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

Sounds like motherboard or drive.  
 
Questions:
 
1. Have you updated all firmware?
 
2. Have you installed the latest drivers for the MB? Via chipset drivers?
 
3. I see no listed support for server 2008 on ASUS website. Does MS list this board as compatible?  
 
Did you come here for help with XP first off? I can't see why you would get MS server to replace it. Seems like a very unusual solution.
 
XP SP2 could sometimes misdetect the system on installation, causing the wrong HAL (hardware abstraction layer) to load. There are fixes for this,  which happened specifically with some 929 boards.

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

what other firmwares do you mean?

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.

There is no MS compatibility list for Server 2008 yet. when it comes out it will be listed here:  
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx

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

I was trying to install the XP SP2 into my other HDD (IDE 80G) with the same suspect system (the motherboard, CPU, memory, etc)
 
the system hangs while at the initial setup stage where as the XP is copying the installation file into the HDD.
 
does that means there is something wrong with my motherboard or CPU?

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.

hi prox
i just got the XP successully installed on to that HDD.
The only change is that i took out one of the DDR memory stick.
I have two of DDR installed previously (where it hangs at installation)
both DDR400, ones from corsair 1G and the others are kingston 512mb
i took the corsair 1G out and tried the installation of XP.
 
no problem untill now, i ran the CPU/Memory blend test over the night, and everything seems fine now.
 
does that mean it is corsair's bad?

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

Gah I thought I replied to this post long ago. Hope this all got resolved.