Freeze issue

[ADS_Tech]

Installed two new, identical PCs to a business network. Network eqipment is basically a Netgear ProSafe switch and router, with a Buffalo Terastation as NASdrive.
All the older PCs behave fine. The two new PCs occasionally (1 boot in 8 or so) hang after boot up. Everything appears to load, and theres nothing unusual in the event log when looking later, but the system freezes. Mouse can move, but thats it. Nothing. On reboot, its fine. Both PCs that freeze are ASUS P5945GC motherboards, C2D cpus, 4.0Gb Buffalo twinx memory.
Occasionally they freeze during use, but only when saving to the NAS drive.
The only error showing in the event log is:-

"Event ID: 1003"
"Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP server) for the network card etc etc etc
The semaphore timeout period has expired. Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address from the network address (DHCP) server."

But they connect just fine.

I have tried replacing network adapters. They were running ESET Smart Security (as the rest of the PCs), but the problem still arises without it on as well.

Any clues?

[CCT]

What size/make hard drives?

[ADS_Tech]

Seagate Barracudas 500Gb 7200 3Gb/s.

[CCT]

Sorry to ask again (but you are TRULY SHORT on specs) - what size Ram modules?

[ADS_Tech]

Sorry -
Corsair memory (not Buffalo as stated) Twinx - 2 x 2.0Gb 6400 (800)
E8400 C2D
Win XP Pro SP3
ASUS P5945GC with latest BIOS
O/B ethernet is Realtek Giga, but have also tried with PCI USRobotics 10/100/1000

[slgrieb]

As always, ADS, you don't post anything simple and straight forward to fix. Normally, the Event ID 1003 you report is just a momentary glitch in network communications that you can ignore, but the fact that some of the system lockups happen trying to connect to the NAS might suggest a little more going on.

A couple of things I'd suggest would be to see if manually setting the connection speed to 100 makes a difference in the system locking up in use or hanging on boot up. You might even disconnect the offending computers from the network and see if that eliminates the boot freezes. And of course, you should check the physical integrity of the network connections for the problem machines.

[ADS_Tech]

Ive got some good lads working here, so its not often we get stuck, hence the lowish amount of posts with problems over the past 8 years or so.

The baffling thing here is the fact that its only on the two new machines. I now have one of them here for testing, and cannot get it to hang at all. It still pops up with the 1003 message (only on cold boot, not restart), but behaves perfectly even when working with files from a NAS drive here, and with that drive mapped.

The base units are ASUS Pundits, with spec as described already. These are small but (usually) reliable units that hide nicely behind a widescreen monitor.

Turns out we did have an issue with them from new, in that they wouldnt recognise the C2D 8400s. A CD E5200 was fitted to fire them up, then the BIOS flashed so they would recognise the 8400s.

Still dont understand why they hang on site though, as we did try new USR Giga NICs.

[ADS_Tech]

The wiring has all been tested. We've swapped units around in the office so the new ones were plugged into sockets that were known to be OK.

Ethernet leads have been changed just to be sure.

Havent tried dropping to 10/100, but did try setting all as jumbo frames, which made a positive difference to network speed, but didnt help with the hangs.

[CCT]

There was an issue with some Seagate drives requiring a firmware update due to freezes - ref:
http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx...Language=en-us

[ADS_Tech]

Thanks for that.
The drive is the 7002.12, but Seagate are suggesting a firmware upgrade.
I will try this in one machine, and clone the other on to a Western Digital.
We will see over the next few days............

[slgrieb]

Hello, ADS, here is an interesting article that looks applicable to your situation found on Windrivers Home Page

[ADS_Tech]

Great article thanks slgrieb. Ive just forwarded it on, and bookmarked it. Last one of those we had involved formatting and reinstall, but we'll try this next time.

The o/s in question here is Win XP Pro though. They now have one system with the firmware update, one with a cloned WD HDD. We will see what happens now, and I'll post back as and when.