SATA Driver problem?

[Michel Racicot]

I've got a new PC,

Once in a while (about every 5-15 minutes) my system freeze for a 4-5
seconds period...

When I inspect the System Event Log, I got the following entries everytime
that the problem occur:
The device, \Device\Scsi\m52881, did not respond within the timeout period.

followed by that warning:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging
operation.

It turns out that m52881 is my SATA2 driver... I tried
uninstalling/reinstalling the driver (even tried different versions) and it
didn't work.

Heeelpppp!

What should I do?

Here is the detail of the computer:

AMD Athlon XP 62 4200+ Dual Core
1 ghz Ram (Corsair 2x512 mb in dual channel)
ASRock Socket 939SLI32-eSATA2 Motherboard
WD 250gb 16mb Cache 7200rpm HDD (SATA2)

 

[Bob Knowlden]

I'm not familiar with boards that use the ULi M1697 chipset, but I'd expect
that they'd need chipset drivers like nVidia or VIA boards. Do you have them
installed?

Asrock provides no link for them off the page for your board, but ULi offers
them:

ftp://www.uli.com.tw/driver/Integrated220.zip.rar

I don't know whether the 213 drivers, in the same FTP directory, might be
better:

ftp://www.uli.com.tw/driver/Integrated213.zip

(Having the 220 drivers compressed using both zip and rar, if that's what
was done, doesn't look very competent.)

I imagine that some version of the above came on the driver CD with the
mainboard.

I don't know if that would help. It might hurt (based on some bad
experiences with VIA IDE drivers), so you may want to back up (image,
preferably) your boot partition before experimenting.

Asrock has a favorable reputation, so I expect that you'll get it sorted,
and I hope sooner rather than later.


Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[Michel Racicot]

Yes, the chipset drivers are fully installed... with the alas...

Is it more likely to be a HD Problem, motherboard problem or software
problem?

 

[Guest]

http://www.asrock.com/product/939SLI32-eSATA2.htm
Did you install the SATA onboard raid drivers during the XP instalation..?
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp
Check the OEM's online manual and other PDF's too..
Do you have a PDF reader..?
j;-j

 

[Michel Racicot]

Yes, I did,

-I created a boot disk with SATA2 drivers from the Motherboard CD-Rom
-pressed F6 at the windows installation starting,
-installed the drivers from the floppy disk...

 

[Guest]

Michel,

I assume your PSU's 12v 4pin connector is attached to the mobo and the Ram
is an exact pair seated firmly together in the blue or black mem slots,
right..?
j;-j

 

[Michel Racicot]

I'll have to check that since it was not me that assembled the PC.

Why are you asking this?

 

[Michel Racicot]

For one thing, i'm suppose that the ram is an exact pair since it came from
a Corsair Bundle of 2x512mb suitable for dual channel. I've got the
"packaging" in which the RAM was supposed to be in (I didn't check if the
actual ram modules were the genuine thing that I purchased...) should I?

I only suppose that the RAM modules were put in the same color slots
together since I've never saw a store assembling a PC otherwise... However,
I didn't check by myself, I'll look at that this evening...

Also, if the powersupply unit 12v 4pin connector was not connected to the
motherboard, would my PC run at all?

 

[Guest]

Ok, I assumed you built the system yourself.. It might be that you need to
ask the person, friend or company that assembled your computer for help with
troubleshooting the problem..

I assume, the SATA II driver version is 1059 and all available drivers from
the mobo's OEM site have been updated, right..?

You are not overclocking the PC, right..?

The reason why I asked you about the PSU 4pin connector & mem was to just
rule out any possible hardware or assembly mistakes..

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/DiagnoseXP.html
Good luck
j;-j

 

[DL]

Does this mobo have any specific bios settings for the sata/raid controler?
In particular 'driver cache' settings.
There have been reported problems, usually corruption, when using raid in
certain controllers and driver cache.
The raid bios/utility often has configerable settings.
I'm not conversent with your mobo/sata controler so I'm unsure as to whether
there would be any specific mobo raid/sata settings.

 

[Michel Racicot]

No, it's not overclocked and all drivers are up-to-date...

However, I've resigned to bring the computer back to the store that
assembled it... I rest my case...

Thank you for your help.

I'll ask to the store guy what the problem was and post the solution here
for other readers and for archives since it seems to be a rather common
problem if you search on google news archives.

 

[Michel Racicot]

Nothing too usefull there, the only sata/raid setting that this bios have is
how the HDD should be used (RAID, NON-RAID and AHCI)

Currently, my HDD was in NON-RAID operating mode... which is obviously the
simplest operating mode.

 

[ChrisC]

Hi, I had that error yesterday, turned out that one of the sata cables
wasn't quite connected properly, although I couldn't see anything amiss when
I gave all of them a push, four of 'em, the error message disappeared. So
try pushing them back on...
ChrisC

 

[Michel Racicot]

I've done it!

-Changed the Data Cable
-Uninstalled my Video Card Driver
-Uninstalled my SATA Driver
-Reinstalled a newer Video Card Driver
-Reinstalled the SATA Driver
-Disabled the "Write Cache" in my SATA driver control panel.

And IT WORKED! And I still don't know what was the real problem... I'll try
re-enabling the write cache tonight to see if it was the problem.

Thanks everybody for your support.

 

[DL]

Write cache is likely to be the problem

I've done it!

-Changed the Data Cable
-Uninstalled my Video Card Driver
-Uninstalled my SATA Driver
-Reinstalled a newer Video Card Driver
-Reinstalled the SATA Driver
-Disabled the "Write Cache" in my SATA driver control panel.

And IT WORKED! And I still don't know what was the real problem... I'll try
re-enabling the write cache tonight to see if it was the problem.

Thanks everybody for your support.

 

[Michel Racicot]

Does it mean that the cache is defect? Should I replace my HDD (It's still
under warranty)? Or does it mean something else?

Thank you

 

[DL]

No,
If you read my earlier post in this thread you may recall that I mentioned
cache setting and sata/raid
Why it is sometimes neccessary to disable I'm unsure, I just know many
controler manu reccomend disabling it
I dont believe the controller cache settings is the same as the hd cache
(one given in HD specs)setting.