Desparation is now setting in as i have been trying to get this carfully researched machine to work since last november. The components are
Asrock 939-Dual SATA
Athlon64 3000+ venice
80Gb Segate Barracuda SATA 150
250 Gb Western Digital SATAII
Enermax EG385AX-VHB 380W
Corsair value select 1Gb DDr400 kit
Optical LG GSA4167
Virgo2 ATX case
Graphics card: GeForce 6200TC
Canoscan FS4000US (slide/film scanner)
WACOM Tablet (mouse type device)
Win XP
In the bios "SATA1 Operation Mode" is set to "Non-Raid"
The system was built and then XP and various other software was loaded on the Seagate 80Gb. The system is for photographic work and contains 120 Gb of valuable pictures.
Initially the system worked great, but after a week or so the machine developed "machine_check_exception" errors; a common stop fault listing was stop: 0x0000009c(0x00000004,0x80545ff0,0xb2000000,0x00070f0f), but there were others.
Eventually the operating system became corrupt, eventually giving the message "NTLDR is missing" and recover was not possible
The 80Gb Seagate was reformatted and a clean install of XP done, within a day the system became unstable again, with blue screen crashes as before. Testing the 80Gb Seagate with seagate seatools showed errors and failed tests.
The memory was tested with goldmemory and showed no errors. The 80Gb Seagate was returned to supplier, tested and replaced.
The replacement hard drive was installed, the operating system XP and other software was re-loaded. Within two days the system crashed with the same error code as above. When trying to reboot you get the "NTLDR is missing" message.
The new 80Gb Seagate was tested with seagate seatools and again showed failed tests. The 80Gb Seagate was returned to supplier, tested and replaced again.
Between the above failures (for a momth at least) the system has been running stably from a Maxtor 250Gb IDE hard drive with all the above software and components minus the 80Gb SATA1 Seagate.
The third new 80Gb Seagate was reformatted and a clean install of XP done, guess what?
within a day a blue screen crash and the XP event viewer showing the message "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\m5289" which is the SATA raid controller. We didnt wait to get to XP meltdown point again.
More phone conversations with the supplier and the motherboard was returned for testing as the above message seemed to indicate the sata controller.
Which leaves me in the present situation of the supplier saying they have tested the motherboard and its 100% OK, pay the test fee and they will return it. They suggest maybe its the memory "90% of blue screen errors are caused by memory". They won't replace memory as they cant garrantee memory-motherboard compatability, although Corsair recomend the memory for this motherboard. And i dont want to buy another Gb of mem just on the off chance it may work. They also suggest getting hold of "win stress software" and using it to load the system to find the problem, also try prime 95 to do the same.
To me it looks like either the motherboard or the SATA hard drive or maybe they are not compatable, I'm at a loss
Any suggestions greatfully welcomed
Asrock 939-Dual SATA
Athlon64 3000+ venice
80Gb Segate Barracuda SATA 150
250 Gb Western Digital SATAII
Enermax EG385AX-VHB 380W
Corsair value select 1Gb DDr400 kit
Optical LG GSA4167
Virgo2 ATX case
Graphics card: GeForce 6200TC
Canoscan FS4000US (slide/film scanner)
WACOM Tablet (mouse type device)
Win XP
In the bios "SATA1 Operation Mode" is set to "Non-Raid"
The system was built and then XP and various other software was loaded on the Seagate 80Gb. The system is for photographic work and contains 120 Gb of valuable pictures.
Initially the system worked great, but after a week or so the machine developed "machine_check_exception" errors; a common stop fault listing was stop: 0x0000009c(0x00000004,0x80545ff0,0xb2000000,0x00070f0f), but there were others.
Eventually the operating system became corrupt, eventually giving the message "NTLDR is missing" and recover was not possible
The 80Gb Seagate was reformatted and a clean install of XP done, within a day the system became unstable again, with blue screen crashes as before. Testing the 80Gb Seagate with seagate seatools showed errors and failed tests.
The memory was tested with goldmemory and showed no errors. The 80Gb Seagate was returned to supplier, tested and replaced.
The replacement hard drive was installed, the operating system XP and other software was re-loaded. Within two days the system crashed with the same error code as above. When trying to reboot you get the "NTLDR is missing" message.
The new 80Gb Seagate was tested with seagate seatools and again showed failed tests. The 80Gb Seagate was returned to supplier, tested and replaced again.
Between the above failures (for a momth at least) the system has been running stably from a Maxtor 250Gb IDE hard drive with all the above software and components minus the 80Gb SATA1 Seagate.
The third new 80Gb Seagate was reformatted and a clean install of XP done, guess what?
within a day a blue screen crash and the XP event viewer showing the message "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\m5289" which is the SATA raid controller. We didnt wait to get to XP meltdown point again.
More phone conversations with the supplier and the motherboard was returned for testing as the above message seemed to indicate the sata controller.
Which leaves me in the present situation of the supplier saying they have tested the motherboard and its 100% OK, pay the test fee and they will return it. They suggest maybe its the memory "90% of blue screen errors are caused by memory". They won't replace memory as they cant garrantee memory-motherboard compatability, although Corsair recomend the memory for this motherboard. And i dont want to buy another Gb of mem just on the off chance it may work. They also suggest getting hold of "win stress software" and using it to load the system to find the problem, also try prime 95 to do the same.
To me it looks like either the motherboard or the SATA hard drive or maybe they are not compatable, I'm at a loss
Any suggestions greatfully welcomed
