Vista Locks Up

[Guest]

I have been experiencing three "flavors" of lockups under Vista Ultimate
32-bit since installing it cleanly on a new drive. All may ultimately be
attributable to one cause.

The first is the system locks up entirely. It responds to nothing forcing a
reboot with the reset switch. I've waited for up to 10 minutes for control
to return.

The second is the system is nearly locked up. Behaves like a process is
fully using the CPU. The mouse will jump periodically across the screen from
my movement, but it's quite delayed. It is usually so bad that I cannot get
Task Manager up to see which process it might be. Control never returns to
normal after waiting up to 10 minutes. I have to reboot with the reset
switch.

The third is brief near lockup where the machine behaves like the second
briefly, but then control returns. I've seen this with installs. Perhaps
it's the inspection of the installer package that is doing this.

The lock ups seem to occur during heavy disk activity, such as when the
Indexing Service runs or virus scan (Norton AV 07). Oddly, it's never
completely locked up during a software installation which also generates
heavy disk activity. For example, I install VS 2005 Team and the Team SP
with no problems. Both are very disk intensive.

I suspect the hard drive controller, which is a new Silicon Image SiI 3512
SATALink Controller. It's one of the few that I could find with a digitally
signed driver for Vista. Vista didn't support the onboard Promise FastTrak
SATA controller. I have it disabled in the BIOS.

Unfortunately, I cannot find any hard data to point me in any direction.
There's nothing in the event log and nothing useful in the Reliability
monitor. I find entries like: The previous system shutdown at 9:07:47 AM on
5/25/2007 was unexpected. I also find this occassionally: The device,
\Device\Scsi\SI31121, did not respond within the timeout period. But the
date and time never corresponds to one of the lockup incidents.

I've reviewed the other posts on lock ups and didn't see any that seemed
similar to mine. Does anyone have anything similar occuring? Has anyone
seen any posts elsewhere that might be similar? Any suggestion for
diagnosing?

Machine configuration:
ASUS P4PE Motherboard
Integrated Broadcom 440x 10/100 Ethernet Control
Pentium 4 2.53 GHz CPU
2 GB of RAM
Radion X1300 Graphics Card with 256 MB RAM
ATI TV Wonder 650
SIG 3512 SATA Controller (2 ports)
WD Raptor 150 as system drive
WD Rapter 74 as secondary drive
Acer DVD-ROM
NEC DVD-RW
Sound Blaster Audigy Sound Card (added after the initial install of Vista
because Vista didn't support my mb integrated sound and neither did ASUS).
Integrated sound disabled in BIOS.

Jamie

 

[R. McCarty]

Norton "Anything" is a potential contributor, especially if it's the
Internet
Security Suite. I would probably check/perform the following:
1. Chkdsk on the System Volume
2. Verify Operating mode of the SATA drive (UDMA__)
Device Manager, IDE/ATAPI controllers ( Pri/Sec)
3. Run a benchmark on the drive, note Burst Speed and the
sustained throughput rate.
3. System Information and check IRQ Mappings.
But Norton is in my opinion one of the few "Paid & Pain" applications
around.

 

[Guest]

Saw this behavior even before Norton was installed, so I don't think it's the
primary cause. Not using Norton Suite, just Antivirus. Tried Internet Suite
when it first came out (a year or two ago maybe) and promptly returned it to
Symantec because the performance was so poor. Luckily, they allow a software
return since I bought directly from their online store.

I had trouble when I first installed the SIG SATA controller card and Vista.
Within a minute of booting, it would start acting like a process was hogging
the CPU (mouse would jump occassionally, but I could never get enough control
to diagnose). Boot into safe mode and it would work fine.

I suspected an IRQ conflict of some sort, but nothing was indicated in
device manager. I think there's some device that doesn't like sharing an
IRQ. I decided to move the SATA controller card to a different slot anyway.
Once I did that, it started behaving much better. But still see the lock ups
every few days.

I will try the other things you suggest.

 

[Dana Cline - MVP]

A lot of us regard Norton's AV as evil...wouldn't surprise me if it were
that...

You might bring up task manager and leave it sitting on the screen so you
don't have to start it when the system hangs...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[Andy]

GDay All,

Jamie, I had very similar issues with a Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal motherboard
and WinXP Pro, including similar event log entries to 'The device,
\Device\Scsi\SI31121, did not respond within the timeout period'.

The problem turned out to be the South Bridge, an Intel ICH7 chip yours will
be an ICH4. It went bad possibly from overheating even though it was cooled
by a small fan.

All I can suggest is that you monitor the temperature of your south bridge
and if it seems excessive or, from cold, it heats up too quickly, then plan
to buy a new motherboard.

 

[Vinny Viagra Jr]

Remove Norton from your machine and install Avast. Norton is a system
resource hog and causes problems with your computer.

 

[bob clere]

I had to remove all Symantec products from Vista. After spending hours
trying to get some help, I finally gave up and trashed the software. While I
still have Vista problems (don't we all), it's definitely better now that
Symantec has been removed.

 

[Guest]

Problem has been noticably worse today (I've actually worked on the machine a
good 8-10 hours today). Machine has locked up four times.

I run memory diagnostics from Vista. It reported no issues. Might run
memtest86 over night just to be sure.

Ran chkdsk on primary system drive (WD Raptor 150) on the advice of R.
McCarty. It reported no errors. Will also run SpinRight this weekend just
to rule out anything physical with the drive.

Drive, memory, and SATA controller are all new (< 3 months old). All were
upgraded just for Vista. Used memory in with XP and WD Raptor 74 flawlessly
for several months leading up to the Vista install (clean). Don't really
expect the Raptor 150 to introduce any new caveats. Never tried SATA
controller with XP, so it is a new variable in the mix.

I'm going to look around locally this weekend for a different SATA
controller that is compatible with Vista. Will also uninstall Norton just to
rule it out.

Can't have this thing locking up 3-4 times a day.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Andy. I'll keep this in mind. Southbridge on my board is heat sink.
Machine has good air flow. Ambient temp is good in room. Anything is
certainly possible, but ran fine with XP. I don't really do anything that
I'd consider that intensive on the machine. No gaming. Occassional video
encoding. Could see video encoding heating things up, but I haven't done
this since the Vista upgrade. Mosty use business apps (office, email) and
Visual Studio 2005 (which can be intensive at times).

I may just have to break down and spring for a new board, Core 2 Duo. Was
hoping to get one more year out of this machine and then hand it down to my
kids.

 

[Guest]

What antivirus is everyone using with Vista?

 

[Delboy]

What antivirus is everyone using with Vista?

Many folk, myself included, use AVG Free.
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/uk/crp/5

Other folk use Avast
http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html

Delboy

 

[Guest]

Ran SpinRite over night (Windows not involved). It locked up at about 50%,
so I believe the problem is in the SATA controller, southbridge, or drive.
Not likely a Vista problem at this point.

 

[Jamie]

Thought I'd post an update in case someone else had issues like this.

Ended up removing two cards from machine. I removed a US Robotics Fax Modem
that didn't have a Vista compatible driver. Supposedly one is forthcoming
from USR, but I removed it anyway since it was of no use without driver. I
also removed my ATI TV Wonder 650 card. Hated to remove that, but I thought
it might be an issue.

System is very stable now. Of course, not sure which card is the issue. I
need to put the TV tuner card back in to see if the system remains stable or
begins having issues again.

I really need the fax modem more than the TV tuner card, but I haven't seen
a heck of a lot of reasonably priced (<=$40) Vista compatible fax modems
yet. If someone has a suggestion, please post.

Once I get the time to do this, I'll post the results.

Jamie

 

[Ian Betts]

Thought I'd post an update in case someone else had issues like this.

Ended up removing two cards from machine. I removed a US Robotics Fax
Modem that didn't have a Vista compatible driver. Supposedly one is
forthcoming from USR, but I removed it anyway since it was of no use
without driver. I also removed my ATI TV Wonder 650 card. Hated to
remove that, but I thought it might be an issue.

System is very stable now. Of course, not sure which card is the issue.
I need to put the TV tuner card back in to see if the system remains
stable or begins having issues again.

I really need the fax modem more than the TV tuner card, but I haven't
seen a heck of a lot of reasonably priced (<=$40) Vista compatible fax
modems yet. If someone has a suggestion, please post.

Once I get the time to do this, I'll post the results.

Jamie

With Broadband most people find a fax modem redundant unless the have a
separate phone line.

The tuner card is probably the culprit.

 

[George Dingwall]

Hi There,

With Broadband most people find a fax modem redundant unless the have a
separate phone line.

The tuner card is probably the culprit.

How do you send a fax using broadband?

If I remove my fax modem, Vista FAX stops working.

Bye for now.
Bye for now,

George Dingwall

Invergordon, Scotland

http://www.georgedingwall.co.uk

 

[David W]

I have the same issues with vista with my current setup.

System Manufacturer: XFX78I
System Model: XFX nForce 780i 3-Way SLI
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III processor (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Description: SB X-Fi Audio [8C00]

Has a nvidia nforce serial ata controller for my sata drives. I think its the vista drivers that cause it to do that. Because running xp x64 pro it doesnt lock up under heavy drive useage like it does in vista.

 

[Paul Montgomery]

I have the same issues with vista with my current setup.

FIRST: don't change the subject when replying.

SECOND: "Jamie" left the room IN MAY OF LAST YEAR. You need to check
the dates of the posts in the thread before you jump in.

System Manufacturer: XFX78I
System Model: XFX nForce 780i 3-Way SLI
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III processor (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Description: SB X-Fi Audio [8C00]

Has a nvidia nforce serial ata controller for my sata drives. I think its the vista drivers that cause it to do that. Because running xp x64 pro it doesnt lock up under heavy drive useage like it does in vista.

 

[Gordon]

I have the same issues with vista with my current setup.

System Manufacturer: XFX78I
System Model: XFX nForce 780i 3-Way SLI
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III processor (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Description: SB X-Fi Audio [8C00]

Has a nvidia nforce serial ata controller for my sata drives. I think its
the vista drivers that cause it to do that. Because running xp x64 pro it
doesnt lock up under heavy drive useage like it does in vista.

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