This sure smells like a hardware problem.I think the problem might be due to my bios settings running the CPU to fast although I do not think I am overclocking it. This might explain the strange timing of the problem, maybe the motherboard is unstable.
If you are not explicitly overclocking, the BIOS should be smart enough to run the cpu at or below its rated speed.
Time to start checking the hardware. Here is what I would do. Check for stability after each step.
1. Wiggle & Giggle: Reseat all cables, cards and RAM. Inspect CPU cooling.
My Zalman cooler has an adjustable speed, at the moment it is on low, so I can turn this up to test it, I can also take off the side panel and so on. If I can get the CPU temperature monitor working then I can find out whereabouts it becomes unstable.
2. Turn off ACPI in BIOS. (someone correct me if I am crazy, I recall ACPI being problematic) Look for other weirdo BIOS settings.
I don't think it is ACPI, I've had ACPI problems before but they always occurred only when booting from a freebsd installation. But I don't know enough about ACPI in FreeBSD to rule it out however.
3. Underclock CPU. (I did once get a bum CPU that was not stable at its rated speed and produced similar problems. Unlikely, but possible.)
As mentioned in another reply, I ran the program on underclocked CPU last night and it is still running whereas with the CPU on its rated speed crashing was happening quite fast. I think the temperature hypothesis seems intuitively most reasonable and is the one I will test first. Of course, running the CPU at it's rated speed will presumably draw more voltage, this could then have compilated affects on other components, or could cause a PSU problem to manifest, I don't know but it seems like a reasonable hypothesis.
4. Swap in new RAM or run memtest86
5. Get rid of all peripherals, re-attach one at a time if this clears it up
6. Swap in new power supply (with that nice Antec this is unlikely... but not impossible... and a bad PSU can cause all KINDS of weirdness.)
I'm going to try temperature first, but if that doesn't work, I'll try as many of these other things as I can.
Thanks
cali
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