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    Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

    My friends brand new micro PC is playing very very bad games.

    Long version

    Particularly:

    Pausing occasionally when something is plugged in. (complete freeze, reboot required)

    Wiping the partitions from things. Two days after using it, it forgot a partition on the internal SATA2 drive.

    Two days later, he plugs in his ByteStor Flash Stick. And it freezes the computer, so he resets, he finds
    window's reports his flash drive as blank.

    Now he didn't stop to use a MBR utility or file recovery, as he just formatted the devices as Windows recommended.

    Now he buys a USB2/ESata hard drive docking station to move around the data from his last PC. I install the
    ESata card for him. (It's a tight fit under the huge Geforce 8800GTS graphics card, all the ports are under the
    Geforce 8800GTS also). Doing this I managed to reduce the air flow to the Geforce slightly because the eSATA
    bracket cable passed directly over the Geforce 8800GTS cooling fan intake. Noticeable because it's temperature
    later in windows would be higher and the fan speed higher also (and significantly noisy now - from once it was silent).
    Well this made me look really bad and very stupid, but what could I do, I can't stretch the cable like a rubber band.
    I've since suggested removing eSATA and said just use USB2. Which is a shame, the difference in speed is what
    takes hours is done in 2 minutes with eSATA. In particular he only uses backup to backup large file libraries
    - sometimes containing several hundred thousands of files, last transfer was just under a million files, usually
    total upto around 500GB a time. I often joke he keeps the hard drive industry going. He doesn't even buy cheap
    drives either, all his drives are the million hour plus certified enterprise ranges.

    So now he plugs in his Seagate ES 500GB drive to the eSATA docking station, switches it on, the computer freezes,
    when he resets, it's recognised but is reporting the wrong partition name. It reports a small partition made years
    ago that had been deleted for a long time.

    Well the computer other than when it's wiping / corrupting partition tables is quite stable, passes tests, heavy
    resource games can be left unattended for hours with no fear of it crashing.

    This is bad news for him, this drive is the one with his past 3 years worth of data, and no backups, he phones me
    in my sleep and I offer immediately to help, but he says go back to sleep.

    Later I find him trying all sorts of amazing one click programs promising to sort out problems like a magic wand.

    Of course they do nothing but waste several hours only pretending they're performing functions to justify their existence.

    So I remember the post on badcaps by Wil, and suggest file scavenger, immediately it detects 35,000 files and
    offers to recover them to any device (not simply to the faulty drive as the others did). Pretty good. So
    I do the long scan now, and it find all of his files just under 1 million of them. I save the found file list, to
    save any more scanning. A strange thing is it thinks the files are on FAT 12 partitions?. And recovery is perfectly transferred to the Iomega 1TB USB2 drive.


    Now he offers me his new PC for a knock down price on what he paid and said he's going to buy another new
    one ( most likely the most expensive per pound possible) from a reputable company instead. But he's
    already spending far beyond his means. I feel really bad about the whole thing.

    Here is the PC specs:
    Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L Motherboard
    460W Gigabyte Power Supply
    Intel Core2Duo E6850 CPU
    XFX 8800GTS Graphics
    2 x 2GB Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2
    3.5" port All in one card Reader
    320GB Samsung SATA2
    ASUS DVD drive
    Coolermaster Tower Case
    Widows XP Home Edition SP2
    Latest motherboard drivers

    2 SATA connectors in use.
    2 Rear USB2 ports in use with cheap ebay extensions attached.
    2 front USB2 ports in use.
    Other front ports all connected.
    All connectors touching Geforce 8800GTS
    and in close proximity to hard drives.

    Short version

    Summary of issues:

    Wiping/ corrupting partition table internal hard drives.
    Wiping/ corrupting partition table external hard drives.
    Wiping/ corrupting partition table USB flash drives.
    Freezing up when hot plugging devices. (Where last PC did not. )


    I cannot verify the voltages are stable at the moment, as his board isn't supported by the software monitoring programs I use (MBProbe).
    Temperatures are all well below thresholds. CPU 38 - 45 centigrade. Board 35 centigrade. Graphics card 60-75 centigrade.
    I used my power monitor, it reads the PC at maximum uses 196 watts at the socket.
    Last edited by Fizzycapola; 11-14-2008, 01:41 PM. Reason: spelling mistakes and wrong formatting appearance
    Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

    #2
    Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

    could be a software issue but considering the hardware i am sceptical
    i would like to see psu replaced with something better, recommend Corsair 550W CMPSU-550VXEU or similar and can be used on the new system
    this mobo is basic type small with only three phase vrm. imho there are much better mobos, i mean you could get an asus p5q series eg P5QL-E, P5Q etc and with the psu to be under/around 200 euro but if you want esata then thats higher in the range.

    still you have this e-sata docking station whats the brand? is that self powered or powered via the pc?
    capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

      mhh... some people on the german gigabyte forum said that Corsair RAM isn't really compatible with Gigabyte boards with one of the following chipsets: G31/G33/P31/P35

      they do work, but cause lots of weird problems (almost anything you can imagine..)

      sounds weird... but it's like that..
      i asked there before i bought my RAM because i've already heard of incompatibilities back then..

      i bought Patriot (PDC Systems) RAM instead (2x1GB DDRII-800 4-4-4-12)

      maybe its worth a try to put different RAM in there....

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

        I agree with Willa and Scenic: such issues are usually due to unstable voltages (excessive ripple or bad voltage regulation, in short a cheap psu: I suspect the 5 V line since it powers both hard disks and USB), defective/incompatible ram or overheating. First replace the psu (just try one of your good ones), then check the ram with Memtest86+ and try to cool the case as much as possible. If you discover the ram is bad supported, then replace it.

        Zandrax
        Have an happy life.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

          umm... those RAM incompatibilities can't be detected with memtest86+... at least in most of the cases...

          like i said... it works fine (including memory tests), but still causes weird problems..

          OCZ is also hit & miss on those boards.. some models work fine, some not..

          2 x 1024MB DDR2-800 CL5 OCZ (OCZ2G8002GK) for example... they do work fine if another RAM stick (a supported & working one of course) is running with them... but with those OCZ sticks alone everything's f*cked up (freezing, BSODs, sometimes not even POSTing,...)

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

            actually ram would be quite plausible for all the problems. get a bios/board which support then AND decent psu and finish the story.
            Last edited by willawake; 11-14-2008, 03:45 PM.
            capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

              I realized OCZ is now after gulliables with loose money ($$) so I went over and bought decent ram made by Curical. Much cheaper but too bad no heatsink plates clamped over them.

              I also second the ram and PSU to look at. Gigabyte is so-so.

              Cheers, Wizard

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                Originally posted by willawake
                P5Q
                Funny you mention that. I just bought one for myself for the useable PCI slots. Board layout looks f***** useable.
                Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                  yeah actually i will go for a P5Q series also shortly. what caps did u get. i saw the corsair 6400C4DHX is ok with these boards.
                  capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                    We'll see. Bought it literally 20 minutes before you posted suggesting. Gave myself congratulatory pat on the back when I saw your post.
                    Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                      Just to finish up this thread. All the problems were caused solely by a Microsoft update.

                      He discovered that he could make any dual core system exert same issues with the right combination of Microsoft patches / updates.

                      Thanks Scenic for the tip on RAM. I ordered some for myself and thanks to Wizard, I did have OCZ Platinum bookmarked in my "to purchase" folder. Your advice was just in the nick of time there.


                      I have no idea why Willa has such hate for the Gigabyte SUPERB 460w. I hope he isn't suffering the curse of Englishman, to think somethings rubbish because it isn't expensive enough to be good. Here in the UK our car salesman frequently have to add £5000 on car prices just to convince us they're worth buying. Even in the face of seeing the same cars £5000 cheaper in Europe, we simply laugh that they can't be as good quality.
                      Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                        i don't really see how would psu or ram wipe or corrupt the mbr off the disks that often.
                        it presumes they have some fuckin way of knowing what they're doing, and they don't.

                        about psu: you're right: will (and nobody here) doesn't know anything about that psu untill we see pix of it.
                        (funny story there about the cars..hehe)

                        btw. would it be possible to let us know the combination of patches needed for this to occur?

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                          bleh to microsoft. i keep updates switched off

                          I have no idea why Willa has such hate for the Gigabyte SUPERB 460w. I hope he isn't suffering the curse of Englishman, to think somethings rubbish because it isn't expensive enough to be good. Here in the UK our car salesman frequently have to add £5000 on car prices just to convince us they're worth buying. Even in the face of seeing the same cars £5000 cheaper in Europe, we simply laugh that they can't be as good quality.
                          i fart in your general direction
                          actually i only lived in uk for 20% of my life so i am not very english
                          its more like you drive on the other side, therefore making uk captive market for price increases. not necessarily better quality but everyone knows that left hand drive cars have much better performance due to feng shui principles.
                          capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                            Mushkin is also good memory to have.

                            Cheers, Wizard

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                              This is what he tells me, updates enabled. Service Pack 3 and MS dual core patch.

                              Sorry for annoying Willa.
                              Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                                willa is not annoyed

                                by the way, all these different rams, they are not coming from the several few oem manufacturers?
                                capacitor lab yachtmati techmati

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                                  Crucial (Micron Technology) is the manufacturer. Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin are the relabelers.

                                  I've had to RMA three sets of Corsair 4gb matched sets, due to one of two sticks failing memtest 86+ with bit errors. Evidently somebody caught Corsair with their panties down... they introduced this line as premium memory, then quietly started using budge support chips. Perhaps this is why they are being fire-saled on Newegg.

                                  Anyway, on my 4th set of chips, they work. I had a nice email conversation with the Corsair rep, who promised me a hand-tested set from their RMA department. Evidently I got them, as they work fine. 4-4-4-12, 2.1v, DDR2 speed. They ran Memtest 86+ for 72 hours without a hitch.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                                    Oh, one more thing. When I was researching the memory and mainboard requirement, I noticed some requires max voltage while other is different.

                                    Take my M2NPV-VM, the max voltage for memory is 1.95V while COMMON DDR2 800 sticks were 2.0V or up as they were kingmax and OCZ, quality rams rarely have low volts like 1.8 or 1.9 and commands few bucks more. So I went and bought those Mushkin sticks just now just in case. Sheesh, that's one more things to watch out.

                                    And ones who overclock or run at stock HAVE to check their voltages so it's NOT overvolting their sticks as they are leading causes of burn outs.

                                    Second, about the one update item that caused all the break down on that PC, I REALLY DOUBT it. Since everyone else had to get updates and very frequently all of them got the same items all bundled on their hard drives yet yours got blown up.

                                    So that leads to hardware quality issues that could had corrupted the data occasionally. I'd take HARD look at memory (run prime95 torture mode) and power supply (toss that one out and get good one), and make sure heatsink is installed correctly. If still doing it, replace all the drivers by uninstalling and installed new versions of drivers. If not successful, replace board for Asus.

                                    Cheers, Wizard

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                                      It is what it is. All working perfectly.

                                      Of course you can always doubt something thats working perfectly is in fact not.

                                      I will leave those thoughts for you to enjoy by yourself.
                                      Rubycon Rubycon Rubycon

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Re: Freezing when something plugged in, and wiping MBR's

                                        @ Fizzy: happy to read that, anyway I still wonder which update could jeopardize the MBR on dual core computers. I'll look for it.
                                        Anyway, the "more expensive = better" axiom is popular in Italy too

                                        @ Scenic: do you know which kind of ram passes a 10 cycles Memtest session and still manages to behave erratically in Windows? Just a question: I never heard of this issue and untill today I thought Memtest could be a reliable test.

                                        Zandrax
                                        Have an happy life.

                                        Comment

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