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[m0l0 Profile ICQYIM]

Have just discovered (in the System Log) that EVERY TIME my PC is started or restarted ACPI BIOS attempts to read then write to an illegal port address. Have inspected the Power Management Setup section of the BIOS but cannot spot any config errors. PC starts up in spite of the error but System Log indicates this could lead to system instability. Any suggestions ?

[bike4ever Profile]

I get that too. But not every single time. It'll do it for a dozen times, then fade away. It seems to recover from it well. I'm thinking ACPI bios is like the early versions of Plug and Pray. And since helping you helps me... Do you have any hardware that is disabled in the device manager? Like a net card or anything? Just shooting in the dark.

[m0l0 Profile ICQYIM]

All my hardware is enabled. Could it be a BIOS problem ? Since posting my help request I discovered that my BIOS has a bug. I have a QDI KuDoz7 motherboard and the manufacturer website includes a later version of BIOS to fix a bug (no indication what sort of bug). I am nervous about upgrading the BIOS, in case it all goes wrong. Any tips ?

[bike4ever Profile]

BIOD update... Welp, first of all, yes you can think of ACPI as a plug and play of sorts. When it starts to probe around it will find places not to be probed, as reported by your system log. It's very, very likely no big deal. If you want to update your BIOS (I would) you'll be getting a bios flashing utility program to do the work. This utility will have command line options to back up your current BIOS. You'll need to make a boot floppy. XP has a bootable disk option in its formatting utility. Then you'll need to copy the flash utility and the new BIOS image file to the same floppy. Then reboot to that floppy. Since these utilities are usually one task per run I would do it in this order: 1) run the utility to FIRST back up your current BIOS. 2) run it again to COMPARE the updated image file to your current BIOS version. 3)if it IS in fact newer, run it again to update your BIOS with the new file. 4) Turn off your comupter. 5) Pray. Turn it back on. 6) Go into your bios and look around. Possibly "Load Setup Defaults". Some BIOS's require this. SAVE. 7) Reboot into Windows. Don't expect any real noticable differences. Good luck!

[MadDad Profile]

Since it is not at all certain that a BIOS Update would solve these problems, don't be too quick to follow that road. Just be sure you know what you're doing if you decide to do it. Anyway, this behaviour (Microsoft calls it by design is caused by the supposedly more stable kernel of WinXP. It just blocks anything fishy. Just read [url]support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q283649[/url].