Plug & Play Error causing Windows hard locks?

Hey,

I'm running a Dell Mini 9 with a moderately nLite'd version of Windows XP Pro SP3 (with all latest updates). I keep getting intermittent hard locks when an SD card is present in the JMicron JMB38X card reader (verified by running the PC for 24 hours with no card, and 12 hours Memtest86+ to exclude faulty RAM).

Looking through the Event Viewer, I see lots of these errors like the one below - full pics of the errors are here: 1, 2, 3

EDIT - apparently this is "normal" power-saving behaviour according to JMicron support. When these errors occur the entries for the card reader in Device manager disappear (when there is no card present).

HOWEVER, the hard locks are definitely related to the presence of my SD card in the reader... will need to experiment with different cards to work out which of the two is the problem I guess!

Cheers,

Suman

Could you try disabling any uneccesary hardware, soundcard, network card etc and see if you still have the same problem? Possibly won't go anywhere but had a problem before giving hard locks due to a conflict between a jmicron controller and a network card so worth a shot.

Also, does it happen with any SD card?

Hi Antar,

I've disabled things like the wired LAN as they are not being used, but there is no indication to indicate any conflicts with sound etc...

However if you look at the bigger screens you'll see that beneath the trio of JMicron errors, there is also a trio of DCOM errors (these were ALWAYS occuring exactly 5 mins befre PnP error!). These apparently are due to Intel ProSET, so I uninstalled this and just used WZC to manage wireless. These DCOM errors no longer occur, but the PlugPlayManager errors have still occurred (twice so far).

Been running with an SD card in situ and no crashes so far...! Unfortunately I only have one SD card I can test with (generic Class 4 from a competitor).

Do you think nLite might be an issue? I can try a less aggressive nLite install and see if that helps...

Cheers,

Suman

Not sure about the nLite, no experience with it (though could be worth a shot re-instaling if nothing else pans out)

Could there possibly be some power saving rules kicking in, either applied by windows or under Bios settings?

Hey,

Certainly thought about power saving, but there are no settings in the BIOS pertaining to the card reader, and nothing I can find in windows. Usually there is a check box in Device Manager that says something like "Allow Windows to turn off this device to save power", but that is not present

[edit] Ignore, those were the wrong set of error codes I was looking at d'oh!

Cheers,

Suman

Have you tried hitting it with a hammer (note, this may not work per se but is an excellent stress relief tactic)

Sorry, not very helpful.

There is a way to view devices by resources in the device manager pane so perhpas poking around in there you might find something (or develop a mild headache reading long lines of numbers) and I think there might be some way of checking for hardware conflicts somewhere... not sure on that one though (Edit: on Vista it's under system info, not sure where it is on XP though but probably somewhere similar)

Will have a think about this and see if I can come up with something or someone else might pop in with a few more ideas. Hopefully you'll get it sorted.

If I had Dell accidental damage cover, your suggestion would have been Plan A

I can't find the hardware conflicts thingy on my Vista main PC - where exactly do you mean by "system info"?

Cheers,

Suman

Short Way: Type System Info into the start search bar

Long Way: Start->Accessories->System Tools->System Info

Hey,

I've just been having an email convo with a JMicron support guy, and apparently the errors are "normal" behaviour related to a power saving sleep-mode that the card reader engages after 4 minutes when there is no disk in the drive.

JMB38X driver entering D3E mode default is 5 minutes while memory card remove. D3 Enhanced (D3E) power management state is a deep sleep mode of JMB38X to conserve more battery life while the computer is running. It gates the JMB38X internal clock to put the JMB38X controller into low power state when detecting no SD/MMC/XD/MS devices installed.

Click to expand...

However the hard locks are definitely related to the presence (and possibly use) of an SD card in the card reader. So I guess it's a hardware fault or incompatibility with the card or the reader...

Here is a list of everything I stripped from XP with nLite... does anything there look like the culprit?

Literally just hard-locked again now, after running with an SD card for about 90 minutes... will time the next crash again and see if there's any pattern

Cheers,

Suman

Never realised there was so much uneccesary stuff in an OS. Unfortunately I can't see anything there that might be affecting you but perhaps one of the other knowledgeable people around here might see something amis. Did you have this problem before using your nLited version of XP?

It's strange how it waits 90 minutes, did it happen after approximately the same time again? Would you have been accessing/writing to the SD card at the time of the hard lock? Finally, how are you resolving the hard lock, restarting or removal of the card?

Sorry, I'm getting near the end of ideas at this stage so hopefully other avenues will provide you with a solution.

Hey,

I'm relatively sure this is a hardware problem now - same thing was occurring in Ubuntu as well but I never put 2 and 2 together (and I'm a Linux noob so no way of proving the relation!).

It doesn't always happening at 90 mins - but usually always after about one hour... maybe the card reader chipset overheating or something? Who knows! And nope, doing nothing with the card, just whole system at idle or playing iPlayer. Also tried an old Memory Stick I had lying around (128MB, lol) and the same thing happens, so I'm fairly sure it's not the fault of the SD card.

Gonna get in touch with Dell today and sort out an RMA!

Cheers,

Suman