Asrock Dual SATA2 freezes/hangs when loading Windows

[AustroBerrichon]

Sorry guys but I had little time to mess with my PC last week.

I installed yesterday WinXP on an IDE HDD. Still I will have to use the PC a couple of days before judging if the 'freezings' really disappear.

A couple a days ago my PC started again to F**K around and I noticed that during that time it wasn't able to detect properly my USB stick (actually the explorer was stuck/frozen as long as the stick was plugged) even though the USB drivers are properly installed (from the Windows site) and no problem are reported by the Device Manager...

 

[carstea]

I was waiting for your reply, i was wondering that if you install windows on an ide HD you would still get the freezing. the USB problem has been discussed here before. only some products were causing it and the usb drivers alone are not supposed to do this trouble.

keep us updated on your IDE HD. can i make a guess ? It won't freeze/hang on a ide HD.

 

[qsrk]

I was running my SATAII drive on the SATAII channel in SATA mode and IDE mode and got freezing. Switching the drive to SATA speeds using the Hitachi Feautre Tool, and running the drive on a SATA port seems to have eliminated freezing, but now the drive fails to get recognized on cold boots . A simple reboot fixes that problem.

 

[imported_Imp]

Bad news and kind of good news. Again, still no problem recognizing HD on boot like qrsk, but the 0x0000009c error is back. The HD LED does not stay on when it does though anymore. This error followed something odd though, my DVD in the drive was making a loud IRREGULAR *clack*clack*clack* sound while booting windows. As you've seen from my past posts, I also had trouble recognizing the windows CD during a reinstall. Long story short, I think the error is seriously pointing to a defective DVD or DVD, but it still works, so I'll be watching it closely before my 90-day warranty dies. Looking back, problems only started when I started using CDs in my drive; I rarely did during my first few weeks.

Summary:
- Check your optical drives. Much higher chance we all got screwy DVD drives than hard drives.

 

[carstea]

i got that bsod even with out any ide devices connected, so i don't think it's related to any cdrom , dvdrom. something else is causing this trouble. i've written a novel to the astock tech suport. i'm waiting for their answer now.

 

[professor1942]

Same here, the 0x0000009c errors seem to get worse the longer the board is running, so I can't help but to think there is some weak component on it that screws up when it's warm.

I'm pretty much ready to take this board out to my driveway and stomp on it till it breaks into 1000 pieces.

 

[carstea]

yeah me too, i'm going to try to change it with an asus or something. i hope the guys from the shop will understand me.

 

[qsrk]

I have never had a 0x0000009c BSOD, so we may be experiencing different problems with some similar symptoms.

EDIT: Now had the BSOD! Happened when connecting USB device to specific USB port.

 

[imported_Imp]

Well, I'm just looking for something to blame because this is just retarded now. My HD wasn't recognized and wouldn't boot on SATA channels *fixed*. Then when I move HD to SATA2 channel, all fine until optical starts screwing up *fixed*. After reinstalling windows, bam, here we go again. The only reason I'm seriously thinking it may be the optical for me is that it won't read a couple of my DVD movies anymore without BSODin; they run for 10s and BSOD or BSOD right after being put into the tray, and let's not forget the drive stalling during windows boot with a cackling, almost grinding noise. I'm going to try to update my firmware for DVD, if it doesn't work, I'll try to live with it a bit longer to see if the drive deteriorates since it runs my other DVDs perfectly. I have not had this POS run for more than a week without me having to seriously consider reinstalling windows or opening the case.

@qrsk. Originally, I only had your problem with no HD recognition. After I "fixed" that, it turned into professor and carsteas problem exactly. So if this goes on any longer, I'm calling it a day when I have the time to rip this POS out. Money's no problem, my family is telling me and offering me the money to take this POS out cause of all the trouble it's caused me.

If you get to the point where you take it out to your driveway and jump on it, do it in an environmentally friendly way...

 

[qsrk]

Yes - rather than destroy the motherboards donate them to schools or other organizations that might run them with simpler less problematic setups.

 

[imported_Imp]

Give them to schools? Can't wait for the exchanges:
Student: "Teacher, windy will not loady."
Teacher: "Let me see, let's call the Mr. T, he's hip and in with the techno." (No relation to any foos.)
Teacher: "Yes, Mr. T, we have an IT problem. Windows won't load on this new computer donated to us by some nice people."
Mr. T: "Let's see here..." ~5 hours later~ "I pity the foo who owned this POS." ~proceeds to smash the POS with his bling bling in a rage that gets him fired.~

Anyways, it's hopeless. Forget anything I said about my POS being fixed, so short sited of me after all the repeated failures. Once again, it kept BSODin from a cold boot (about 10 times, lost count). Tried changing my Ram to lowest setting. Tried disabling the IDE channel completely which includes my DVD, still no dice. Then I go into safe mode and update the drives firmware, it loads, and reboots fine twice. Still running it on that last reboot.

So, someone tell me why it taunts us all by WORKING for a reasonable time to make us think it's fixed, and then proceed to take a dump on your face. Are drivers deteriorating or something? Also, had more abnormal clicking in drive with different disc.
*Sorry for the language, very very very pissed off, and am now seriously considering wasting $400(half the price of my entire system) to get a new board. If your're wondering how it's so much: $115 wasted on this POS, $130 on new board, $200 on new video card. Add in the new thermal paste and wasted time and we're up to $500. POSPOSPOS.

Update: So, the disc that was BSODin on me works now with new firmware.
By the way, good luck qrsk, if IDE works, cheaper to get a new drive that than new board.

 

[professor1942]

Yeah I wouldn't donate this board to my worst enemy.

 

[Athlon64SSE3]

Hello,
i have an Asrock 939 Dual sata2 and i attached to the sata2 controller a Hitachi T7K250 250GB SATA2.....i have lock ups in XP loading, and freezing while hd led is on, but only cold boot problems. Morning when i start computer, it can't ever find my hd! I found that going in the bios and disabling ide peripherals->saving->powering off->going in bios and setting ide dvd and cdr/rw back there my XP loads....strange!
Mine is not a fresh install at 100%, because i ghosted this XP from a previous installation on a IDE western digital where this XP was running perfectly (no cold boot issue or other issue!).
I wrote an email to asrock but they said that they have built a similar computer with same hd and cpu and mobo and bios (1.60...i upgraded from 1.20 without fixing anything) and they don't have this problem .
Ah...i have an enermax 485w as power supply and my system was going perfectly with the same installation of XP (i did install sata2 drivers downloaded from Asrock website previous to backup it with ghost on DVD). I think trouble is related to something wrong in BIOS. I suggest u to write down to Asrock support.....we could only hope in a new bios that could fix that!
Write to asrock_TSD@asrock.com.tw

 

[qsrk]

Originally posted by: Athlon64SSE3
Hello,
i have an Asrock 939 Dual sata2 and i attached to the sata2 controller a Hitachi T7K250 250GB SATA2.....i have lock ups in XP loading, and freezing while hd led is on, but only cold boot problems. Morning when i start computer, it can't ever find my hd! I found that going in the bios and disabling ide peripherals->saving->powering off->going in bios and setting ide dvd and cdr/rw back there my XP loads....strange!...

Can you clarify? Do you mean that you have lockups, freezing, AND cold boot problems? Or only cold boot problems? For cold boot, have you tried just resetting the computer rather than changing things in the BIOS. Since hitting reset always solves the cold boot problem for me, it suggests maybe that the computer is booting too fast, and that by the time I hit reset, some components have had time to warm up to stable temperatures. I am going to temporarily try to slow down booting to see if it helps.

If you are getting freezing, can you try what I did, and change your drive to SATA-I specs and plug it into a SATA-I port? Tell us if that helps. BTW, I plugged in the second SATA-I port which is labeled SATA2, since my AGP card makes it difficult to access the first port.

UPDATE: I had the 0x0000009C BSOD when I connected a USB device to one specific USB port on my computer. Other USB ports seem stable.

 

[imported_Imp]

@Austro: Hope you can update us about your IDE HD soon, cause I need a solution now before I vent my rage. ~I'm bottling up now, serenity now... I hope it works and it's just the SATA because I'd rather get a new IDE HD than spend $400 rebuilding this POS (sorry CPU, video, DVD, case, not you).

Anyways, after firmware update, BAM, 0x0000009c 15+ times in a row. I lost count after 10 straight resets. Again, the HD LED is locking on again. I am currently writing a complaint letter to ASRock (here comes the standard, automated response) minus the F U's. Too bad I can't take this POS back to the store, I had to search stores across town to find this single store that was close enough to actually have it in stock. Maybe someone out there was trying to tell me something... By the way, don't tell me I don't know what the hell I'm doing, and this is a user error.

 

[professor1942]

Last night I took the system apart completely and rebuilt it from scratch with a different PSU. No crashes so far after 15 hours, but I know better than to be optimistic about this hunk of dung. I'll post an update later.

 

[imported_Imp]

Don't hold your breath, this POS just likes changes. Everytime I replugged something, it would work for the first day, and cluster **** on the next boot. It even worked for a week, I wouldn't call it fixed until it works for a month. I'll try to get an IDE HD from someone...

 

[Athlon64SSE3]

Originally posted by: qsrk
Can you clarify? Do you mean that you have lockups, freezing, AND cold boot problems? Or only cold boot problems? For cold boot, have you tried just resetting the computer rather than changing things in the BIOS. Since hitting reset always solves the cold boot problem for me, it suggests maybe that the computer is booting too fast, and that by the time I hit reset, some components have had time to warm up to stable temperatures. I am going to temporarily try to slow down booting to see if it helps.

If you are getting freezing, can you try what I did, and change your drive to SATA-I specs and plug it into a SATA-I port? Tell us if that helps. BTW, I plugged in the second SATA-I port which is labeled SATA2, since my AGP card makes it difficult to access the first port.

UPDATE: I had the 0x0000009C BSOD when I connected a USB device to once specific USB port on my computer. Other USB ports seem stable.

I have only cold boot problem! In windows i have no lock up, it's perfectly stable! I've already tried to reset pc (hard reset) and tried CTRL+ALT+DEL, but it didn't helped.
If i reset, my drive is recognized but then XP froze when loading in initial screen, where there is the blue bar loading.....and i see a fixed light of hard disk's led. How could u slow down the booting?!? Anyone has already tried a CMOS reset here? I'm thinking of making this. Asrock support told me that with an identical configuration like mine, all is working good without cold boot issues....they tested an hitachi t7k250 sata2 and asrock with same bios (1.60)? And why i have that problems?

 

[imported_Imp]

Once upon a time, a mole named Imp kept getting screwed over by his motherboard. After being screwed over so badly, he kept blaming the POS, which rightfully earned its name. That was until his DVD drive started screwing up...

Well, apparently my DVD drive IS screwed up afterall. It displayed symptoms earlier such as irregular clicking (thinking it over, it now sounds like the disc was getting stuck in there trying to spin), trouble reading discs, BSODin (0x0000009c) and finally, I just had an experience that sealed the deal. After watching half a season of a DVD, said disc was taken out and inspected; MULTIPLE CONCENTRIC SCRATCHES. Luckily, they look light.

I have now unplugged it completely (no power, no signal, no audio cable). Hopefully this is what has been messing me up; regardless, getting it RMA'd.

It may just be some defective POS that's causing the BSOD. Could be the board, could be video card or even Ram since you can't even get into windows (without knowing it) if you don't have those plugged in. So try to swap Ram or video out.

 

[carstea]

Athlon64SSE3 i suggest you read this whole tread carefully and you'll see how many things we have tried to get to the end of this problem.

IMP it's not the dvd drive. mine freezes in the same conditions as yours with out my cd drive connected in any way. this cannot be a user issue. it's a common problem and i think we're just a few who actually troubled to see where the problem lies. other either threw it in the garbade can or rma'ed it right away.

right now i'm saving some spare money to change it with an asus a8n. i hope my asrock love affair ends pretty soon.

 

[Athlon64SSE3]

carstea, i've already read this thread...before reading this i was thinking i was the alone to have this problem...intead there are much people!
If i only buyed another ide drive instead of a sata2 drive :-( i didn't noticed this big problem! This board has no problem with ide drives

 

[imported_Imp]

Well, don't know if the DVD is causing THE problem, but it IS screwed. It scratched one of my freaking favourite DVD's! Also, I do have a compass, but even I can't scratch it in circles that well. If it still crashes after I replace the ROM, here I come MSI K8 something... It's reading week now, so I better see results as I actually have time.

And it doesn't have to be DVD, it may just be the DVD for me. May be something else for someone else since 0x0000009c is a hardware problem. My bet's on the motherboard. Sad but true too, others would have just dumped this POS in a second. The board is turd though without a doubt since the cold boot issue was what got me to this point in the first place, and I will always blame this POS for breaking my optical.

The only thing REALLY holding me back right now is that I can't figure out how to SAFELY remove the heatsink from my CPU. I have read everything into how to remove the old heat pad/past, how to warm up the paste and twist, how to apply new paste, but why is it so hard to find really detailed instructions to take the thing off...

 

[professor1942]

Well, after rebuilding it into a different case with a different (crappier) PSU - no more crashing, 37 hours uptime.

Could it be that this board has an issue with the Enermax 535W PSU? Or is it just playing games with me again?

 

[imported_Imp]

it is POSSIBLE that your power supply was screwy (not necessarily REALLY broken, just "off" enough for this temperamental POS). It is PROBABLE that the POS is messing with you. Remember that being "up" means nothing, most of the problem lies in rebooting or from cold boots. My POS runs for hours on end perfectly on ONE good boot. It crashes after a few seconds on the 30 other boots. So if you really want to know, start hitting that power switch after resting a while. Too bad ASRock won't get my dirty letter till tomorrow...

 

[professor1942]

I never had a problem with cold boots... it was more a stability over time problem.

Maybe:

Crappy board needs crappy PSU!

I noticed that the Enermax gives extra voltage on all rails (12.2 on 12v, 3.4 on 3.3 etc.) so maybe the board just had an issue with that. Who knows.