Asrock Dual SATA2 freezes/hangs when loading Windows

[grooge]

Nobody did check for their IDE cable? worn IDE cable(from plugging/unplugging) is likely to cause long boot and problem. Preferably use 80 wire one, which are like "shielded" and prevent crosstalking between wire.

Just like nvidia chipset, since nvidia drivers are know to cause problem, and not used, then don't use any unnecessary drivers. No IDE/SATA drivers in needed with this motherboard. Keepint thing simple is always the best.

RAID is set as enabled by default for the ULI sata controller. If you don't use RAID, disable it. RAID if for creating array with 2 HDD that will be treated like just one. While RAID sound "good", it is not usefull for single HDD o r dual HDD used as independent disk.

Set SATA2 to IDE. It will use microsoft native drivers and that's better and more compatible. While SATA2 sound better that SATA1, in real life, it bring nothing more that really benefit the user. it just make specs sheets to look better.

I got a long boot problem with an nforce3 chipset system. Yes, it happens with other chipset/motherboard too. I simply make the DVD burner that was single slave as single master on its own channel and voila. So, if you have one PATA device, make sure that it is set as master. forget CABLE SELECT.. set it as master or slave. Then, the system would not have to figure what the device is if the connector are bad, which may take more time. If you have a PATA Western Digital, alone on its own ribbon.. then look at the label. NO JUMPER for MASTER operation.

Most of the problem I've seen, with many brand of motherboard or other component, it that users "assume" it needs drivers for SATA or USB. 2.0. Sometime they don't find the drivers for the material( because it is provided by microsoft and not necessary) and force some drivers to be used with the component. I've seen Sil or promise SATA drivers that cannot be installed on nvidia as problem. The guy spent don't know how many time trying to install drivers and never bother to try without.. You should have see the face of the poor type seeing his SATA drive being installed with windows without any floppy in 40 minutes...

I read a post about one guy convinced that it needs USB2 drivers and force Win98 USB2 drivers to be used.. with XP sp2. XP has USB2 drivers since sp1 and no other are necessary..

I'm sorry to see anybody to have problem with some piece of equipement that I either own or I have personnaly tried and found to work good. At this point, since the hardware is functionning good with me an many other, then the problem should lied with something else ... or somebody..

 

[carstea1]

My Cdrom is on ide2 controller and it is connected through the ide cable to the master point. in bios when the system starts it is detected as master secondary. i've seached for the jumper settings everywhere but they are not to be found. they are not even on the cdrom sides, so i dont know to set it as master primary.

this time i haven't installed the sata2 drivers. i just installed the LAN and audio drivers. and the latest nvidia drivers for my pcie video card.

yes it takes longer to boot with the cdrom on but i recall when i had it unplugged and i'd still get the freezing. maybe that time it was the sata2 drivers. i'll unplug it again today to see how it acts. since the last install of win (one day ago ) i got no freezing.

i've just got it out and what do you think? before it took for that blue line to make about 13 passes from left to right before i would get to the windows, now it took barely 3 times.

i didn't notice any loss in not using sata2 drivers. just a HD test i noticed a drop to 160 mb/s from 240 mb/s, but that kind of speess are rarely reached in real use.

 

[EKTELESTES]

"i've just got it out and what do you think? before it took for that blue line to make about 13 passes from left to right before i would get to the windows, now it took barely 3 times. "

same thing with me then...try to put the cdrom in primary 1 controller as master. ( grooge said, u just have to totally remove the jumper in order to use it as master ). I'll try it later on and let you know.

@ Grooge - yes, ive'had my ide cable checked ( it's a quality one, shielded round cable )
no problem there.

 

[grooge]

Only Western Digital HDD need the jumper removed. Other devices need the jumper or don't matter.

 

[imported_Imp]

My CD has always been set to master, and it was still screwy. On the SATA controller, it is possible that my installation of the SATA driver may have messed it up, but still didn't explain the screw up during POST not seeing the HD. But ever since I've switched to SATAII, I haven't had a single POST problem or HD recognition or windows freezing problem though (and I've reset/reboot a LOT of times even in just a week). Only problem was probably me screwing up a driver since it did boot/load perfectly for safe mode By the way, I've set it ti IDE mode on Normal, standard Windows driver. Also, since my installation of windows AGAIN, it seems to have started to boot up more quickly. So what grooge said about the drivers may probably be it.

 

[carstea1]

have you intalled the processor drivers ? i have done it today and after the computer was shut down for 3 hours it froze again. i removed the driver and hope that it was causing the freezing.

 

[qsrk]

Then I guess we can rule out the SATAII drivers as the cause.

 

[hclarkjr]

ok guys, thinking of buying a asrock motherboard to run a A64 3800 single core chip on. will be using things listed in signature below. can you forsee any problems for me? with the OCZ 520 watt power supply? reason i ask is that i recently had problems setting up an X2 system with an ABIT AV8 motherboard because my power supply was causing an error during boot up. what do you think?

 

[imported_Imp]

I have installed EVERY driver off the Asrock CD EXCEPT the SATAII one. Psh, forgot, I also did NOT install the USB drivers. Also, my Ram is underclocked, every other BIOS setting is at default except enabled SMART, disabled floppy controller/boot, SATA controller. DVD on IDE2, SATA HD on SATAII in IDE on Normal.

Also, my DVD jumper is on master; Lite-on drive with jumpers beside the power cable on back, not the duds on the left. Try setting your opticals to PIO mode; I got a few lock-ups when windows was loading during the blue line thing after I reinstalled the IDE drivers. Could just be a driver problem if it gets past POST for you(I wasn't initially).

 

[grooge]

Originally posted by: Imp. Psh, forgot, I also did NOT install the USB drivers.

That's a good thing because the only USB2 drivers available for XP are privided by microsoft and available with SP1. The installer is smart enough to not let you install anything for it.. but, you couls always force the Windows 98 drivers to be used.. And then.. you,ll have lot of USB problem...

 

[grooge]

Originally posted by: Imp
except enabled SMART,

You knew that the SMART option in BIOS is only for ...BIOS.. to report problem during post...

SMART is always enabled on the HDD, and can be read with software like hdhealt(iirc) once in Windows?

I never set smart in BIOS.. it just add more time to post and completely inutile.. because problem on HDD often devellop before post, and prevent it, or, once booted, by overheating or corruption of data.


BTW, maybe that smart was trying to read from/or waiting for the optical device to report ...

The more option you set, the more drivers you install when they are not actually necessary, the more likely you'll have problem.

I always keep thing simple.. everything run fast ad stable.. Hey.. this is only a computer after all...

 

[imported_Imp]

So I've heard about smart just a few days ago. Also, it started crapping out long before I enabled the POST-lagger, but it "smarts up" perfect on the SATAII channel, and did I mention how no HD was detected in BIOS. I use to keep it simple too; never defragmented, touched BIOS or windows options besides what I want my desktop to be...good times. This led to paying crooked shops to "fix" problems.

 

[carstea1]

could this freezing be related to the processor driver? i'm now using my system with no ide drives. no sata2 drivers. just the drivers for the lan and audio. i installed the processor driver too but after a cold boot it frozed, do i thought it was to blame so i uninstalled it. no freezing till then. keep on hoping it will never freeze again ...

 

[carstea1]

i can now say that it is not the sata2 drivers that were causing the freezing. with out them the system still hangs after loading into windows. it seems like when norton appears in the tray and starts to enable itself this freezing happens. it will not happen on a restart ever or on a a warm boot. now after the system freezes(you can still move the mouse but it does nothing when you give some commands) i get this blue screen machine check exception, with some weird code and then it restart. im tired of this thing. i dont know what to blame now...

i have also cleared CMOS too, i thought i did something wrong to the settings but it wasn't the case.

i've just finished a complete scan of my HD win the WD utility, all the results were good. my HD hasn't given in yet.

 

[EKTELESTES]

Norton = sux. Stay as far away as you can. Kaspersky all the way+a firewall and you're fine. But don't have ur antivirus in the startup processes, it slows you down. Run your antivirus only when u need it.

Processor drivers...hmm...I HAVE installed them, cool n' quiet is enabled, what about you guys?? ( i have also installed usb drivers, but no problems there so far )

 

[grooge]

Originally posted by: carstea1
i can now say that it is not the sata2 drivers that were causing the freezing. with out them the system still hangs after loading into windows. it seems like when norton appears in the tray and starts to enable itself this freezing happens. it will not happen on a restart ever or on a a warm boot. now after the system freezes(you can still move the mouse but it does nothing when you give some commands) i get this blue screen machine check exception, with some weird code and then it restart. im tired of this thing. i dont know what to blame now...

i have also cleared CMOS too, i thought i did something wrong to the settings but it wasn't the case.

i've just finished a complete scan of my HD win the WD utility, all the results were good. my HD hasn't given in yet.

At this point, I would remove one memory stick and run with one for a while. And then try the other one for a while.


Setting RAM voltage to high would help too. I'm sure that the board is fine. bad board don't behave like this. They either work or don't work. Not that it is not possible. I've seen MSI board crapping on me 3 time in a row on the same computer. Now, the fourth one still run after 2 and half years..

My mais suspect now is the RAM. Or the CPU's memory controller that is failling.. it happen too.

 

[qsrk]

I was also advised to run RAM at high voltage, with higher end RAM that may require more power. I ran each of 4 stick separately and still had freezing.

About SMART, I think my Hitachi drive lets me disable SMART using the Feature Tool. The SMART readings always showed Good / Normal and "Always Passing", but I noticed with Everest that the actual numbers were different from the threshold values. That eventually led me to contact tech support and getting the drive replaced. Have not installed the new drive yet.

 

[Radiohead57]

Is the HD NCQ?

 

[imported_Imp]

The mouse moving, but not working is exactly what was happening to me after my driver thing when it actually got that far. It got fixed after a windows reinstall which you have already done many of, so I don't know what else it could be. Like the others suggested, try something with the RAM settings(~underclock it, 2T, 333 divider, CAS). Also try PIO mode for both drives (yeah, slow, but might isolate the problem). I think I can finally give this board the finger with more confidence, hope you can too.

Also, just gonna add something about driver removal. Uninstalling it probably won't do anything as noted by my attempts, it may just screw things up more. I also trust that you are doing fresh formats of the partition when reinstalling windows.

Next time it BSODs, copy down the error code. The first number outside the bracket. I was getting 0x0000009c.

 

[carstea]

i've tested my ram and it is ok, im running 2T. cas is set to auto. i dont have any ide devices connected so I exclude that too.

i wonder what Astro is doing, he said he would install the win on a ide HD. if it doesnt happen on a ide HD then the sata2 controller is the problem.

ive found on other forums that few got rid of this problem by moving the sata2 HD to the sata controller. i'll try this too, and even if it works i'll try to replace it with an asus board. i've bought a sata2 HD to use it like one, not to make any compromises.

try to put ur HD on the regular sata port. maybe this will do the trick.

see you

i got the same BSOD 0x0000009c.

 

[imported_Imp]

Actually, as far as I know, my problem is solved with an SATA on SATAII. Don't get your hopes up on the SATA channel, it was screwing me over. But since my move from I to II fixed my problem....maybe your move from II to I may work. Who knows on this pos.

 

[Radiohead57]

http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm

Nice little resource for error messages

 

[carstea]

so Imp how did you get it to work ? you use ur sataII Hd on sata2 port in sata mode? how is the controller set to strong or normal ?

 

[Radiohead57]

What are the rail rateings for the 450?

 

[imported_Imp]

My SATAI (one) Seagate drive is on SATAII (two) channel on IDE and set to normal. No problem recognizing HD at POST once since switching which was my original problem. When I uninstalled the IDE controllers in windows to fix my PIO mode problem, it started screwing up like how your system seems to be (blue line freeze, BSOD, XP start-up problems, etc.). Fixed this by doing a clean install, reformatting entire partition and then installing windows. Only installed CPU, AGP and Sound drivers off the CD. Right now, it boots fine (5-6 passes of blue line at start), and all drives are at proper UDMA.

May or may not be a factor, but my RAM(DDR400) is manually set to 333MHz 3-3-3-8 and auto voltage. Floppy controllers and SATA controller is disabled, Lan and Sound enabled. Think my IDE primary is disabled too. My original problem was with the SATA I not being recognized at POST or in BIOS with a lot of "A disk read error has occurred", "Can't find proper boot...", could not even boot off Win CD, and also getting hardware interrupts when the SATA (ULI M5289)controller started failing.

Try using your SATAII on SATA channels, might work. Good ole switcheroo. Also, 0x0000009c is a machine check exception or something so it may imply something (driver or hardware) isn't working right; I got it too and it was just drivers.

Cehck your Event Viewer in windows (administrative tools) and see if there are any system error logs. I isolated the SATA controller when the controller started popping up every few seconds.