I have recently purchased a new computer built from different parts. For no reason my system locks up in Windows and there is no response at all from the computer. It can hang when playing a game, music, or just surfing the web. This usually occurs 10-20 minutes after I have started to use the machine. After I press reboot on the computer it starts booting up and locks on "Verifying DMI Pool Data" - TWICE to be exact. I have had this problem while running Win2k and Windows XP. I have also had the problem while not having any other pci cards but the video card and usb ports card installed. Any help would be greatly appreciated. System specifications are: AMD XP 1600+ 512 DDR RAM 80 GB WD Caviar HDD Soundblaster LIVE 5.1 SCM Ethernet Card (Realtech Family) NVidia RivaTNT2 Pro Videocard Abit RAID K7 (I think) MB. OS: Windows XP Norwegian.

As this is ongoing, similar in Win98-win2k-WinXP // I tend to suspect two things as a start of troubleshooting . 1. Power supply and 2. overheating--need better cpu cooler and/or more case fans. Let us know and Good luck.

Check this out: http://www.dewassoc.com/support/win98/verify_dmi_data.htm This might apply to XP too. Hope this helps Siri

More info:(not a solution) http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q287553 My suggestion is to leave only the video card then clear the CMOS(using the jumpers - refer to the motherboard instructions)and start adding one harware at a time. Siri

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate it. Since it seems that I am not the only one having this problem, I will try to update this thread on my attempts to correct the problem. To be extremly specific. The problem does not occur when I use simple programs (mIRC etc.) but rather when I use programs such as Explorer or a game (MOHAA - etc.) I noticed that the machine hardly crashes when I play an old game such as Starcraft. Since this seems to be a hardware problem, I am going to buy a new videocard. Most likely Abit Geforce 4 MMx 400 64 mb ddr. If anyone has a better suggestion, please say so :) I will also add a fan to the tower. The reason I will buy a new video card is because of a sound I didn't not notice before. It seems like the fan on the videocard is making a high pitch noise. I suspect that is because it is about to break. I will let you know how it works if that is of any interrest. It will take approx. 1 week before I get the items.

Ok, thanks to everyone for their help. It's pretty simple, the guy managing the computer setup for me obviously forgot to clear CMOS. I did that myself and ever since the computer has not crashed once! I also added a new GeForce4 videocard, but I am quite certain that did not make any difference since the computer crashed after install. Bye everyone.