Vist 64-bit long pause with HD activity

Bane · 23 Aug 2009 at 14:01

Have experienced this issue twice now. This time Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP2 and fully updated.

While playing Fallout 3 (patched) I lock picked a door and game froze with HD activity light solidly lit. It took 5 minutes for game to close, then a further 4 minutes on desktop until reboot command caught up.

First time this happened was 2nd November with SP1 and updates installed. Playing Warhammer Online the game froze while loading a zone using flight points. I got fed up of waiting and held down power button to power down. Anyway it corrupted C: partition and needed to format.

Only real difference now, apart from new drivers and updates, is first time Warhammer Online was installed on a separate SSD HD. And now back to a single HD with Fallout 3 is installed on a different partition on the same drive.

I remember reading on here of other people that had experienced it, and at the time it was suggested walking away until PC caught up. Doesn't look like the issue has been fixed.

mmj_uk · 23 Aug 2009 at 14:18

If you've ruled out the obvious (Windows Defender/Disk Defragmenter/Anti Virus) doing automatic scans, then it's likely just the superfetch service hogging your HD and filling your RAM with as much crap as it can.

There's a registry edit here that will stop superfetch caching random program data which may be worth a try.

Mattus · 23 Aug 2009 at 16:55

Are you running out of RAM?

hohum · 23 Aug 2009 at 20:46

Check event viewer, see if you have any hard drive errors being reported.

Bane · 24 Aug 2009 at 08:22

In Event Viewer there are 27 red exclaimation error messages in Windows Logs > System for the 9 minutues when issue occured. Nothing in Applicationsand Services Logs > Harware.

Don't know if this occured with Warhammer Online, as that doesn't need a DVD present to play.

As for memory I have 4GB. I wondered the first time it happened if it was SP2 getting installed that killed system (know idea if that was the case).

Description of Event Log error:

Code:

+ System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  atapi 
 
  - EventID 11 

   [ Qualifiers]  49156 
 
   Level 2 
 
   Task 0 
 
   Keywords 0x80000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2009-08-23T12:42:01.506Z 
 
   EventRecordID 38187 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer Sugo 
 
   Security 
 

- EventData 

   \Device\Ide\IdePort2 
   0000100001000000000000000B0004C004000000850100C00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005100000 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 00100000 00000001 00000000 C004000B 
0008: 00000004 C0000185 00000000 00000000 
0010: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 
0018: 00000000 00001005   


In Bytes

0000: 00 00 10 00 01 00 00 00   ........
0008: 00 00 00 00 0B 00 04 C0   .......À
0010: 04 00 00 00 85 01 00 C0   ....…..À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 05 10 00 00   ........

hohum · 24 Aug 2009 at 16:01

Looks like you've got a hardware issue then, and judging by the error category (atapi) it's probably a hard drive problem. I'd recommend visiting the manufacturer's website for your drive and obtain their diagnostic software - burn that to a disc, boot from it, and run the health tests.

Bane · 24 Aug 2009 at 17:53

When I saw IDE Port2 in the message I thought it was relating to the optical drive as that is on the single IDE port.

Have recently turned AHCI off and switched SATA mode to IDE. Didn't check what channel the SSD was assigned to as just removed it before checking back here. As the SSD was empty I didn't think Windows would be doing anything with it.

Bane · 31 Aug 2009 at 14:48

Had multiple problems this weekend. One blue screen, but as I hadn't disable automatic reboot feature I'm none the wiser what it was.

So downloaded and ran a complete scan using Samsung's hard drive utility. Also enable acoustic management mode so was worth while doing. No issues found with drive.

Have left AHCI mode on, but removed a SATA cable from port1 (from when SSD was fitted). It had nothing connected to it, but was connect to motherboard.

Not sure if SATA port0 cable had worked lose from HD (look connected firmly), but after ensuring that was pushed in I was able to get back into Windows.

One event log that sort of suggests that was a problem, combined with Vista recovery not seeing the hard drive.

Code:

+ System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  iaStor 
 
  - EventID 9 

   [ Qualifiers]  49156 
 
   Level 2 
 
   Task 0 
 
   Keywords 0x80000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2009-08-31T09:39:40.576Z 
 
   EventRecordID 42594 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer Sugo 
 
   Security 
 

- EventData 

   \Device\Ide\iaStor0 
   0F0005000100000000000000090004C00100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 0005000F 00000001 00000000 C0040009 
0008: 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 
0010: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00 


In Bytes

0000: 0F 00 05 00 01 00 00 00   ........
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 C0   .......À
0010: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 00            .....

Bane · 9 Mar 2010 at 18:14

In case anyone finds this problem using search, I fitted a new Silverstone CP03 S-ATA cable during November 2009. And not had any repeat problems since.

The locking hooks seems to have worked compared to non-locking motherboard supplied cables.