Hard Drive Issue

[Laminator]

I believe there is a problem with my hard drive but I would like to check with the forum before I purchase a new one. A few months ago, I started experiencing frequent crashes with my computer. I am using Windows XP Professional and each crash would be characterized by the program I am currently using not responding, then the operating system not responding, and finally the mouse and keyboard (numlock/capslock) freezing up and the whole system going to a blue screen. The error I receive is "KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR" and then the computer will restart. When the computer restarts, the hard drive will not be detected until I turn off the computer, unplug the SATA data cable from the hard drive and plug it back in, and then turn the computer on again. This happens exactly the same way every time.

I believe there is something wrong with the way the computer thinks data can be accessed on the hard drive. This problem only occurs when I am playing an intensive video game or using a lot of programs at once on the desktop. I have 2GB of RAM and Windows had allocated 4GB for the paging file by default; I cut the paging file down to 2GB and that seemed to greatly reduce the frequency of my crashes. I have also used CHKDSK (set to fix errors) a few times but it doesn't seem to help my problem.

I'm pretty sure I can fix this problem by getting a new hard drive but before I do so I was wondering if anyone had the same problem and, if so, what they did to fix it.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post!

 

[mpilchfamily]

Sounds more like an issue with the motherboard not the HDD. If there was a HDD issue the S.M.A.R.T system would pop up an error telling you to back up your data and replace the drive ASAP. This issue could be from the motehrboard's SATA controler or even the RAM.

Try running Memtest to see if the RAM checks out.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: Laminator
This problem only occurs when I am playing an intensive video game or using a lot of programs at once on the desktop.

Hmmmm.
Have you checked temperatures?

 

[Laminator]

Thanks for the replies! mpilchfamily, it makes sense that it could be either the motherboard or RAM instead since I've been having issues with both since switching over from an E6600 to my current Q6600. My motherboard's USB ports have stopped working and it refuses to hold any stable overclock with the quad-core. In fact, I've had to turn off SpeedStep/C1E and downclock my memory to 533MHz, 5-5-5-12 (whereas it could hold 800MHz, 4-4-4-12 or 667MHz, 3-3-3-8 beforehand). I will run Memtest86+ this afternoon and see what happens.

Billb2, I haven't checked temperatures on the hard drive but my video card and CPU temperatures are fine. In addition, the restarts are preceded with the operating system gradually locking up as opposed a sudden crash or artifacting/slow-downs and I receive an appropriate STOP error afterwards so I'm sure it's not temperature-related.

Thanks again, guys! mpilchfamily, your CM 690 mod is rockin'.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Now that you mention the USB ports... Try clearing the CMOS, at the very least that will fix the USB ports. May even fix all the problems. Just unplug the PSU from the wall and pull the motherboard battery out. There should also be a set of pins you use to reset the CMOS.