Random BSODs and loss of IDE devices from My Computer

[daemorok]

Ok the problem im having comes in serveral forms:

Form One Windows error message: windows popup with a red circle and white X. The message says "Uknown Hard Error".
I click OK and it comes back. Usually there is another error window in the taskbar that i cant maximize, the title is run32dll.exe. If I click OK enough the machine BSODs with the same error "uknown hard error"

If i dont click OK, but I open "my computer" all my IDE devices are missing.

A reboot gets to the bios and will not detect the IDE devices.

A shutdown and power up fixes the problem

Form Two BSOD: It usually happesn when I am away from the computer, but sometimes it happens at random times when im doing pretty much anything. Such as: playing CS, listening to mp3s + browsing websites, Editing sites in dwMX.

The error can be any one of the following:
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP

Once again a reboot gets to the bios and will not detect IDE devices and a shutdown and power up fixes the problem

Form Three NO Error: I can reproduce this. If I burn a CD with NERO ( i havent tried anything else yet). At some point during the burn process it will stop. The CD will spin up and down, and the hard drive will click ( I have only tried burning off the Hard drive). Eventually explorer.exe will crash and I will have to reboot. If I open My Computer before or after explorer crashes both my DVD and my CDRW are missing.

Once again a reboot gets to the bios and will not detect IDE devices and a shutdown and power up fixes the problem.

Form Four Bit Torrent: This may or may not be related. Everytime I use BT (I have tried 4 or 5 clients) I get a BSOD usually
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
i think

Once again a reboot gets to the bios and will not detect IDE devices and a shutdown and power up fixes the problem.

Things about the problem:
The time between the non producable crashes is totally random.
Sometimes I am up for 10 days, other times 30 minutes.

I think that hard drive intensive tasks seem to create the problem more often.. but its not constant at all really... it BSOD'd once all i did was boot up and open notepad...

I have run WD HD util on both the drives, they both come back clean no error no bad sectors etc.

I have run memtest86 and goldmem on the ram for 12 hours with each program, again no errors at all.

Ok so thats the problem...

Relative hardware:
Asus a7n8x standard 2.0 with Nvidia 2.03 drivers
2x512 Corsair XMS 3200LL running at 166 in dual channel
Barton 2500+ running stock speed
Primary master HD WD 200 JB
Primary slave Lite-On DVD
Secodary master Lite-On 48/24/48 CDRW
Secondary slave WD 120 JB
Rounded vantec IDE cables

Related software
Windows 2000 pro SP4 + all windows updates

anything else you want to know just ask

[Kooldino]

Try installing linux on an old HDD to see if it's hardware or software. :-) It's a start.

[Technoid]

have you perhaps disabled your swapfile, or set it low?
Nforce cards are "tricky" in w2k

[daemorok]

swap file is set to 1024mb

[ZokesPro]

Hmmm, it could be invalid or aggressively set memory timings, some programs have a hard time with inproper memory settings.

[Marshmallowman]

hmm, I got the same board..

It may be your IDE drivers, you could try using the MS IDE drivers or the asus ones. I know for a fact the second last driver release form nvida had a bad IDE driver, and the very latest did not have and IDE driver at all.

What IDE driver are you using?

PS : ASUS have a updated bios(1006) you could try as well.

[daemorok]

My memory is set under spec actually its PC3200 running at PC2700 speeds

I am using 1006 and i am using the MS IDE drivers

edit: my fault I am using the 1005 uber bios.

[The PIT]

Well this won't probably fix it but why are you running the cd drives on the same channels as the hard drives.

Should be like this.

Channel one both hard drives.
Channel two both CD drives.

At the same time check your jumper settings, ide cables and power cables.

What power supply are you running out of interest??


Also try running with one memory stick and see what happens as this maybe double trouble.

[Marshmallowman]

I have used both bio'i 1006 and uber 1005, and they were both good for me.

So its probably not the drivers or bios, memory is always a likely candidate for problems, but since its almost always triggered by IDE activity, I would go with what PIT says.

Possibly try:

I would start looking for faults with your drives cables or MOBO(eliminate as many devices as you can)

eg.. pull out all your CD rom drives and see what hapens , or maybe move both HDD's to one channel and don't use the other channel/cable for a while..if the fault reoccurs move to the other cable/channel....

[KeiFront]

I'm also with the Pit, probably a power supply problem.

[daemorok]

I have an enermax 550 PSU at most a little more than a year old.

I just switched the cables around so

primary = 200gig master , 120 slave
secondary =DVD master, CDRW slave

[VJ]

Well, I had problems with my SCSI channel A on my computer recently. It resulted in the computer loosing the drives connected (while in operation).
In none of the occasions, I got an error message; the system just frooze or rebooted. (so loosing the C: disk while Windows is running did not yield errormessages !)

Is there any significant information in the event log ? (in my case, I got a number of controller and disk errors, prior to the freeze/reboot)
edit: check all three logs (system/application/security)

Jörg

PS: Welcome to MURC !

[knirfie]

wow, i have nearly been having the same problem the last few days, now my harddrive is dead... it's most likely one of your device's that's killing the connection with the rest.

you could try taking one out at a time and running your computer for a day or so to see which device is defective but then again, it could also be your mobo or software related

[Fred H]

one of your device's that's killing the connection with the rest.

It happened to me with a faulty IBM HD on the IDE3 port (Highpoint RAID) It killed the rest of the PC.

Something similar happened with my new NEC ND-1300 DVD burner with 40 lead (maybe faulty) cables.
Changing to new 80 leads ATA 100 cable cured the problem.

Fred H

[daemorok]

i have tried several different sets of cables, same thing all the time.