to diagnose.

If your freezing resulted in a permanent freeze in windows, then I would say look at your Ram Voltage.
I hve disabled Superfetch to cut down on all the Vista hard drive thrashing, but have kept indexing enabled. Also WinDefender Is scheduled to run by default. So it's hard to find if its a software or hardware problem.

[DarkSideOfTheQ]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

ARGGGHH...I believe that I have found the culprit and wrongly thought it was this new mobo. (the horror of such a thought) It appears to be my lovely 32bit install of Vista Ultimate. In System Manager it shows 4GB, under Task Manager...it only sees a total of 3.3GB. I pulled one of the 2GB sticks, dropping the memory back down to 2GB and viola...no more freezes. I even tried swapping the sticks, just to make sure that it wasn't simply a bad stick of ram...again, no freezes.

I tried the "bcdedit /set pae forceenable" command, put the 2nd stick of ram back in. I hoped it might make things better, but alas, no such luck.

I guess it's time to re-install with the 64bit, unless anyone has some other suggestions to get my current 32bit install to run stable with 4GB installed.

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

In System Manager it shows 4GB, under Task Manager...it only sees a total of 3.3GB.

That is correct.

Windows 32bit OS's only see around a max of 3-3.5GB depending on the particular setup. It's the 32bit OS limitation.

However I believe since Vista SP1, all the physical Ram (the amount) will be reported - just NOT all used.

[DarkSideOfTheQ]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R freezing issue???

This is a Vista Ultimate SP1 32bit install. I'd rather tinker with it and see if I can get it stable with the 4GB installed instead of going the re-install route, but will if I have to. I just don't know why it "freezes" with the 4GB installed? I can see it not showing or even using all of the 4GB, but it should at least be stable.