Random BSoDs

[dbrinks86]

Hey all--
I've been having some issues with my computer lately which I think are related to my Gigabyte-GA770TA-UD3. Some basics:

--AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE
--G.SKILL 4GB (2x2) DDR3 1600
--Antec EarthWatts EA650
--Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA

A couple weeks ago, while listening to Pandora, my computer BSoD. When I turned it back on, it would not recognize my hard-drive (so it would say something along the lines of "Loading Operating System" and then after a couple seconds say that it couldn't find an OS). Other times when I started it up, it would find the OS, but crash mid-boot. I opened up the case, re-seated my sata connectors and everything worked fine. While doing this, I noticed that the NB heatsink could wobble back and forth and that it was incredibly hot (much hotter than my CPUs HS). About a week later, the same thing happened. Finally, this morning I was downloading Portal (it's free right now! FTW) and my computer BSoD again.

I'm wondering if my crashes have something to do with the NB overheating--I've read some people complain about similar issues online. Also, I've played WoW for hours on end with this computer with no problems--I only seem to get these crashes when I'm doing more minor things. Finally, every once in a while I'll boot up and won't be able to connect to a network. Rebooting seems to fix it.

So, what would you recommend? Try to take of the NB heatsink and re-attach it? RMA the board?

Thanks!

 

[fisshy]

Hey all--
I've been having some issues with my computer lately which I think are related to my Gigabyte-GA770TA-UD3. Some basics:

--AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE
--G.SKILL 4GB (2x2) DDR3 1600
--Antec EarthWatts EA650
--Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA

A couple weeks ago, while listening to Pandora, my computer BSoD. When I turned it back on, it would not recognize my hard-drive (so it would say something along the lines of "Loading Operating System" and then after a couple seconds say that it couldn't find an OS). Other times when I started it up, it would find the OS, but crash mid-boot. I opened up the case, re-seated my sata connectors and everything worked fine. While doing this, I noticed that the NB heatsink could wobble back and forth and that it was incredibly hot (much hotter than my CPUs HS). About a week later, the same thing happened. Finally, this morning I was downloading Portal (it's free right now! FTW) and my computer BSoD again.

I'm wondering if my crashes have something to do with the NB overheating--I've read some people complain about similar issues online. Also, I've played WoW for hours on end with this computer with no problems--I only seem to get these crashes when I'm doing more minor things. Finally, every once in a while I'll boot up and won't be able to connect to a network. Rebooting seems to fix it.

So, what would you recommend? Try to take of the NB heatsink and re-attach it? RMA the board?

Thanks!

Sounds like its your HDD not the MOBO to me...
Good Luck there man

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

1- What OS do u have?

Insert the OS DVD and do a "repair system", the problems looks more like a HD problem and not as a mobo problem.

If the repair system don't do anything, I think that the only solution is install the OS again, works for me.

 

[dbrinks86]

I'm running W7. Much as I'd rather not have to re-install the OS, that's certainly something that's probably worth trying. One other issue that I forgot to mention is that sleep mode (S3) does weird things as well. I've turned it off, but if I remember correctly, when I let it go to sleep, it would never wake up. However, the LED on mouse would turn on and the fans in my case would turn on--the monitors just never came back on. Suppose that could also be an OS issue, though.

 

[bilbat]

S3 'sleep return' problems are endemic - especially to systems with fast RAM, OCing, or both! It's why I recommend in the guide to set the BIOS' preference to S1 until all else is stable... I'll hunt a bit, I've seen a systematic, "hunt the bugs down one at a time & swat 'em" guide to getting S3 working - but, unfortunately, if I remember correctly, the conclusion was pretty much my own - sometimes - jus' don' work!!

 

[dbrinks86]

I think I had heard that about the S3 state, which is why I just turned it off instead of worrying too much. I just figured I'd include it in case it shed any more light on the situation. I also tried to repair the OS install last night but no problems were detected. I'll probably try to do some more testing this weekend.

 

[dark_lord69]

Run CHKDSK with repair options on:
1. Right click on your hard drive
2. Click "Properties"
3. Click the "Tools" tab
4. Click "Check Now..."
5. Put checkmarks in both boxes.
6. Click "Start"
7. Click "Yes" if you get a question about scheduling this when your computer restarts.
8. Reboot your computer

The majority of BSODs are cause by a 1 or more bad sectors on the hard drive. CHKDSK will mark those so that those sectors will never be used again. The downside to fixing it though is that any files that have data in the bad sectors may end up becoming inaccessible.

Also, go into the BIOS and turn on SMART hard drive monitoring. If the BIOS says you have a drive that is failing the SMART test you need to replace that drive and backup data ASAP.

It is most likely your hard drive but there is a small chance that you could be having an issue with the SATA controller on your motherboard. Start with my suggestions first if those don't help, RMA the motherboard.

 

[bilbat]

Well, there are actually about four or five common causes of BSODs, and, a lot of less common ones! First place to start is by scribbling down this number, and posting it:

Sometimes, it's not real informative; sometimes, it's definitive - won't know 'till we see it [:isamuelson:8]

 

[dbrinks86]

I do have SMART enabled and it's not showing anything. I'll definitely grab that number on the next BSoD, though. And I'll run chkdsk.

 

[dbrinks86]

Hmm. I've tried to run CHKDSK a couple times but it never completes--eventually my computer just reboots. However, no BSoD. I still haven't seen one since you requested the ID that it prints. A couple other things of note: when I boot up and my hard drive isn't found, the motherboard definitely finds the two DVD drives that I have hooked up to the same bank of SATA connectors. Also, my MB has a separate SATA 3.0 chip on it. I believe SATA 3 is backwards compatible with SATA II. Would it be worth switching what my hard drive is connected to?

 

[dbrinks86]

So I noticed some reviews online of my motherboard and people were complaining that their hard drives were having problems when used as AHCI, but that those issues were fixed by switching to Native IDE. I figured I'd give this a try, only to discover that my motherboard was already running as Native IDE. So, I decided to switch over to AHCI. Afterwards my computer behaved fine. I expected that it was only a mask, though, and I was right. My computer crashed again tonight with an ID of xF4.

 

[bilbat]

Is it also 'spitting up' "KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR"? Does seem to be disk-related, even as far back as PATA Xp & NT4 master/slave ID troubles. First thing I've gotta start recommending is to file a complaint/bug report/whatever at GB: tech support... Their seem to be some odd things going on with ahci & the 7xx/8xx chipsets, and I've explained this before: I think it's sort of a 'critical mass' thing; when the size of the complaint file for a common problem get big enough to put an actual dent in some engineer's head, it gets thrown at him, with orders to "fix that!" I switch between AHCI & 'not' all the time - it shouldn't be any problem for seven; but I can't test switching a boot drive, as everything here that's Gb is RAIDed; I'll have a new system or two, in a week or two, and I'll confirm for seven, but I can't confirm for AMD, as I don't do those... I'd suggest one of two things: either re-install seven with the drives set to native, and leave it that way, or, re-install with the ports set to AHCI, and load the <F6> 'pre-load' AHCI drivers explicitly during install - don't just 'leave it to' seven's (supposedly) native AHCI capabilities...

 

[dbrinks86]

Hmm. Where would it be spitting that up? As far as I can recall I haven't seen that anywhere. The BSoDs don't have it (I just had one, conveniently...). However, I will file a whatever with GB. I'll try to get around to re-installing Windows this weekend, I guess. One other thing I might try (and which I forgot to mention) is to see whether I get any weird behavior from my Ubuntu install. I guess I never tried it because I figured that with the BIOS failing to recognize the HD at times that is must be a hardware issue.

 

[bilbat]

Sometimes you get an error message (verbal, even though nonsense...) with 'em... I have thought a lot about this 'AHCI switching' busness, and I'm still trying to posit a 'why?' Thats what I mostly do here - try to figure out 'why?'; try to explain 'why'?; try to illuminate 'why'? - but here, I'm stumped. The thing is that AHCI is not really that big of a deal - it's just kind of a 'command superset', which should only be 'seen', at the OS end, by the driver, and at the 'business end', by the drive's firmware - it's not like it affects the structure of the drive organization, the file allocation mechanism, the MBR, anything! As far as the physical contents of the drive itself, I can't think up one way that anything involved would 'know' whether the drive's AHCI, or not... Obviously, I'm missing something here, but, for the life of me, I can't figure out what?!?