Sound like a HDD problem?

beast · 11 Dec 2006 at 01:04

Recently Installed a Maxtor D-Max 10 SATA HDD (160gig) along with a complete re-format of windows XP. It frequently freezes up, requiring a re-boot (ctrl-alt-delete won't work either) This can happen on the desktop, when surfing the net, and it always happens just before starting a game.
Does this sound like a HDD problem? as it's the only new piece of hardware. Other than that, a driver it doesn't like? Background to setup:

1GB 5300 DDR1 RAM
DUAL-VSTA mobo
E6300 chip
BFG6600GT

If I didn't know any better I'd hazard a guess at the GFX card, but it's been in my setup for 18 months with no probs. Anyone help?

rpstewart · 11 Dec 2006 at 09:41

Your board doesn't support SATA2 so it might be a slight compatibility issue with the drive - I've seen this a few times with Maxtor SATA2 drives. There's a jumper on the back of the drive to allow you to force it to SATA1 mode which might sort the problems.

fumbles · 11 Dec 2006 at 10:21

rpstewart said:
Your board doesn't support SATA2 so it might be a slight compatibility issue with the drive - I've seen this a few times with Maxtor SATA2 drives. There's a jumper on the back of the drive to allow you to force it to SATA1 mode which might sort the problems.

Weird SATAII is meant to be fully backwards compatible with SATAI, as in a SATAI hdd is meant to work in a SATAII mobo, and vise versa.

Try memtest, and check for latest version of video card drivers.

rpstewart · 11 Dec 2006 at 10:57

fumbles said:
Weird SATAII is meant to be fully backwards compatible with SATAI, as in a SATAI hdd is meant to work in a SATAII mobo, and vise versa.

Yeah it *should* work. I've never seen a problem with running a SATA1 drive on a SATA2 controller but I've seen a number of machines where a SATA2 drive needs the jumper set to get it working on a SATA1 controller. To be honest it's not a big deal to sort but you're right, in an ideal world everything should just work.

beast · 11 Dec 2006 at 15:54

It's something That can be tried, thanks!

beast · 11 Dec 2006 at 22:38

And we traced the problem, bizarrely it was my netgear F311 PCI adapter

Removed it and it runs fine. Using the motherboard's one instead. Funny one huh!

fumbles · 12 Dec 2006 at 12:05

beast said:
And we traced the problem, bizarrely it was my netgear F311 PCI adapter Removed it and it runs fine. Using the motherboard's one instead. Funny one huh!

Well wasnt that random... Dont think anyone could have guessed that.