First thing to try is to remove the new memory.

Also since you are running PC3200, which is DDR 400Mhz, it's running too fast for the CPU.

People have to realize that you just can't go and get the faster memory and think it will work. You do have to match what your system is supposed to run. Officially the 845PE does not support the PC3200..only PC2700 and lower!

So your CPU and memory are non synchronous.

I just went through this myself but it was due to me messing around with core voltages and other settings that I should not have done as well as over clocking and I fried my CPU. DOH! oh well! lol

Anyways, yank out the new memory...if it still happens swap the sticks and see if one of them is causing it.

Also try disconnecting the fans one at a time to see if that is the cause as well.

Let us know

Opus :D

Thanks Opus, Oh well it looks like I should've gone with my gut. Bought the board from overclockers.co.uk and they didn't have the 2700 memory in stock and swore that I could run the 3200 at stock speeds. So bought 512mb initially of 3200ram.

But you are right, and I'm stuck with 1gb of ram and a board that doesn't support it.

One question is, can I set the memory to run at 333mhz instead of auto which might be pushing it too hard.

Thanks for your help

Yes, if you go to to the advanced page of the BIOS you can change the CPU Speed, Memory speed and even the PCI/AGP speeds!

Sometimes those overclocking forums can be misleading. You should always do a little more research on that subject before jumping the gun!

Read http://www.anandtech.com or http://www.tomshardware.com

good sites to get some information on as well as here!!

Opus :D

The P4PE doesn't support pc3200 officialy but it can damn well run it perfectly. You won't have advantage of it when you run your motherboard standard but the ram will always follow the speed your motherboard is at.

Using anything below it's standard speed can impossibly give you problems. What you should set is the IDE/AGP speed to 33/66 fixed. Then the ram can be boosted by raising it in the bios. I'm not saying this will work perfectly, it's always at your own risk. However the P4PE is one of the better motherboards. (i own it too). And the original box even had a notification that it supported pc3200!

What i would do first if i were you is get back to the second released bios. You are running a beta bios which means it hasn't been developed to perfection and can well give some ppl problems. If you still have the same problems while running the second released bios you should start looking at your peripherals.

I think it has more to do with you running the beta bios.

With IDE/AGP i ofcourse meant PCI/AGP ;)

DMDreams
Good point! Setting the PCI/AGP to 66/33 is a good thing to do as it keeps it on the proper clocking that it needs and thus not causing any non-synchrounous or irregularities on certain cards that may not be able to handle it.

Indeed you can run the PC3200 on that board but at that point you will need to change the FSB of the CPU and as in my case, it may lead to that wonderful corruption of the CPU. I can use that old CPU now in a system I built for my living room entertainment center but I had to drop the CPU rating to 2.0Ghz instead of 2.66! DOH!

Opus :D

Yeah, some processors can't handle it. I have a p4 2.4 running happily at 2.7 Ghz. With the frontside bus on 150 (instead of 133 - quadpumped). This makes my memory run at 385 mhz instead of the standard 333. And i am running this for more then four months already. The machine is in maximum use and hasn't cramped since the build (and boost). But you are more then right about cpu being able to go corrupt on something like this. Although the newer p4's are all downrated 3.06 ghz's. Which means they can all take a boost quite good.

And the p4pe is the most wanted board to do this. Ofcourse it's not for everybody, and most certainly not for people who don't know what they are doing. But you can get a lot of extra performance for your money. :)