"John Edward Scott" wrote in message

...the PowerNow software seems to run the CPU at minimum speed/temp until
you do anything *demanding* and then it cranks up the CPU speed. Which means
if you run loads of stuff thats very CPU intensive you might still get the
lockup problems since the CPU will be running at max speed anyway, but for
the majority of people it should at least give the CPU a chance to cool down
when its sitting doing nothing.

I've made sure that I now only run the software I need to (stopped
unecessary services etc), I've also disabled my previous OpenGL screensaver
and gone for a simpler one just that the CPU isn't sitting burning away
while I'm not in the room.

What annoys me is that for almost 5 months, I had no problems, even
with additional RAM and running a CD with other applications
simultaneously. After the new main board was installed (because of a
power problem), it was running like molasses and seemed to worsen
after I burned some CDs using the Roxio that came with it.

The phone rep had me re-run the Softpaq that reflashes the BIOS and
handles heat, so I did that, but it kept crashing. I pulled out the
RAM upgrade, set all the performance settings to the defaults (it
never worked right before the RAM upgrade with the default settings,
but I decided to try it anyway).

Then I visited the Windows Download Center and manually downloaded all
the recommended upgrades and installed them except the Jet 7 (the
downloads had failed even when done one-by-one from the Windows Update
page). People had been warning me about DirectX 9.0a, the Windows
Messenger upgrade, and the Media Player 9, so I did set another
restore point before downloading them. After the downloads, I
installed each and rebooted even if it didn't say I had to.
Amazingly, the machine has now been up without a crash for 7 hours!!!
It does want the Messenger to run all the time now, but that's a small
price to pay for having the use of it!

Although the RAM never seemed to be an issue, I think I'll leave it
out to be safe. There is clearly something unexplainable going on.
It still has the msconfig set not to load services except for my virus
checker and personal firewall, and I don't think this should be
required, but I just want the thing to run at this point. I'll
continue my burn-in tomorrow by taking it with me and using it on the
road to see how it does.

--Jane