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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (More info?)
I'm having problems with data corruption after installing TaxCut 2004 on the
following system.
I have had some infrequent and isolated incidents since January.
1. Media Player would generate errors instead of launching
2. Adobe Audition, when opening and playing a project file I created, would
soon lead to system shutdown and system hard drive corruption severe enough
to prevent booting.
3. TaxCut would install and then the events in #2 above would ensue as I
enter my data.
4. For several months, some thumbnails on my F: partition would turn black
and scrolling through them would crash Explorer.exe.
5. Scandisk in Windows 2000 always fails at end of Phase 2, but finds no
errors when scheduled for boot time scan.
I have run MEMTEST86 v3 on multiple overnights with no errors detected.
I have run Western Digital's diagnostics utility and it gave a passing grade
to the hard drive.
I never use "Top Performance" mode on the motherboard BIOS because of
frequent BSODs.
I have verified that all fans are working. Case temp is within safe limits.
CPU temps are safe.
I have checked all power, ribbon and memory slot connetions, cleaning the
DIMM edge connectors and reinstalling them.
For the most part, the system works fine, as I edit video, do 3D animation
rendering, and edit audio and work with PhotoShop and CorelDRAW. The problem
appears when I installed TaxCut, and is repeatable (21 times, so far, over
the past 7 days, with multiple rollbacks via Norton Ghost to get back to
working system).
I have also run System File Checker and found no damaged files that needed
to be replaced.
Rather than spend $2800 on a new system, and rather than frittering away
money on a new hard drive, new RAM and new video card, as a shotgun approach
to guessing which component might be bad, I would like to know if there is
some Gigabyte diagnostic utility that can check the integrity of the system
and spot these problems. There has GOT to be a way to pinpoint where the
problem lies. I've even rolled back to my first Norton Ghost image that I
made right after installing the F10 BIOS modded for RAID support under Win
2K SP4, and even that pre-trouble-era configuration from a year ago would
become rapidly corrupted after installing TaxCut.
I have a mild suspicion it might be due to having replaced the primary HDD
with a 160GB drive from Western Digital. The 120GB Maxtor drive that was in
there just died a month after it was installed (it replaced a 20GB Maxtor
drive that gave me no trouble or corruption). I went out and bought the only
drive our local Circuit City had that was over 40GB--a WD1600JB. But I have
never had a drive that big on F10 BIOS, so I have no idea if the BIOS is
getting confused under certain circumstances, and perhaps writing to sectors
it shouldn't.
Any ideas? I've been working on this since February!
System config:
Gigabyte GA-7DXR (F10 BIOS, modified with Promise latest drivers to allow
Win 2k SP4 to run, as of March 2004)
AMD Athlon XP2400+
512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM
VisionTek GeForce3 64MB
Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm ATA100 system drive
2 Maxtor 80GB 7200rpm ATA133 drives in RAID 0 array
Pioneer DVR-A04 DVD writer
Nikon Coolscan 4000ED Film Scanner
TDK 24x10x40x VeloCD-RW writer
3Com 3C905TX 100mb/s NIC
Pyro BasicDV IEEE-1394 Fire Wire interface
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz audio card
Wacom Intuos 9x12 Drawing Tablet
NEC AccuSync 120 monitor @ 2048x1536 32bit color
Windows 2000 Professional, SP4
I'm having problems with data corruption after installing TaxCut 2004 on the
following system.
I have had some infrequent and isolated incidents since January.
1. Media Player would generate errors instead of launching
2. Adobe Audition, when opening and playing a project file I created, would
soon lead to system shutdown and system hard drive corruption severe enough
to prevent booting.
3. TaxCut would install and then the events in #2 above would ensue as I
enter my data.
4. For several months, some thumbnails on my F: partition would turn black
and scrolling through them would crash Explorer.exe.
5. Scandisk in Windows 2000 always fails at end of Phase 2, but finds no
errors when scheduled for boot time scan.
I have run MEMTEST86 v3 on multiple overnights with no errors detected.
I have run Western Digital's diagnostics utility and it gave a passing grade
to the hard drive.
I never use "Top Performance" mode on the motherboard BIOS because of
frequent BSODs.
I have verified that all fans are working. Case temp is within safe limits.
CPU temps are safe.
I have checked all power, ribbon and memory slot connetions, cleaning the
DIMM edge connectors and reinstalling them.
For the most part, the system works fine, as I edit video, do 3D animation
rendering, and edit audio and work with PhotoShop and CorelDRAW. The problem
appears when I installed TaxCut, and is repeatable (21 times, so far, over
the past 7 days, with multiple rollbacks via Norton Ghost to get back to
working system).
I have also run System File Checker and found no damaged files that needed
to be replaced.
Rather than spend $2800 on a new system, and rather than frittering away
money on a new hard drive, new RAM and new video card, as a shotgun approach
to guessing which component might be bad, I would like to know if there is
some Gigabyte diagnostic utility that can check the integrity of the system
and spot these problems. There has GOT to be a way to pinpoint where the
problem lies. I've even rolled back to my first Norton Ghost image that I
made right after installing the F10 BIOS modded for RAID support under Win
2K SP4, and even that pre-trouble-era configuration from a year ago would
become rapidly corrupted after installing TaxCut.
I have a mild suspicion it might be due to having replaced the primary HDD
with a 160GB drive from Western Digital. The 120GB Maxtor drive that was in
there just died a month after it was installed (it replaced a 20GB Maxtor
drive that gave me no trouble or corruption). I went out and bought the only
drive our local Circuit City had that was over 40GB--a WD1600JB. But I have
never had a drive that big on F10 BIOS, so I have no idea if the BIOS is
getting confused under certain circumstances, and perhaps writing to sectors
it shouldn't.
Any ideas? I've been working on this since February!
System config:
Gigabyte GA-7DXR (F10 BIOS, modified with Promise latest drivers to allow
Win 2k SP4 to run, as of March 2004)
AMD Athlon XP2400+
512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM
VisionTek GeForce3 64MB
Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm ATA100 system drive
2 Maxtor 80GB 7200rpm ATA133 drives in RAID 0 array
Pioneer DVR-A04 DVD writer
Nikon Coolscan 4000ED Film Scanner
TDK 24x10x40x VeloCD-RW writer
3Com 3C905TX 100mb/s NIC
Pyro BasicDV IEEE-1394 Fire Wire interface
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz audio card
Wacom Intuos 9x12 Drawing Tablet
NEC AccuSync 120 monitor @ 2048x1536 32bit color
Windows 2000 Professional, SP4