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I recently updated an Athalon mother board ( ECS k7vza) to windows
2000 from win 98. The computer has started to freeze at random (no
keyboard no mouse no task manager). This used to happen under win 98
when I used a program called rain, the freeezing stopped when I
stopped using rain, and has been freeze free for nearly 2 years until
I updated to w2k.

Apparently the problem is the HLT instruction windows 2000 issues. Is
there anyway can disable this instruction?

http://www.pricelessware.org/2004/PL2004SYSTEMUTILITIES.htm#CpuCooler

"Rain issues the HLT (halt) command during periods of inactivity and
the processor remains cooler because of it. Plain and simple. The
benefits of running a cooler CPU are that it reduces power
consumption, can extend laptop battery life, and prevents CPU heat
related freezes and lockups. More important, it can prolong the life
of your PC. NOTES: Windows NT/2000/XP don't need CPU cooling programs
that execute HLT instructions (such as Rain) because they already
comes with an option to execute HLT instructions when the CPU is
idle."

~~~ another clue~~~

Anyone know how to disable the c2 or c3 pci?

http://vcool.occludo.net/ Notes
"also Anyway here's what I found in the Athlon Revision docs:

14 Processors with Half-Frequency Multipliers May Hang Upon Wake-up
from Disconnect

Products Affected: A4, A5, A6, A7, A9

Suggested Workaround: Do not use the C2 or C3 ACPI states on
processors that run at a nominal operating frequency generated with a
half-frequency multiplier. This can be accomplished by having the BIOS
not declare C2 or C3 support to the operating system in the Fixed ACPI