No need to follow links, here's the question in full

[Guest]

Hi,

I've got a fresh install of 32bit Vista Ultimate running on,

Shuttle SD37P2
The BIOS has been flashed to the latest level available from Shuttle
(SD37S204).
QX6700
4GB
Gainward 7950GT 256MB
2 x WD1500ADFD 150GB Raptor disk on SATA
HP 940i Multi DVD Writer on IDE

This will hang at any point from boot (animating green bars) to a few
minutes after I've logged in. Everything freezes; mouse, keyboard, second
hand on clock etc. Power off / reset is the only way out.

Safe mode with networking works.
To be more specific, I just did a parallel run of 4 SuperPI's calculating to
32M places, which finished after 32 minutes. The hardware appears to be
perfectly stable.

Vista memory test passes.
Startup Repair doesn't report any errors.
Memtest86 (off a boot cd) passes.
CPU stress (off a boot cd) passes.

This appears to be some kind of driver error, but I'm not seeing anything in
the event viewer. An old fashioned BSOD would be helpful (!) as then I'd be
closer to what's causing this.

I've done an "Update driver..." on every device in Device Manager. No change.

Has anybody got any suggestions on how I should go about debugging this?
What debug or logging can I turn on? What devices could I uninstall etc?

 

[BobS]

Start minimizing the system hardware and turning things off in the BIOS
until it's running stable.

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

Start minimizing the system hardware and turning things
off in the BIOS until it's running stable.

Hi Bob, thanks for your help.

I think I've got as minimised as possible on this system, but it's still
locking up after a minute or so. What I've done is:

Reduced to 1GB of RAM
1 hard disk only
USB2 disabled in BIOS
1394 disabled in device manager (can't be disabled in BIOS)

If I could disable USB in BIOS I would, but this is a legacy free board and
I need USB to run my keyboard/mouse.

What's left to do?

 

[BobS]

Lets start with a bare-bones system - which you may have tried but go back
to square one to amuse me - okay...;-)

Here's what you need.
1. Motherboard with BIOS set to defaults (F5 probably will do it).
2. Now, turn off the serial ports, parallel port, no- floppy, IDE 0 turned
on, IDE 1 turned off.
3. IDE hard drive, set to master (or maybe CS) but go with master for now
and connect it to the last connector on the IDE cable.
4. Graphics card (if you have an old one you can place in a PCI slot later,
or a suitable sub of any kind would be nice. - borrow your brothers...)
5. One stick of memory in the 1st slot - as shown in the manual.
6. Physically remove any other boards from the system (tuner, network card,
sound card, etc.) and/or turn them off in the BIOS if they're on-board
devices.

7. Boot up and keep tapping F8 to boot into Safe Mode.

Assumes you're in Safe Mode now.

Run system, play with it, try whatever - play chess or Solitaire for
awhile - let it get warm and exercise everything you can keeping in mind
that with almost everything turned off - you can't do much....

Did it freeze or hang - for no reason? If so, try doing a Vista reload
cause it's probably not driver related at this point. If it runs okay and
it doesn't do any funnies on you - then I suspect you have a driver
"related" problem.

I could go on and on but get the above done so we know which path to
follow - it's one way or the other.

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

...lots of handy stuff...

Hi Bob,

I've disabled everything I can. Unfortunately I can't install to an IDE disk
as I only have SATA disks here which means I need to have the SATA controller
enabled.

I'm stuck on graphics cards as well. I've got a hatful of AGP and nothing
else. This system only has two PCI-E slots.

Everything that can be disabled has been and I'm only running with one stick
of memory as described. In safe mode (with or without networking), everything
is fine. I've run 4 concurrent 32M place SuperPi's for half an hour, so
really stretched the CPU and memory without any issues whatsoever.

This certainly seems to be a driver related issue. Is there a way to enable
drivers selectively at boot to narrow things down?

Cheers,

Ben

 

[BobS]

Ben,

Good enough - we now know that it is most likely (99%) driver related. Now
comes the fun part - narrowing it down by adding back one thing at a time.

Bring the system up normally and then in the Start box where it says Search,
type in msconfig

That brings up a window that has a tab called "Startup", click on it. Now
uncheck all the entries, you will add them back later - one at a time.

Turn off the system and connect any hardware that was connected. You can do
this one at a time and test each but I prefer to do the divide and conquer
method.

Go back into BIOS and turn everything back on that you turned off or set to
defaults - however the system was configured.

Now bring the system up normally. Windows may complain about something not
starting up (we've disabled all startup items which includes applications
(if any) and maybe a driver or two.) Acknowledge or cancel (whatever it
takes) to get rid of any window messages.

Exercise the system - and if it works okay, go back into msconfig and enable
1/2 of the items (top to bottom).

Repeat reboot and test. If it goes south, you now it was one of the items
you just enabled. If not, enable the other 1/2 of items unchecked - and
this time when you reboot something should fail.

Back to msconfig and turn off one item that you enabled and test after
rebooting. Remember that turning something off in msconfig has no effect
until you reboot.

This "should" narrow down what is causing the problem. If not, we'll try a
different tact but I think this should nail it since everything ran in Safe
Mode. If you can't determine what the item is for that you turned off (and
the computer didn't freeze) post the entry here and we'll look it up or you
can do a Google search.

There may not be a new driver available yet or a fix for what is bothering
your system - so be prepared for that. And, it may be more than one item
that is at issue here so don't let it frustrate you. Need you to keep track
of what you're doing so you know exactly what you're chasing down even if
you don't understand what it is. It's a bug - that's all you need to
know...........;-)

Post back to this thread and I'll keep an eye open for your response.

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

Hi Bob,

Firstly, thanks for all your help with this problem.

I unchecked everything in the Startup tab of msconfig. Rebooted and after
playing around for about a minute it locked solid, as before.

Ben

 

[BobS]

Ok, go back to the BIOS and turn off some of the items (divide and
conquer....) and narrow it down that way. Sounds like a device driver for
sure but which one......?

Bob

 

[BobS]

Ben,

Just went back and re-read your hardware setup. You're not using a RAID
setup - right? Be sure the BIOS is not setup for any RAID function. If you
are using RAID - there's plenty of problems with RAID configurations.

At any rate, use only 1 SATA drive on the first port and disconnect any
other SATA drives and turn off the other SATA ports. Typically, SATA ports
are turned on/off in pairs 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 so you will need to keep 1/2 on -
the others off.

Bob

 

[Guest]

Just went back and re-read your hardware setup.
You're not using a RAID setup - right?

I'm still running a minimal setup, or at least as minimal as I can get it.
That means that RAID is disabled. I only have one SATA drive attached, but I
don't have control over which ports are enabled/disabled.

 

[BobS]

Just downloaded the manual - be sure to set SATA Only under "Integrated
Peripherals" so it doesn't use Enhanced mode where it can have both EIDE and
SATA drives.

You said you had the latest BIOS installed but how about the other
motherboard drivers:

Audio
Chipset
Intel_matrix_storage
LAN driver
LAN Utility
and even the RAID driver, even though you're not using RAID.

All are dated 8/28/2006

Some of the come in x64 bit versions so be sure to download the correct ones
(32 bit, x86)

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

Hi I had the same problem! vista (32-bit) running for about 1-2 minutes then
freeze but works fine in safe mode, I have Shuttle SD37P2 V2, QX6700, WD 74GB
Raptor, Corsair 2Gb, X850XT PE.

I Contacted Shuttle support and they sent me an email with an new BIOS file
(sd37s211.bin) I flashed the BIOS with this file and installed the latest
chipset drivers for my chipset
(http://downloadcenter.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&DwnldId=12150&lang=eng)

Now the system runs fine and stable with no problems! =)

Regards
Anders

 

[BobS]

Ben,

Looks like Anders has the solution for you to try....

Let us know,

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

Fixed!

Bob, thanks for all your help.
Anders, thanks for finding this thread and posting the solution.

 

[BobS]

You're welcome,

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

You are welcome!

Regards
Anders