Does this sound like my MB is failing?

[ssilverm]

I'm running an ASUS P5K Premium WiFi motherboard

A few weeks ago my computer started to freeze occasionally for anything from ten to thirty seconds. This is now happening with annoying frequency. On checking the Vista event logs I see that there have been an awful lot of errors with the message:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort3."

It's tempting to believe that this is responsible for the lock-ups. However, I don't actually have anything attached to IDE Port 3.

Is this indicative of my MB starting to fail?

Steve S.

 

[Spikesoldier]

sounds like a hard drive failure. scan the drive on port 3

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Yep, hard drive failure is the most likely.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: Spikesoldier
sounds like a hard drive failure. scan the drive on port 3

He said he doesn't have a hard drive connected to port 3 though.

 

[ssilverm]

Originally posted by: Spikesoldier
sounds like a hard drive failure. scan the drive on port 3

That's the point. I don't have a drive attached to port 3. I have two drives attached to ports 1 and 2. Moreover I have swapped both drives for new ones since the problem began. I am absolutely certain that the drives aren't the problem. Every freeze generates an error message relating to th empty port 3. I can't think what else it could be other than the motherboard. I just ran memtest on the offchance that it might be a RAM problem, but it passed with flying colours.

Steve S.

 

[niggles]

wouldn't that be a bad controller then?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Please try reformatting with Windows 7 RC and tell me if the same problem occurs as all the drivers should be built in. A friend of mine had constant BSOD's and shutdowns that were fixed by Windows 7 since his drivers were the problem.

 

[ssilverm]

Originally posted by: niggles
wouldn't that be a bad controller then?

That's the logical conclusion. I guess what I'm trying to understand is whether that is a likely cause of the freezing given that nothing is actually connected to the port under suspicion.

Steve S.

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Some BIOS' allow you to disable ports on the motherboard. Try disabling it and see if the problem persists. If this doesn't fix it then I would try a few OS build as WaitingForNehlem suggests, preferably on a spare hard drive so you can easily go back to your old build.

If you've tried all of the above and it's still having problems then send the motherboard in for warranty.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Before you start wiping drives you should go to your drive manufactures web site and dl the drive utilities that are available to test your drives. Seagate has probably the best self booting disk based utility called seatools. It will test your drives independant of the os and give you a report at the end. If your drive has gone bad it should catch it if you use seagate hd's.

 

[deimos3428]

Try removing the IDE channels in device manager and rebooting. Windows will re-detect them.

 

[ssilverm]

Originally posted by: Puffnstuff
Before you start wiping drives you should go to your drive manufactures web site and dl the drive utilities that are available to test your drives. hd's.

I ran Samsung's diagnostics on my drives and found that my system drive was riddled with ECC errors. I cloned the disk onto a spare drive and swapped them around. The freezing now seems to have stopped, but the reports of controller errors on IDE3 continue. They don't seem to be having any impact on performance though.

Steve S.