hardrive problems- Machine_check_exception

Sep 10, 2004
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I've got an asus a8n-sli with a amd 64 3500 and 2 hardrives. My primary hardrive is a seagate 160 gig sata hardrive with 2 partitions and a copy of windows on one of the partitions and my second is a 40 gig maxtor ide hardrive which is set as a ide slave in the bios. I use the 40 gig primarily for media files ie. music and movies.

I was downloading onto the 40 gig drive and I get a machine_check_exception error with code 0x0000009c and my comp restarts. I have had this problem before and in the past they only way to get rid of it that I found was a clean installation of windows and to completely reformat my 40 gig hardrive, but even then I couldn't start windows without the windows cd in the drive. So I replaced the ntldr and ntdetect.com files, tried fixboot and fixmbr in the recovery console, my mb and cpu temps are low, I got a memory check program and checked my memory. I believe the problem is my 40 gig hardrive because if I open the drive or any programs loaded on the drive my computer freezes and I get the machine_check_exception error. The weird thing though is when I went to the recovery console it said that my installation of windows was on my D: drive which is the 40gig and in reallity it is on my C: partition on my 160 gig.

I can use any of the programs or files located on my 160 gig sata drive without any problems. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas of how I can fix this problem? Preferrably without losing all the files on the drive.

Lol I'm about ready to scrap the 40 and move on.
 

FlyingPenguin

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2000
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Are you overclocking? If so don't and see if that helps.

This error is generally related to hardware stability issues. Could be your RAM. Just because it passes MEMTEST doesn't mean it isn't dopping a bit once in a while after millions of operations.

Unstable voltage regulation could also be causing it. People tend to cut corners on the PSU but this it the one component you need to spend money on. If you spent less than $50 on your PSU it's junk. Cheap PSU = poor voltage regulation = random errors.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329284&sd=RMVP
 

johncatral

Member
Nov 19, 2004
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Funny that someone just posted about this issue because I have just been getting this issue for the past 2-3 days.

In my case, since I just built my system I am not overclocking anything. I have a OCZ 530w Modstream PSU which I hope is pumping out reliable juice to the computer.

I'm going to have to test out these parts. Can anyone tell me how to effectively test the PSU? Since the original poster didnt state that the issue was resolved I hope you guys don't mind me adding to this thread. Hopefully we can find the problem.

Thanks!

- John