Windows 7 -- Every 5-7 days all disk activity stops forces reboot ??

[fixbsod]

** edit 8/29/13 ISSUE APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN SOLVED **

While still a little premature to say for certain, it does appear that the SRT / SSD caching was causing this issue. Have not had a hiccough in a while since disabling SRT caching (left the drive in the system but not doing any caching). I never had the caching set to maximized -- only enhanced, though issues with this would mean unstable system even fully disabling SRT. So either SRT issues due to serious torrenting or perhaps SSD drive going. I find it hard to believe the SSD drive is going as it is an intel 313 20GB mSATA drive w/SLC chips and only like 18 mos of use -- even intel SSD toolkit noted apx 93% life remaining. I can run a more comprehensive SSD check once I peel back the drive even more from caching. I'm honestly slightly surprised that I'm not noticing that much of a performance hit disabling SSD caching. Bootups are a little slower, but other than a great big chug a lug to load Diablo 3 (10 extra seconds?), everything else seems just about as fast as it was or only a tad bit slower.

edit 2--

Looking more and more like the SSD. I figured it was probably some driver/software issue and so I mounted the SSD as a drive and formatted it. This allowed me to run the FULL intel ssd toolbox scan on the drive (disallowed before as in raid config) for read and write and bammo got a BSOD during the test (below). Researching the BSOD info leads me to believe the error is referring to a hard disk or ssd going bad. I have not gotten a BSOD on my system so far in 2013...closest being the resets that started this 7/13 that did not produce dumps. So more than likely an issue with the SSD. I have since unmounted and PHYSICALLY removed the drive and we'll see how it runs. It's warrantied for 3 years and bought on newegg so I could be hitting up intel for a refund (curious how that will go).

[FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]Crash dump directory: C:\Windows\Minidump[/FONT]

[FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]On Fri 8/30/2013 2:24:31 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\082913-18642-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]ntoskrnl.exe[/FONT] (nt+0x75B80)
Bugcheck code: 0x1A (0x411, 0xFFFFF6FC50066C68, 0xDFF000000C6A7882, 0xFFFFF6FC51066C69)
Error: [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]MEMORY_MANAGEMENT[/FONT]
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]Microsoft® Windows® Operating System[/FONT]
company: [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]Microsoft Corporation[/FONT]
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that a severe memory management error occurred.
This might be a case of memory corruption. More often memory corruption happens because of software errors in buggy drivers, not because of faulty RAM modules.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.


[/FONT]
[FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]On Fri 8/30/2013 2:24:31 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]ntkrnlmp.exe[/FONT] (nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x0)
Bugcheck code: 0x1A (0x411, 0xFFFFF6FC50066C68, 0xDFF000000C6A7882, 0xFFFFF6FC51066C69)
Error: [FONT=Segoe UI, Arial]MEMORY_MANAGEMENT[/FONT]
Bug check description: This indicates that a severe memory management error occurred.
This might be a case of memory corruption. More often memory corruption happens because of software errors in buggy drivers, not because of faulty RAM modules.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

[/FONT]

I'm thinking of picking up a Crucial m500 480 or 960 GB drive and using that as my OS drive -- any thoughts / other recommendations?

** edit 8/9/13 ISSUE STILL HAPPENING **

So I'm really scratching my head on this one, posting this before I open her up for a visual which I doubt will show anything. I have an i7-2700k @ 3.9 GHz, Gigabyte GAZ68XP-UD3 F8 bios, 4x4 Corsair 1600, GeForce 580 w/latest WHQL, Corsair 1050watt psu, running Windows 7 64 latest patches/etc. Has a WD 2TB SATA 6 black boot and data as well as an external 1.5 TB Seagate hooked up via USB 2.0. The data 2TB was added more "recently" in Jan 2013. I also have a 20 GB intel 313 mSATA SSD hooked up as SRT cache drive. System has been solid, with no issues, rarely a crash -- 4 so far in 2013 until this issue, and this is with 24/7 use mostly gaming and one or two of those were likely caused by loading up too many monitoring programs at the same time. HDDs are connected to the intel SATA 6 channels and not the Marvell.

Recently this July I started noticing that I would come back to the system after it has rebooted. Crashes 7/3/13, 7/18/13, 7/23/13, 7/28/13 and just now 8/4/13. Side note -- due to SRT cache drive it rebuilds the drive after crash but then sits at bootup waiting for a manual reboot -- intel rst orom like 10.5 (ANYWAY AROUND THIS?? SOOO Annoying). After the first 3-4 crashes I noticed Windows was not producing any memory dump and so unselected auto-restart. I also updated software intel RST to the latest version 12.5. The last 2 crashes on 7/28/13 and 8/4/13 I was present and both exhibited the same odd behavior -- that all disk activity ceased, yet the system was still usable / responsive. Of course requests that require disk use would stall out but the system itself did not crash.
--
EDIT 8/9/13 -- I'm now like 99.9999% sure disk11 error is non issue -- that this is the external disk just timing out at requests after spindown as despite the recent crash 8/9/13 the last disk11 error was 8/3/13 -- right before I unplugged the external HDD. I have scoured my Windows 7 event viewer and have no WHEA errors at all and the only thing close I can see is a fair number of Errors w/Event ID 11 for Disk. These don't coincide very closely with the crashes and seem to have been happening prior to any symptoms. The error is listed as "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1." After installing the 2nd 2TB drive the errors switched to "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk2\DR2." Now I think this is actually misleading as prior to installing the 2nd 2TB drive I had the boot 2TB drive and the external Seagate 1.5TB. Disk Management always lists the boot drive as Disk 0 with the next drives as 1 and 2. Thus I believe this is referring to time-out issues on the external Seagate as since it isn't used all that often it will spindown and so may cause time-out issues when being polled and it needs to powerup. I have since unplugged this drive to see if these errors continue.
---

SMART shows no issues with any drive, and I have no harddrive issues that I am aware of. I recently even did a full defrag (after the first few crashes) and it was able to fully defrag no issue. The system will behave completely normally after a reboot and I have had no issues with file integrity / corrupt files.

Here is a chkdsk that I just ran on the boot drive:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
265728 file records processed.
File verification completed.
2850 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
2 EA records processed.
60 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
323812 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
265728 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
29043 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
37432264 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

1953410047 KB total disk space.
1634572064 KB in 183642 files.
103284 KB in 29044 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
429715 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
318304984 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
488352511 total allocation units on disk.
79576246 allocation units available on disk.


My thoughts were : SATA cables and/or driver, ensuring the cables are all plugged in snug and possibly disabling SRT --will be downloading intel ssd toolbox to chk the drive, tho as it's SLC it'd be hard to believe that that is the prob.

 

[fixbsod]

Didn't notice anything on the visual and so I just cleaned out a little dust and reseated the SATA and power cables. Gotta say I'm pretty disappointed in the Corsair 600T SE case -- specifically with the fans and fan controller which are total crap. Top and front fans are Corsair and come installed with the case and front stopped working from the controller a while back, but works fine connected to the mobo. Top fan has been 'tick tick tick'ing' despite a cleaning and now barely spins, I will prolly need to connect that to the mobo as well.

Intel SSD Toolbox noted highest SSD health w/no issues and like 9x+% life remaining and newest firmware.

Updated intel inf to 9.4 newest version

Next will be mobo to F10 rev.

 

[Zap]

Just a thought... have you tried rebooting Windows (without powering it off) before the 7 days are up to see if the problem persists? This might help determine if it is purely a software problem, or potentially a hardware problem.

 

[fixbsod]

Yeah, it seems like if the system gets reboots its good, so it SEEMS to be more about uptime than a calendar thing. It has happened only happened like 6 times total so hard to say either way as only 2 of those times I was at the system. Each time the system was barely doing anything. I get a feeling it is more a hardware/software conflict than anything actually serious -- this is because once rebooted the system works without issue -- no corrupted files / rebuilds. Additionally I was able to do a full defrag that clocked in like 20 or some hours without issue. I also never actually get any warning message thrown up in WIndows (or event viewer for that matter). I do usu have utorrent 2.2.1 loaded that is seeding some 1+ TB torrents -- perhaps the reason for the issue? Tho again no issues since just July and I can't recall making any system changes at that time.

I just turned off Link Power Management in RST's Configure Power and Management settings.

BTW -- I noticed despite successful shutdowns and restarts, each time the system boots Steam keeps doing a 'verifying install / integrity' thing even tho it has the newest version (shows for like 5-6 seconds on the screen not some crazy rebuild / integrity check). Just annoying steam characteristics? I changed Steam to not start with windows and noticed it still does this when I first load Steam -- it looks like it's checking for the latest version, window only shows for like 1-2 seconds if not booted with windows vs like 5-6 seconds if it is -- likely just slower as all the system processes are loading at the same time. Don't think this is anything.

Just a thought... have you tried rebooting Windows (without powering it off) before the 7 days are up to see if the problem persists? This might help determine if it is purely a software problem, or potentially a hardware problem.

 

[Ketchup]

Is your external hard drive plugged in at all times? I have seen quite a few issues like this caused by external drives. Not all the time, but quite often.

 

[fixbsod]

It HAS been, but since unplugged that sucker today. Will have to report back if the issue crops up again as so far today I have :

disabled all power management for disks (no spindowns)
unhooked the external Seagate USB drive
updated intel inf to 9.4
disabled link power management in intel rst sata settings
visually inspected and reseated all hdd power cables and sata cables on both ends

right after the prev crash i updated intel rst to 12.5 and nvidia to latest whql

Is your external hard drive plugged in at all times? I have seen quite a few issues like this caused by external drives. Not all the time, but quite often.

 

[fixbsod]

OK it just happened again even with all the changes -- seems to be like almost every 5 ish days. I was really hoping it was just some stupid conflict / USB issue with the external drive but that has been unplugged the ENTIRE time the computer was up this go around. Come back from work and computer appears to be fine but no HDD activity at all and system responsive except for things that require reading from HDD. Wouldn't give me a ctrl-alt-del task manager, but could tell not a hardlock as keyboard caps working fine and mouse responsive, spinning circle (default wait cursor W7) spinning, etc. So now what -- reinstall Windows? or mebbe a Windows 7 repair install ???

 

[Nec_V20]

I was thinking, "What happens every week" and I remembered. Win7 automatically schedules a defragmentation of the hard drives once every week.

Try deactivating this and see if it makes a difference.

 

[fixbsod]

no dice -- scheduled defrag off has been off

 

[Nec_V20]

no dice -- scheduled defrag off has been off

Of course it is, it would have been too bloody easy otherwise 😉

That having been said, every computer I have ever built for myself, when it came to the moment of truth - turning it on - nothing has happened and I always get that moment of panic and sorrow imagining what could be wrong - until I discover that I have not plugged in the computer.

 

[fixbsod]

Doing A w7 repair install right now. .. so will report if still occurring.... 6 days from now

Also want to add that when I had the system set to reboot at crash it would reboot (der)

So far with it set to not reboot it will just sit in Windows -- no BSOD, no hardlock, no error message at all -- perhaps I should be more patient and let it sit there until SOMETHING happens as perhaps it will eventually throw off some error message

I'm wondering if it isn't SOMETHING crashing, just not super-fatally as the system will still work but just won't let you access any HDD. Also, if Windows did reboot the system shouldn't it have something more in Event Viewer than just a critical 41 error of system lost power / unexpected shutdown? Oh well, got 2+ days uptime on the W7 repair install, played like a ton of Fallout 3 this weekend with only 1 minor crash to desktop (good old Bethesda games) and no issues as usu with Bioshock Infinite or other use so far.

 

[fixbsod]

Ok it did it again despite the w7 repair install -- only up like 2.5 days before hand. I let it try and give me an error but really couldn't get anything -- got a small box in the bottom left corner that was more a generic windows thing. Doing a Prime 95 blend test right now -- tho I don't suspsect this will find anything, I'm thinking I'll let it run almost a full 24 hours just to confirm no obv hardware issues. Barring an issue on Prime 95 I'm just going to do a complete format/repartition and reinstall W7 on a fresh system. IF THAT still gives me issues I might have to drop kick this bitch.

 

[Ketchup]

With 16 GB, I am also wondering if a stick of RAM could be your issue. 7 doesn't have the memory leak that 95 did, but if you leave it up for 7 days, I can certainly see 7 using all RAM available as it continues to hold new data accessed during that time period.

 

[fixbsod]

I too am wondering if this could be RAM related (or other hardware), but I'm not seeing any major memory leakage -- task manager was still reporting just like 3.5 gb ram used after the 5+ days uptime, and the recent issue happened with 2.5 days on the clock. Like I noted above I'm doing a near 24 hour run on Prime 95 blend and don't expect any issues. Heat's not an issue and I never seem to have problems at full load -- it will nearly always be under minor load or almost none (however I have disabled all sleep / power management so...). I'm thinking it's full format time, need to clean house anyways and so will probably do that this week. Fingers crossed no issues after the format as that would definitely mean hardware issue and more hairpulling.

With 16 GB, I am also wondering if a stick of RAM could be your issue. 7 doesn't have the memory leak that 95 did, but if you leave it up for 7 days, I can certainly see 7 using all RAM available as it continues to hold new data accessed during that time period.

 

[Ketchup]

I too am wondering if this could be RAM related (or other hardware), but I'm not seeing any major memory leakage -- task manager was still reporting just like 3.5 gb ram used after the 5+ days uptime, and the recent issue happened with 2.5 days on the clock. Like I noted above I'm doing a near 24 hour run on Prime 95 blend and don't expect any issues. Heat's not an issue and I never seem to have problems at full load -- it will nearly always be under minor load or almost none (however I have disabled all sleep / power management so...). I'm thinking it's full format time, need to clean house anyways and so will probably do that this week. Fingers crossed no issues after the format as that would definitely mean hardware issue and more hairpulling.

I understand what you are saying, but I am not going to pretend to know the rules Windows follows of what to put where in memory. Maybe you do.

If it were up to me, I would start running two sticks at a time per week/forced reboot and see what happens. It's already been 9 days since you first posted, and your system isn't using all the memory you have at one time anyway.

 

[Lorne]

Going out on a limb here, Are the resets at any spacific time of day?

 

[sm625]

Remove the SSD and see if it happens without that cache.

 

[cytg111]

So far with it set to not reboot it will just sit in Windows -- no BSOD, no hardlock, no error message at all -- perhaps I should be more patient and let it sit there until SOMETHING happens as perhaps it will eventually throw off some error message.

- So, how long DO you give it before shutting it down hard? I too would wait for something to time out .. It could be many things, but I too would expect something in the system log .. The fact that there is not suggests the error has not happend yet (as in not timeout'ed yet)

Also, the fact that you can keep using the OS, just not access any drives sounds really weird .. If the HD with the OS on it stops responding, I'd expect the OS to stop working soon after.. One thing is that YOU can access the disc, but what about background programs, can they? Is there activity there?

Also "disabling SRT" - good idea.

 

[fixbsod]

Well it's hard to say how long it's been sitting there as its happened when I've been at the computer only twice, while the rest of the time I have not. I have to imagine that the times I have not been there that the computer has been like that for sometime as on 2 or 3 occasions the system was like this when I woke up in the morning. I will be more patient next time to see if I can get a real error message out of Windows. I find it extremely odd that with W7 set to auto-restart to an error it did auto-restart, but yet with it off I have not yet seen it throw up an error, BSOD or anything. FYI -- 21 hours of Prime 95 blend no issues and then did some Fallout 3 all night no issues and still on, think now 2+ days uptime since 8/11/13 crash.

And also there is no obvious sign that the computer is about to or just has "crashed," as far as any Windows activity. Some of those times in the morning the computer looks fine on the desktop but it will be unresponsive and then I notice the complete lack of HDD activity as the light never goes on. At this point I consider it "crashed" and as noted below it will still be somewhat responsive / usable (!?)

And when I say I can still use the computer, yes it will be extremely limited -- basically what appears to be cached into RAM. So I'm not loading programs or something like that, but I have on occasion been able to even get a my computer open using windows+e (don't ask me how that works as the drives aren't polled or anything). The ominous sign is the complete lack of HDD activity as the light will NEVER go on when it crashes (works fine otherwise). So the last crash I was able to open the start menu but yet the windows that would expand out from that would time out or not load, so steam showed as the top program but there was no arrow from there to see the top played games. One time it did this when Steam was loaded and the top window and I could even use the Steam browser in a limited manner -- clicking on store, back, etc!!!

Also, continually using the computer in this state will degrade what will even be responsive. This last crash after opening the Start menu, which it did, the desktop then went black and I only had the Start menu at the bottom -- again mouse still working, clicks registering and will respond if it can (again seems to be stuff cached in RAM). Continual clicking and windows keying left the system with really only the mouse usable and that was it -- but again initially the OS will let me do some limited tasks that appear to be cached. So yes, loading a brand new program is a no go, but perhaps clicking some program already open MAY work. The only error message I was able to get was a generic windows square box in the lower left corner mentioning some generic error and asking if I wanted to end task or cancel (two buttons). It did not specify any task / program /etc and ending the task did nothing.

Disabling RST / SSD caching is a VERY TEMPTING /interesting idea, I had wondered if maybe this was some RST crash which then caused drive issues until reboot. I have stopped utorrent too thinking perhaps the constant torrenting was wreaking havoc -- not using much bandwidth as just seeding back about 100K/sec but do have prolly upwards of 800+ GB in torrents which perhaps being a 32-bit program (utorrent 2.2.1) and W7 with RST is causing issues (?) I do know that only my C drive is cached and these 800+ GB are all on the C so RST is definitely trying to do its thing with those torrents. I do want to note that I have not made any system changes that should have impacted RST since Jan '13 when I added a 2nd'ary HDD. Also, the upgrade to RST 12.5 software was once the issues started.

- So, how long DO you give it before shutting it down hard? I too would wait for something to time out .. It could be many things, but I too would expect something in the system log .. The fact that there is not suggests the error has not happend yet (as in not timeout'ed yet)

Also, the fact that you can keep using the OS, just not access any drives sounds really weird .. If the HD with the OS on it stops responding, I'd expect the OS to stop working soon after.. One thing is that YOU can access the disc, but what about background programs, can they? Is there activity there?

Also "disabling SRT" - good idea.

 

[fixbsod]

bump -- see initial post as edited -- did appear to be SSD caching (SRT)