Strange SATA HDD/Radeon 9600 behavior (PC freezes)

[NiTrino]

Recently installed new Samsung SATA HDD (SP0812C). Had a Radeon 9600XT, no problems before. But then, when watching movies, or browsing web, installing drivers fro video card, the computer freezes with no possibility to recover, only with Reset button. Now i instaled Windows on non-SATA drive, seems everything OK. Also had no problems with Windows 2000+SATA+Radeon.

So the problem is: Windows XP SP2 with Radeon 9600XT+Samsung SATA HDD randomly freezes when watching video, installing driver fro Radeon, sometimes on Web browsing or even at Windows starting. Have some clue? I'm ready to buy a new HDD or Video card, but i dont sure it's a hardware...

And systems specs:

ASUS P4P800-X
Pentium 4 3.0GHz HT
Radeon 9600XT
1xSATA Samsung SP0812C,
3xPATA Seagate Barracuda V
1 GB RAM (IBM)

[NiTrino]

Tried lowering the CPU and PCI speed, problem went away... Is there a known compatibility issues with XP and SATA when operating on wrong frequencies?

[Steve]

Originally Posted by NiTrino

Tried lowering the CPU and PCI speed, problem went away... Is there a known compatibility issues with XP and SATA when operating on wrong frequencies?

If by 'wrong frequencies' you mean the PCI bus was running above 33MHz, then overclocking was almost certainly the cause of the problem.

[NiTrino]

Does this mean that SATA in compatibility mode cannot operate when PCI speed is more than 33MHz?

[Steve]

It means no device is guaranteed to operate above its rated speed. I'm presuming the SATA controller on your motherboard is hung off the PCI bus, which is why it's affected.