weird freeze problem! Please help.

Hey guys! This problem has been haunting me over weeks and its really really annoying.

Due to some random hang issue and VPU Recover reset while with my old windows XP SP2, I replaced the PSU with a brand new one Antec earthpower 500W and installed a brand new OS - Windows Server 2008 Enterprise.

Everything runs smooth for first couple of hours, then suddently the system freezes without any error message or warning.
Pushed the power reset and went in the Even Viewer, it logged nothing speical about the freeze.

I tested the memory overnight using memtest89, and it gaves no error. so its not he memory

I then consulted few forums and suspecting it might be the HDD that cause the problem. ( it is a SATA Seagate 120G)
So i downloaded Seatools for DOS which is a special HDD testing tool for Seagate HDDs, and ran the one of the test for that HDD.
Something weird happened at the begining of the test, the program hung at 0% of the test without any message.
I tried few test and it hangs all the time at the same stage.

As to confirm the problem of the HDD, I then set up another motherboard with a different CPU, memory and video card, but the same PSU.
I runned the Seatools again with the suspect HDD and strangely it passed all the test without a error.
I then tried a few times, all test passed successfuly.

I tried clear the CMOS and test the SATA with the first system again using Seatools and the hang still occured.

If its not the SATA HDD's bad. could it be the motherboard or the CPU??

what other kind of tests could i do to confirm which part of the hardware cause the problem?



H/W spec: most of them are 3 years old
Asus A8v-e deluxe
AMD Athlon64 3200+
1G Corsair DDR (half years old) + 512mb Kingston DDR
ATi X800XL 256mb
120G Seagate SATA
Antec earthpower 500W (brand new)




thank you

Will

thx for your reply prox.

The choice of server 2008 was nothing special but a personal favor, i was wanted to try the vista but decided to install the server 2008 instead, which is more reliable.

I have heard people using the same board on vista without any problem, so I think compatible shouldnt be the case?

I will give a try of upgrade the chipset driver see if anything helps.

thank you

Mostly your BIOS.

Here is a list of drivers:
http://www.driverstock.com/ASUS-A8 [...] index.html

Note that no Server 2008 drivers are listed.

I doubt very much that you can get a stable installation with this hardware.

Server OSes are designed more narrowly than the more public offerings. They do not work on just any system for a reason: The fewer machines they have to support the simpler they are, and so the less prone to error.

but i tought vista drivers would compatible with server 2008s...

anyway, thx for the advice. i might go back to the windows xp then.

ill report again if the problem occured with the new xp

With XP hanging before it's installed it's certainly a bad sign. I suppose you could try this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] oot-freeze

I'm not too hopeful that that is the problem though.

Make sure your CPU fan is spinning.

could be,install the corsair,,if it crashes,,,replace same..:> )