Crashes on high hard disk activity in XP but not 98

[f300]

Hi

When i do anything that involves high hard disk activity for over about 2 mins the computer either completely freezes, or reboots (Automatic restart is disabled). It happens with defrag after about 2 mins, or a few mins into copying a large file (from the network AND from partition to partition), and when running Passmark BurnInTest's HDD test. I'm running a dual-boot with XP Pro and Win98. The crashing ONLY happens in WinXP and NEVER in Win98. The hard disk passes IBM drive fitness test (the advanced test run repeatedly).

As it only happens in XP i think it must be some sort of driver problem... But i've got SP1 and all the windows updates, the newest Intel INF drivers, the newest Intel Application Accelerator drivers and the newest drivers for everything else in the computer. I also tried reinstalling WindowsXP, which made no difference.

Hope someone has a clue cos i've run out of ideas...
Thanks!


Spec:

Celeron 900 (100bus)
Abit ST6 (i815)
PC133 memory (running at 100Mhz)
Geforce2 MX 200
SM56 56k
D-Link DFE-538TX 10/100
Onboard AC97 sound

IBM Deskstar 75GXP 30Gb (Pri Master)
(C: - FAT32 - Win98)
(D: - NTFS - WinXP)
(E: - NTFS)

LiteOn 24/10/40 CD-RW (Sec Master)
Teac 32x CD-ROM (Sec Slave)

 

[LiLithTecH]

I would suspect the Winmodem.

What drivers are you using for the Motorola SM56 modem?
The Win2k drivers?

Since Motorola no longer makes Winmodems and is no longer
developing drivers past the Win2k drivers I am curious.

I believe it has to be an resource conflict or and issue with the NIC and Com drivers.

 

[f300]

Thanks for your reply!

I am using the Win2k driver for the modem. I've just taken the modem and network card out of the computer (so no PCI cards in now), and it still has the problem.

Also, i've just disconnected the two CD drives, so the HDD is the only IDE device installed, but it hasn't helped.

 

[UrbanAchiever]

go to start--- run---type in eventvwr, click on system and see if there are ay warning signs, You may have a bad harddrive, so get a drive check utlity from you hd manufacturer's website and check it.

 

[f300]

No problems reported in the Event Viewer. I've already tested the HDD with the IBM drive fitness test and it is fine. (advanced test run repeatedly). I think the hard disk is probably ok as it works fine in Windows98.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: f300
No problems reported in the Event Viewer. I've already tested the HDD with the IBM drive fitness test and it is fine. (advanced test run repeatedly). I think the hard disk is probably ok as it works fine in Windows98.

Can you try swapping cables (IDE), and then swapping memory to see if the problem goes away, this sounds much more like a hardware problem (to me) than software. That said, what information does the bluescreen give (what driver does it point to), is it always the same or is it often different?

Bill

 

[vansouza]

See if you can do something about the memory. Can you try another mem stick or if you have two or more installed try your crash activities with just one stick installed. Then add more... I suggest only because that was a problem that I had... Good luck..

 

[f300]

There is no blue screen at all... the computer either completely freezes in the middle of what it's doing, or just starts rebooting. No errors messages or anything.

I can't try the IDE cable right now because i don't have a spare 80pin one at the moment, but i'll try swapping the memory.

I still think it must be either a driver problem or some bit of hardware that XP doesn't like. In XP if I start copying multi-gigabyte files around the hard disk it reboots while doing it. But if I do the same while running under Windows 98 it is absolutely fine, no crashing. Surely if it was a hardware problem it would manifest itself in Windows98 aswell.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Did you remove the NIC and WinModem drivers?

Uninstalling the device from the machine doesn't remove the driver.

Also, you may want to try a this fix for the modem drivers.

Go to Dell's website (Support)and choose Dimension 4100 as the PC, then Downloads.
Choose Windows XP(OS), then Communication drivers(CATEGORY), then Go.
Do a search for "SM56"
Download the file ZBRCFE11.EXE

Use these as your WinXP modem drivers.
You may have to install twice if you do not remove the original drivers first.

 

[bsobel]

Surely if it was a hardware problem it would manifest itself in Windows98 aswell.

Nope, turn out that NT/2k/XP are much more intorlerant of misbehaving hardware, as the OS is getting alot more performance out of them. Memory errors that never showed up under 9x but suddenly do under NT and above are well documented.

Bill