[WMCoolmon]

Yes, another computer problem thread.

As some of you may recall, I was having some problems a month or two ago with my computer freezing, crashing, failing to boot, and so on. Memtest revealed problems with the memory, so I took the stick that supposedly had problems out, and then the second stick started showing problems.

Following a re-application of the processor heatsink to the processor, everything seemed to be going fine. That is, until recently.

Symptoms have essentially been the computer freezing for a short time, freezing again, and then finally freezing for a final time. Occassionally this is mixed in with errors, about a service unexpectedly quitting and the system shutting down, as well as one about Thunderbird not being able to load run due to not being loaded properly. (I can dig up the exact error messages from where I wrote them down if it'd be helpful).

It takes around 20-30 minutes to freeze, and after that, then the computer won't start; rather than booting from the hard drive, it seems to try and boot from the network.

The hard drive was set up in a very bizarre fashion - part NTFS, FAT32, and ext3 partitions. (MBR was Win2k, although I was formerly using GRUB with a linux install on one of the other partitions, until it stopped working)

So at this point I have some options. One, I can try flashing the BIOS. I have a K8mm-ilsr with a version 3.0 BIOS. However, I'm not too confident about this because the hard drive was working fine.

Two, I can try and copy all the data off of the drive in the 30-minute intervals via the USB hard drive I've got. But this'll be a PITA as I've been using it as a backup/storage drive for miscellaneous stuff, and it was formerly my main HD so it's partitioned oddly.

Three, I can buy an external SATA rack and try to use my laptop to transfer data between the SATA drive and IDE-USB drive. Of course if it's a problem with the SATA drive (or the cable), it may not help and I may still end up with 30 min. before it stops working.

Four, if I can narrow the problem down to some other component, I could probably replace it. But a full system upgrade right now isn't really plausible...

Edit: I forgot to say, any help would really be appreciated I'd like to get this fixed with the minimum of destroyed components, and I'm not 100% sure it's the hard drive - that's just my best educated guess ATM.

[Nix]

Flashing a bios shouldnt be too hard, besides, most BIOS flashing utilities usually allow you to dump your current BIOS to a file, so you can keep your original BIOS that you already have if the new one doesnt help.  A BIOS flash just might save you.  I currently had issues with my Promise onboard SATA controller, refusing to detect drives after a warm reboot.  I flashed my BIOS, which in turn flashed the SATA controllers (VIA and Promise in this case) and now the promise controller will recgonize sata drives after a warm reboot.  I've also ran into problems with the hard drive cable itself before too.  You've got the drive properly mastered/slaved, and not using Cable Select?  I'm assuming you already do, but I would  try a different data cable and see if it makes any difference.  I had problems on my previous system using an old fashioned ribbon cable before they started making those fancy-shmancy round ones, where my BIOS all of a sudden would not recgonize my old maxtor drive.  I would boot up from a cold boot, and it would find the drive, but on warm reboots, it would randomly dissapear.  Some warm reboots, it would find a drive, but the detected drive would be a line of ascii garbage spewed across the screen, resulting in a system halt right there at the BIOS.  I swapped out a cable and tried it again, and it worked 100% functional from that point on. 

So both solutions may work.  Give em a shot.  You never know when one of those thin wires might just short out one day.  Specially if it's an 80pin cable. 

[WMCoolmon]

Flashed the BIOS...it replaced my informative startup screen with a poorly colored logo, which was easily (and shortly) disabled in the BIOS.

It added some stuff to my BIOS; for example I can set the SATA controller to 'RAID' or 'SATA'. In 'SATA' the controller doesn't add my hard drive to the bootable list in the BIOS, so I set it to 'RAID'. I also enabled cool 'n quiet to try and help.

I did find something interesting - apparently the drive has a spread spectrum jumper which is in the 'disabled' position. (According to one sentence in the full install guide; the rest of the references are either vague or contradict each other). This was enabled in the BIOS, and according to tom's hardware slows the system, and just plain sounds like it would be bad to have enabled in the BIOS while disabled on the drive, so I disabled it in the BIOS. (It was enabled after the flash).

[Nix]

Spread spectrum - I would leave disabled.  I have on my system in the past, luckily my new 64bitter doesnt have it in the BIOS at all.  Apparently it allows for small speed fluctuations across the bus, and if you have your processor overclocked, it could crash your system a lot more often due to the spread spectrum.  That's what it is, according to my old MSI manual. 

WMC, Is your BIOS an Award or American Megatrends?  If it's AMI, I can probably help you cause there's this wierd list in the bootable drive selection list in the BIOS.  I know that there's a boot order in the bios which you choose the drive you want to start from, but there's another menu that allows you to choose the specific drive you want, which has to be at the top of this list in order for it to appear in the boot order menu, at least in my BIOS.  In this list it should show all the drives hooked up to the system.  If you move the SATA drive to the top of the list, it should appear in the bootable drives list as a valid bootable drive.  Now, if you dont see your SATA drive in this second odd menu, then your current config should be OK.   That's odd that your system doesnt detect the SATA drive when you force it into SATA mode.   Also, depending on if your SATA controller is a Promise, Highpoint, Silicon Image, or VIA, you might want to make sure you have the most current chipset drivers and SATA drivers available for your system.  If you're using a VIA c'set, thier latest Hyperion driver kit includes every single thing you'd need.  If those drivers are up-to-date, and the BIOS is up-to-date, you should be OK from here on out till the drive dies. 

[WMCoolmon]

It's an AMI BIOS, so I'll double-check the other screens next time I think to try the swap again.

So far, no freezing, no problems. I'm hesitant to pronounce it fixed, though. I did put it through a pretty good trial - beating the last level of Halo on Legendary.

The only oddity I see, is that the memory is clocking in at 333mhz...though it should be clocking in at 400mhz.

[phatosealpha]

Spread Spectrum should be left off.

It exists only for FCC testing compliance - it modulates the frequency of the FSB slightly, resulting in smaller peaks of interference in the bands the bus runs at, so as to pass FCC testing.  Apparently lots of interference in one band is Bad, but less interference on a wide band is AOK.

Hmm....333 instead of 400?  You by any chance running 4 dimms in an older A64?

[Nix]

FSB in the bios is probably set to the wrong value.  Try setting it up at 200.  That's what mine's at right now. 200+ddr=400. 

[WMCoolmon]

Yeah, that's what it's set at right now - it goes from 200 up to 280.

[WMCoolmon]

On a hunch, I checked video playback capability.

It can now play DVDs and movies without locking up!

Edit: Tehe.

[Nix]

Good to hear!  Though the memory clocking seems odd.  You might want to check the RAM timings in the BIOS, and maybe try forcing the correct speeds upon the RAM instead of letting the motherboard <auto> detect them.  Though, be aware, this might cause your system to hang like mad, even if you force the correct settings on the RAM.  The BIOS should detect the proper speed upon scanning the memory.  Maybe that stick really is a 333?  I'd use Everest or something similar to probe your stick of RAM for a manufacturer part number to check.  If you're concerned about it that is.

All my drives at work looked like that untill I started working on them, but no free space? wow...

[Nuclear1]

Jesus, Mary, and Glayvin! [/Frink]

[WMCoolmon]

As it turned out the intermediate files from me making my one CVS build release took up some 4.7 GB of my 15 GB C drive...it defragged a lot faster without them..