ASrock 939 Dual SATA II - Random Lockups In Win XP

[Sideman]

I picked up one of these second hand a couple of months ago bundled with an Athon 64 X2 4200 & 1GB of RAM (2x512 mb) , and to go with this, purchased a new Power Supply (Huntkey 500W), along with a WD Caviar SE16 250GB HDD, both from OCUK.

I did a fresh install of Windows XP along with all the updates, but keep getting constant lockups.

Here are my current system specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200
Asrock 939 Dual SATA2 (2.20 Bios)
1536MB RAM - 2x 512MB, 2x 256MB (Dual Channel Mode)
WD Caviar SE16 250GB (WD2500AAKS) SATAII
Maxtor 6Y10PO (IDE)
Sapphire Radeon 800XT (Catalyst 7.9)
Creative Labs Audigy Platinum
Huntkey 500W PSU
Windows XP Home SP2 (32bit) + all latest updates.

NOTE: I've not or have not attempted to OC the board or GFX card.

Now, at first, I thought the cause was possibly a faulty HDD (I had connected it to the SATAII connection), but as it turned out, it was faulty and failed on me during boot up after a couple of weeks. So, RMA'd it and recieved a replacment, but after a fresh install of Windows, I'm still getting lockups!

They usually happen when playing video or audio files or copying files to another partion, saving or installing something, or just browsing the internet. It also happens as windows starts loading the apps in the taskbar, and can happen 4 or 5 times in a row, as it did today.Sometimes, you can do all of the things above, and no lockups! I've noticed that the HDD light stays on for about 10 seconds after the lockup, and then goes off for about 5 before repeating this cycle. Sometimes the mouse can still be moved, other times it can't.

It's so fustrating, and I've tried everything I could think of that might be the cause.

I've tried a different cable (the one I originally used was new), switched from the SATAII to the SATA connection (it seems the SATAII driver had caused problems for some with this board), switched back to the SATAII connection & enabled IDE mode in the Bios, I also disabled Tagged Queing and Synchronus Transfers to see if these made any difference.

But nope, I still get lockups!

I thought it might be a heat issue, but have used Speedfan to check the HDD and system temps & all are within limits. I updated the JMicron SATAII drivers to the latest ones on their FTP site, but these appear to have made no difference.

I'd also read that the AMD Dual Core Optimzer had been causing lockups on some peoples systems, so I unistalled this, but still got the lockups. I should have guessed this would be the case, as I hadn't installed it on the last Windows installation (I used the MS Hotfix instead) on the drive that failed!

So, yesterday, I ran Memtest for over 3hrs to check that the RAM was o.k, and that found no errors. I've also checked the HDD using the WD Diagnostic tools, CHKDSK, and the Smart analysis utility on Speedfan, and all report the disk to be fine.

I think I've tried everything that's obvious, apart form updating the bios.

If there's anything else anyone thinks might fix this problem, than I'd be grateful if you'd let me know as I'm about to throw my damn PC out the window!

Cheers

Paul

 

[P373]

have you got all the latest chipset drivers from the uli site, not the asrock site?

 

[Sideman]

have you got all the latest chipset drivers from the uli site, not the asrock site?

I've had trouble getting the ULI site (can't seem to connect).

However, this is the package (SATA & SATAII drivers) I have installed from the JMicron FTP page:

JMB36X_WinDrv_WHQL_R1.17.27WHQL from this link:

ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb36x/Win2k_xp_Vista/

EDIT:

Just did a quick Google. I take it these are the ones I need:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/uli_drivers.html

Cheers

Paul

 

[Sideman]

O.K, tried the new Uli drivers from the above link (2.20) and still getting lockups. Also tried the previous ones (2.13) but still no luck.

This happened a few times when I ran the installer to reinstall the ATI Catalyst drivers, which rules out my theory that it could have been those.

Now I'm having trouble getting these to install properly! I've had this problem before, and it usually sorts itself, but not this time!

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Cheers

Paul

 

[hp7909]

The ULi drivers need to go on before any others, so maybe a clean install? & I'd stick with the Integrated Driver 2.20

Is that GFX AGP or PCI-E?

EDIT: There's also a beta BIOS here. For me helped with stability/compatibility especially in Vista.

Also HD, stick to IDE mode for SATAII port & should be set before installing OS.

 

[Vimes]

I will try and find the link that I posted in a Asrock support forum when I had a similar problem to yours, to the point where I gave up with SATA and that motherboard.

IIRC there is an option to increase the SATA drive strength (can't remember exactly as I'm not on that PC) within the BIOS that has helped some people. (SATA II driving - from NORMAL to STRONG). Also I changed the SATA mode to show as IDE, with little success.

For me it has been to not use SATA on that board but IDE only.

The PC is now absolutely rock solid but SATA, with any hard drive or driver, was a no no for me.

I will try and find you the link to that support forum and post back if I do.

 

[MadMatty]

only drivers that have casued me any freeze issues is the sata1 driver. everything is fine with the default ms ide driver for sata1. also, I find the specific jmicron sata2 driver fromthe asrock site works much better then the jmicron unified driver pack from jmicron site. the so called dual core optimiser didnt seem to help or hinder anything so dont bother with that. Just install the amd cpu driver and thats all thats needed. no ms hotfixes.

 

[hohum]

I had the same motherboard, and it also started locking up. It got replaced not long after with something else, but I think the BIOS version may have had something to do with it. I don't recall the issue happening until I updated to the latest (2.20 or 2.30, can't remember which), prior to that I had been using 1.30.

In hindsight I should have tried rolling back before getting rid, but never mind eh

 

[Target Practice]

I used this mobo back when i was using a 939 pin processor and i got to say i never even got it to boot with mixed sized ram. I only ever used 2x512mb or 1x1024mb of ram so I think thats your problem.

 

[mo786]

I had simialr problems but on a core 2 duo motherboard and vista

i sent abck the mobo to the retailer - they sent a new one but it sitll ahd the same problwems - so i assume its a problem with the sata controller son the mobo

in the end i repalced it with a new Gigabyte mobo which is working perfect

so it was DEFINITLEY a problem with both asrock mobos i had.

 

[Sideman]

Thanks everyone for their thoughts & advice.

GFX Card is AGP btw.

I have since done a fresh XP/SP2 install, this time with the drive set to IDE mode from the start.

I did step by step Windows updates, testing as I went along, and did all the things that normally caused lockups and all seemed fine!

However, I got my first lockup a day later after playing a .wav file in Media Player 11 (never had any in 9) and leaving it open on the desktop whilst I went and did something else. When I came back, Windows had locked up.

The strange thing I did notice was that the lockup occurred after I installed the latest update (can't remember the KB number) for IE7 that same afternoon. This is exactly what I noticed before, although put it down to coincidence, as I can't see why this update would cause the lockups?

Anyway, I did uninstall it, but the lockups still occur, although they don't seem to be as frequent as they were when running in SATAII mode. I will try a System Restore to a point prior to the update to see if this has any effect.

TP, its interesting what you say about using mixed RAM.

Whilst I've had no boot problems, during my research I did come across someone who had lockups (can't remember if he was using mixed RAM) with this board, but they where cured after he switched the DIMM slots they were in.

I might try this, and also give the new beta Bios a go.

Cheers

Paul