Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H BSOD on sleep (?!?)

[jdoc]

Summary:
Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H w/X2 560 (w/ latest BIOS, not OC'ed)
Crucial 2x2GB Ballistix PC3-10600 CL9 1.5v @ auto detected settings in BIOS
Micro Center 60GB SSD (w/ latest firmware)
SATA Optical Drive, Store brand case w/ PS
Win7 Pro 64bit

Resuming from S3 sleep gives BSOD

Details:
I'm always happy to help a friend by showing them that it's relatively easy to put together a system. A couple of months ago, a friend and I pick out the above listed components for a system he assembled with my help. The build went fine, and the machine seemed to perform well for what it was going to be used for (web/email/word, no games). A couple of weeks later, I hear he's having BSODs, seems to be sleep related. I stop by a couple of times to try to fix this -- standard stuff, making sure the BIOS is up to date, drivers are up to date, and all appropriate settings in the BIOS are set. I turn off any OCing (not that there was much - it was a very mild boost, maybe 3.3GHz to 3.6GHz, if that), but no dice. Remove USB periphs. The best I can do is turn sleep mode from S3 to S1 - which fixes the BSOD, but then the fans stay on, which seems to defeat the purpose of sleep mode.

The latest inspection had me reinstalling Windows (Win7Pro, 64-bit), but on a whim, an overnight run of memtest86+ showed some errors, so he picked up Crucial Ballistix RAM which seems to be highly rated at Newegg. I thought that this HAD to be it, I've exhausted everything else (including updating the SSD's firmware, and replacing the SSH with a HDD). But still, he's getting BSOD upon coming out of S3 sleep.

I've googled it, and others have reported this problem -- but I have not yet seen any fix for it. I'm at the end of my rope, and he's ready to just replace the motherboard. But before he does that, I'm wondering if anyone here might have any suggestions. The machine is actually for his wife, and I'm convinced she must think I'm totally incompetent for there to still be BSODs after two months of troubleshooting. Help!

 

[jaquith]

Gigabyte's in general have S3 + S4 Hybrid Sleep issues. Chances are a Windows Hotfix, SATA Start = 3 instead of 0 {AHCI corruption}, or updated drivers. Of course S4 corruption from corrupted RAM doesn't help.

1. Windows - fully update including hotfixes through today.
2. AHCI/SATA corruption; AHCI = 0 = Start and IDE = 3 = Start otherwise wrong drivers = S4 corruption
a. Set SATA = AHCI in the BIOS
b. Correct the registry Start values - 'Fix It' or manually set; see -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
c. Verify in Start values in BIOS; see -> http://i1013.photobucket.com/albums/af254/Jaquith/AHCI_Start_0.jpg
3. Run Command Powercfg -energy http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976034 then drag the energy-report.html to the desktop and open.
4. Correct SSD & HDD corruption; schedule both options for both SSD/HDD; edit see -> http://i1013.photobucket.com/albums/af254/Jaquith/Scan-Drives-Windows-7.jpg
5. IF you did some of 'those' stupid 'hiberfil.sys' or similar tweaks then undo them because they cause more problems then they fix. It's okay to 'move' files but it's a different thing to turn them off. Q - What SSD tweaks did you do?

 

[jdoc]

Thanks for the suggestions!

1. All updates, including SP1 and hotfixes released after, were up to date as of Saturday.
2. SATA was (and continues to be) set to AHCI, and Windows was installed in AHCI mode. I've run into these (AHCI) problems with other machines, but this one seems to have it's AHCI straight.
3. I'll try this.
4. After I decided to scrap the first Windows install, the SSD was formatted, with Windows completely reinstalled. Same problem on both installs, and on both SSD and HDD.
5. Nope, didn't do anything hibernation-related.

SSH tweaks = Initially, none -- I treated it just like a HDD install. I later did some minor stuff (disabling indexing, defrags, but I didn't play with the write cache) until I finally did a firmware update. Nothing here seemed to change the BSOD prob.

 

[jaquith]

Personally, I don't like any of the SSD 'tweaks', and find them unnecessary and are linked to causing more problems than they solve. The SSD failure rate is less than that of a HDD and a 60GB SSD maybe equal. However the P/E Cycles of 5000 alone are good @ 10GB/day for 25+ years. Defragmentation 'should' be disabled automatically by Windows 7, and if it's not then that concerns me. The most important thing for your SSD is to make certain 'Trim' is enabled properly; see -> {fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify} TRIM = 0 http://media.bestofmicro.com/SSD_Tweaking-SSD,Q-T-287381-13.png

Windows 7 uses Quick format which removes MFT (Master File Table) from the partition, but does not (SFC) scan the disk for bad sectors. See #4 above again, I overlooked adding the 'image.' Basically it's worthless.

The SSD Tweaks that make sense to 'me':
1. Verify AHCI & TRIM
2. Move PST/OST files to a HDD
3. Reduce the Page File to 2GB if 4GB or more RAM is installed.
4. Reduce the System Restore ~4GB