Problems with Asus P4C800-E Deluxe

[andrew82net]

I've been having a lot of trouble with my new system. I could use the help or advice of anyone who can offer it.

SYSTEM SPECS:

Power Supply: Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480Watts
Motherboard: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
CPU: P4 3GHz, 800MHz FSB
RAM: Corsair TWINX1024-3200LLPT 1GB DDR400 XMS3200

Video: ATI Radeon 9600
Audio: SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Hard Drives: 4 IDE disk drives
Optical Drives: 1 CD-R/RW, 1 DVD
Fans: 7 case fans

O/S: Windows XP Pro SP1 with all Updates

THE PROBLEM:

Essentially, my system will freeze when it is idle and will stop responding to all commands, including Ctrl + Alt + Delete. As long as I am actively using the mouse or keyboard, the system won't lock up. The only option once the system freezes is to perform a hardware reset to reboot the computer.

STEPS I HAVE TAKEN:

RAM TESTS
I have contacted Corsair Micro, the manufacturer of my RAM chips and discussed the problem with them. I have followed their instructions to ensure that the settings for the RAM are set correctly. Additionally, I have performed extensive tests of the RAM chips using Memtest86. After tests on separate ocassions of 11+ hours and 8+ hours, the chips passed without any errors.

CPU TESTS
I have also performed a 6+ hour test of the CPU using Hot CPU Tester Pro 3 (Lite Edition) from http://www.7byte.com. The CPU passed all tests without any errors. (I don't have the Pro edition, so I couldn't run all the tests, but the core CPU stuff passed without any problems.)

SOFTWARE
I have tried re-installing the operating system, as well as updating the drivers for my ATI Radeon 9600 video card, and for my SoundBlaster Audigy 2.

BIOS Update
I would like to update the BIOS for the motherboard to see if that fixes the problem. However, I cannot find the 1009 version of the BIOS on the Asus website. My understanding of the BIOS updates is that they should be applied sequentially: 1008, then 1009, then 1010, then 1011. Does anyone have a copy of the 1009 BIOS for the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard? (Note: I tried updating to the 1008 and then to the 1011, but that didn't help any. After I did that, I was told that the updates weren't cumulative and had to be applied sequentially.)

QUESTIONS: Please Help!

Does anyone have any other suggestions to try? Could it be a defect in the motherboard? An incompatibility between some combination of CPU, motherboard, or RAM? Does anyone know of other good message boards to post this question to? I'm beginning to reach the point of desperation.

Thanks for your help!

 

[ChipDeath]

since you say the problem only happens when:
a)you're in windows
b)it's been inactive for a while
I would suggest that maybe something in your system has problems with the windows Power saving stuff? Try turning it all off (set everything to 'always on' in Control Panel->Power management).. also turn off all the power saving measures in the BIOS, just in case.

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The end is nigh.. (For this post at least)