I just built my new box ealier this month, and the thing purs like a kitten... kind of. The start up, installation, shutdown and most everything is just amazing. Games play great, until the system randomly freezes. I've almost narrowed it down to gaming online, but haven't tested it out just yet; planning on installing Dawn of War and playing offline to test.

At first, I thought it was just with WoW, but now it's happening with UT3... and this is just getting annoying now. I think it's either a conflict with the display adapter, sound, or network adapter. Unfortunately, I cannot change any of the IRQs; was going to change the display to 6, as I don't have a floppy drive.

I tried disabling ACPI and switch it to standard PC, but that doesn't help the freeze problem, nor does it allow me to change the IRQs manually.

Is there something I need to change in the BIOS to allow me to do this?

If it matters, here are the main specs:
OS - Windows XP SP3 32-bit (fully patched)
CPU - Phenom 2.33 GHz 4x (not overclocked)
MOBO - Biostar T-series TF7150U-M7
RAM - 4x1024 @ 800 MHz
Video - GeForce 8500GT (512 MB, silent running)
HDD - WD Caviar 160 GB 7200 RPM 16 MB
PSU - 650w w/ extra-large fan

Nope, not anymore I'm afraid.

Everything produced now a days uses what is called Bus Mastering and devices are supposed to share IRQ's nicely. This doesn't always mean that will happen however

Also the OS will not help either as it uses the Extended BIOS features to support higher then 15 IRQ's now, hence the reason you see devices under the OS using IRQ20 etc....

I would look at the following components:

1) Memory

2) CPU

3) PS Unit

Use something like Ultimate Boot CD to run Memtest and Prime and check the onboard voltages using the motherboard monitoring software.

Hopefully you will be able to give your machine enought Felaxan or Petromalt to cough up that hairball and get it working once again and purring like a kitten

Thanks for the tip on UBCD. I'll try that out in the next few days and let you know what I find.

With what you said, is there any reason to keep ACPI disabled? Or should I enable it for ease of use?

I haven't had an issue with ACPI on systems since 2001. I doubt that is your issue.

If your system freezes then run a memory test and/or downclock your memory.

Monitor your CPU usage and/or download your FSB/CPU.

Remove all unnneeded cards from the system and/or disable hardware devices in device manager.

Yep, pretty much what DosFreak said, try to narrow down the possible cause and run diagnostics, especially the memory ones just to see if you are having problems there.

After running tests and such, it all came down to one component: the video card... grrr. Only good thing is that I was intending on upgradin the card anyways, so now I have an excuse. I re-enabled ACPI again.

Thanks for the tips and tools, everyone. The machine is running beautifully now.