I noticed it seemed to be locking up while I played final fantasy 7, but I assumed it was a chipset incapability until 3 months after I bought it (I know, but I have multiple machines.....)

I reinstalled the system and starting noticing lock up after an hour or two hour (sometimes more or less, depending on the temperature.)

***at this point I checked the fans, and everything was clean and good - I have a mid tower case, fan on front, and vent fan on power supply, plus the heatsink fan (and yes it was rated for up to a 1.2 ghz athlon, while mine was only a 1000ghz one.)

I continued to have these problems. So I returned it to the store, and the techs (after a week of testing) decided that it was software related. I took it home, switched from 98 to 2000, still had the same problem, and took it back. They claimed it was still a software issue.

I brought it home, switched hard drives, video cards, switched to using the motherboard sound, and took out my extra cd-rom drive, and uninstalled my usb devices (then zero'ed out the hard drive and reinstalled 98)

At this point I have installed Win 98, Win NT, Win 2000, redhat linux and BSD, using 3 different hard drives. I still have the same problems (I have completely zero'ed out the sectors,countless times.)

This last time, I bought a new cpu (800mhz instead of 1000) and I still have the same problem.

According to my cpu monitoring software, when it locks, it is running about 52 - 55 degrees celsius.

I have also made sure to load the system service packs and updates before loading the agp drivers

any suggestions?

bobby

Dear Sir,
Relating to your symptom, there might be instability when using 1.2G CPU with FSB133 (266) with MX series AGP card under Windows XP. BIOS dated 11/12/2001 (12-Nov-2001) or newer can fix the issue. If you are using Windows XP, please make sure to download beta drivers from our beta site since the drivers in CD only supports up to Windows 2K and Me. This symptom is assumed based on that the revision of your board is DXX or EXX.

Please find the revision code from the lower right corner of label affixed on printer port. If it is A00, B00 or C00, there's possibility with instability when using CPU with speed 1.1G or higher since these versions are with older design. The tubular capacitor might be overdriven and originate the instability. Replacing these capacitors with low ESR ones will nail down this issue.

Upgrade your bios guys!
heres the bios file link:
http://www.dfi.com.tw/Support/Download/bios_download_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=1279&STATUS_FLAG=A&SITE=US

: I've got the same problem and i've been finding it on many forums. the only common ground seems to be the Athlon (almost always thunderbird) processor. all speeds. any ideas?

: :
: : I have a DFI AK74-ec mother board with a 800mhz athlon processor and have been having the same problems. With the computer and the computer store. If you've found anything out could you let me know at lost_forwords@yahoo.com Thanx

:
: I have a DFI AK74-ec mother board with a 800mhz athlon processor and have been having the same problems. With the computer and the computer store. If you've found anything out could you let me know at lost_forwords@yahoo.com Thanx