Data Degradation P4C800E-Deluxe

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Alright here's the scoop.

I have:

Northwood P4 2.8 HT
Asus P4C800E-Deluxe (BIOS 1016)
1 Gig of Crucial Ram (Two 512 sticks running in dual channel mode)
2 Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 80GB Hard Drives (Model# ST380013AS)
3.5 Inch and CDRW Drives
Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti4400
Sound Blaster Audigy
Enermax Silent 330 Watt Power Supply
Lian-Li PC-86 USB Case

I'm running Windows XP Professional SP2

A few months ago I got rid of my old IDE drive and installed a SATA RAID 1
set up on my machine using the on-board Intel ICH5R chip (instead of the
also available Promise chip).

A few weeks later... The power indicator light on my case went out and I
slowly but surely began experiencing data degradation. A corrupt .dll file
would cause explorer to crash, keep Outlook 2003 from loading, etc. The
easiest way to fix the problem was overwrite the problematic .dll with a
copy from my laptop running the same OS.

Degraded files included:

inetcomm.dll
wmvcore.dll
mshtml.dll
etc.

After going through this for several weeks I finally turned on my computer
to find it no longer recognizing the graphics card and was only able to
display 640x480x4. At this point I did a full system reinstall only to
eventually have the same degradation problems over a few days until my
computer would simply no longer finish it's boot sequence. While booting up,
I would restart upon hitting the windows load up screen.

When this first began happening, I initially suspected a virus. When I
perform a reinstall, I format my C drive partition, but not the D drive
partition where I keep all of my personal files. This could of course allow
virii to hitch a ride over to my brand new installation, but after numerous
scans of every possible file everything has appeared clean. (I use F-Secure
Anti-Virus 2004.)

Upon my next installation I tried two things. New SATA cables, and not
installing Service Pack 2 (only SP1).

I experienced only minor degradation, until the machine suddenly one morning
had its repeating boot-up problem again.

Now, with my current re-installation I have gone ahead back to Service Pack
2.

The degradation problem continues.

One other note I'd like to make is regarding the power light on my case.
Throughout this whole ordeal it has at random sprung back to life. On 4 or 5
occasions I have glanced over at my case to discover it lit at various
degrees of intensity. Once at normal brightness and a couple other times lit
very dimly. Usually the light will stay on until the next time my computer
is turned off and on or rebooted. I have checked the connections to the mobo
as well as the case's own wiring and everything appears fine.

Regarding these problem I have several theories.

- A faulty RAID chip on my motherboard.
- A faulty motherboard as a whole.
- A faulty processor.
- faulty hard drives
- Or (it's way out in left field) but perhaps a faulty power supply.

I strongly doubt it is the hard drives, as I have scanned them twice and
only once found 1 bad sector.

I am posting in this group, because as you can see, I have a strong
suspicion that the problem has something to do with my motherboard.

Is anyone else having these problems? Does anyone have any ideas?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

P.S. I apologize for the long winded post.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

"Cocles" wrote

> I experienced only minor degradation, until the machine suddenly one
> morning had its repeating boot-up problem again.


Hi,

Looks like a pain!

Do you think your 330w PSU is ok? seems a little underpowered on that
system. I couldn't get my P4C800-E to boot using an ANTEC 300w PSU, so I
swapped it out for an ANTEC NEO-Power 480w and all was well.

I also notice this board is affected by USB/Firewire devices being attached,
really slows the boot time of my rig down, and one *rogue* USB device
managed to prevent the system from booting at all, was just stuck at the
initial boot screen. The same device also caused my CMOS to reset!!!

Have you checked out the regular things like if your memory is running
stable (memtest) and alsoif your systemis running stable (prime95) as
sometimes these things can cause instability and data corruption?

Wayne ][
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

I think your power supply may be underpowered for the components that you
are driving with it. That could cause the problems you'be been seeing.

--
DaveW



"Cocles" <cocles@dangspamsbcglobalstupidspam.net> wrote in message
news:OHphd.37404$QJ3.35694@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
> Alright here's the scoop.
>
> I have:
>
> Northwood P4 2.8 HT
> Asus P4C800E-Deluxe (BIOS 1016)
> 1 Gig of Crucial Ram (Two 512 sticks running in dual channel mode)
> 2 Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 80GB Hard Drives (Model# ST380013AS)
> 3.5 Inch and CDRW Drives
> Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti4400
> Sound Blaster Audigy
> Enermax Silent 330 Watt Power Supply
> Lian-Li PC-86 USB Case
>
> I'm running Windows XP Professional SP2
>
> A few months ago I got rid of my old IDE drive and installed a SATA RAID 1
> set up on my machine using the on-board Intel ICH5R chip (instead of the
> also available Promise chip).
>
> A few weeks later... The power indicator light on my case went out and I
> slowly but surely began experiencing data degradation. A corrupt .dll file
> would cause explorer to crash, keep Outlook 2003 from loading, etc. The
> easiest way to fix the problem was overwrite the problematic .dll with a
> copy from my laptop running the same OS.
>
> Degraded files included:
>
> inetcomm.dll
> wmvcore.dll
> mshtml.dll
> etc.
>
> After going through this for several weeks I finally turned on my computer
> to find it no longer recognizing the graphics card and was only able to
> display 640x480x4. At this point I did a full system reinstall only to
> eventually have the same degradation problems over a few days until my
> computer would simply no longer finish it's boot sequence. While booting
> up, I would restart upon hitting the windows load up screen.
>
> When this first began happening, I initially suspected a virus. When I
> perform a reinstall, I format my C drive partition, but not the D drive
> partition where I keep all of my personal files. This could of course
> allow virii to hitch a ride over to my brand new installation, but after
> numerous scans of every possible file everything has appeared clean. (I
> use F-Secure Anti-Virus 2004.)
>
> Upon my next installation I tried two things. New SATA cables, and not
> installing Service Pack 2 (only SP1).
>
> I experienced only minor degradation, until the machine suddenly one
> morning had its repeating boot-up problem again.
>
> Now, with my current re-installation I have gone ahead back to Service
> Pack 2.
>
> The degradation problem continues.
>
> One other note I'd like to make is regarding the power light on my case.
> Throughout this whole ordeal it has at random sprung back to life. On 4 or
> 5 occasions I have glanced over at my case to discover it lit at various
> degrees of intensity. Once at normal brightness and a couple other times
> lit very dimly. Usually the light will stay on until the next time my
> computer is turned off and on or rebooted. I have checked the connections
> to the mobo as well as the case's own wiring and everything appears fine.
>
> Regarding these problem I have several theories.
>
> - A faulty RAID chip on my motherboard.
> - A faulty motherboard as a whole.
> - A faulty processor.
> - faulty hard drives
> - Or (it's way out in left field) but perhaps a faulty power supply.
>
> I strongly doubt it is the hard drives, as I have scanned them twice and
> only once found 1 bad sector.
>
> I am posting in this group, because as you can see, I have a strong
> suspicion that the problem has something to do with my motherboard.
>
> Is anyone else having these problems? Does anyone have any ideas?
>
> Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you.
>
> P.S. I apologize for the long winded post.
>