[Long Read] Odd issues, suspecting power supply. Not your usual post...

Edited: Original post made no sense after re-reading later. Redone post. I was interrupted a lot typing it.

When I first built this computer (2 years ago or so), I had two HD480x2 cards I planned to use. I tried one and my computer would crash in games like Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Total Annihilation, Starcraft, etc. after a random amount of times. BSOD: IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL.

* Temps fine

* Asus AI monitoring app said voltages were fine

* Tried both cards separately. Never had both installed at one time.

* Different Drivers new and old.

I replaced the card with a MSI H6770 (current card) and stuff works fine.

My friend had a SATA HD he wanted to recover data from, but wanted to do it as a contained recovery in case there was something on the disk. His ex was terrible with computers. After copying data off the HD, I used "safely remove disk", but as soon as I unplugged the SATA power, the computer crashed. BSOD. It required me to turn off the PSU with the switch for a few seconds before I could successfully boot. Got it running again. I was using only XP at the time.

Had a few minor stability issues here and there attributed to software.

Currently, I'm slowly migrating from XP to Windows 7, and Ive had my computer lockup several times for about 3 minutes. I end up with events in the Event Viewer: "amd_sata Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort1, was issued" with at least one or more (but as many as 5) occuring 30 seconds later. After a lot of driver swapping, disk swapping, cord swapping, port swapping, new os install swapping, swearing and 3 weeks or so of combinations of the above I still had the issue. In a fit of aggravation I unplugged the SATA power cable for the OS HD at the start of a lockup, then plugged it back in and the computer became immediately responsive and nothing shows up in the Event Viewer. So instead of waiting minutes for the computer to snap out of its lockup I can unplug and replug the SATA power cable, and it stops the lockup as if nothing has happened. I also have an inverter for some CCFLs, and when I turn them on or off, XP crashes. BSOD. These reminded me of the issue with the old video cards, and my friends disk and I'm now wondering if it truly power related. I don't have a scope so I cant dig into the PSU's output.

Reading online about the lockup issue seems to be related to NCQ & AHCI and it can be resolved by running SATA in IDE mode. I've done that. but now sometimes Windows 7 & XP seems to have random fits of oddness like its loading stuff slowly, takes icons forever to show up, lots of delay in loading programs. It also occurs with reading files from various Linux live CDs (Ubuntu, Zorin OS, and several others) but its less severe. I've switched back to ACHI mode, and I'll just have do unplug my primary disk when the machine locks up vs having oddly behaved OS's.

Hope this is better. I'll provide more info if needed.

Yea, I read over that post again... Wow! Bad, just bad... I was interrupted several times typing it. I should just delete it and be done with it and start over.

OP has been updated with less info more available if needed.

Update:

I've done some more tests and using the Asus monitoring tools my voltages are and cross referenced from a chart with the ATX specifications. Below is a list of my 3.3, 5v & 12 voltage readings using ASUS monitoring tools. This is just from me watching it over the course of several minutes.

3.3v = 3.214v (0.079v away from the lower limit - steady)

5v = 4.885v (0.135 away from the lower limit - steady)

12v = 11.493v (0.093 away from the lower limit - steady)

Which makes sense because I'm suspecting that my drives are having power issues because I can unplug and replug the SATA power cord and they wake back up and I don't get an error about a device reset.

New question is... Is this power supply too weak for my system or is there something possibly wrong with my power supply? AC line voltage is within specifications. 119v 60Hz according to my meters (I was a residential & commercial electrician for a decade. My Fluke, Greenlee & Klein agree on the values).

First: Voltages read in BIOS and software are measured at the motherboard, not the PSU, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Noted. So these readings are about as "useful" as they were 15+ years ago. I never paid attention to them and figure they have improved over the decades. Its almost like there needs to be a device that logs power supply voltages and usage and logs data onto internal storage while the computer is used. Sort of what the SunMoon does and logs data internally for later diagnostics...

Second, the PSU is about twice the power you actually need for your system, so it's not that it's not a big enough PSU.

This was my suspicion as well. Using a number of online calculators back when this machine was built told me 500 was more than adequate, but the 750 was at the mid-level of my pricepoint for a PS and it was from Corsair. I was at the time going to install a more powerful video card but it made the system extremely unstable. I tend not to skimp on power supplies and I have pointed many people to your site to the gutless wonders of power supplies so they can see what happens.

Double check all of your connections.... specifically those that go to your motherboard. Make sure all connectors are fully seated.

I've done this a number of times. I do it everytime have to move the tower for whatever reason. All cards and connections are tight.

Thanks for the response. Guess I'll have to keep beating the machine up until I find the problem.

Yea, those are a lot outside of my budget, especially now.

I've swapped out the power supply with another one, and I'm still getting the darn lockups so I think we can rule out the power supply. Also swapped SATA cables with known good ones and disassembled and reassembled the whole PC *again*.

I now blame the board and will dispose of it "elegantly" later. ASUS is a royal pain to deal with for RMAs. I can't trust this machine to do any kind of work without the disk lockups. Until I can assemble another machine I'll have to continue unplugging and replugging the SATA power connector. Hopefully I only have to do this for the next week, if I don't smash it where it sits first.

We can mark this topic as resolved.

The issue you described sounds like either a driver or mainboard problem.

Make sure in power settings the sata ports and computer are not suspending (sleep mode) to reduce power while performing any upgrade related to OS.

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 requires a custom install if i remember correctly. Obviously the best installation of a OS would be a clean Installation with the drive wiped prior to install.

The issue you described sounds like either a driver or mainboard problem.

I'm suspecting mainboard & possibly driver... This lockup issue is mainly present in Windows 7 (latest SATA drivers, MS AHCI driver, etc... I've done the driver dance for DAYS. No luck). The issue doesn't seem to present itself as bad in XP. It seems like it just gets lethargic for a minute or so but no errors or warnings in event viewer.

Make sure in power settings the sata ports and computer are not suspending (sleep mode) to reduce power while performing any upgrade related to OS.

Yea, I turn all that power save crap off. Its great on a laptop but annoying on a desktop. It shouldn't be affecting the machine while its actively being used anyway. I'm also SETI crunching so that should keep the machine awake. Temps are under control and rarely hit more than 55°C but lately stays near 40 because its cold inside the house.

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 requires a custom install if i remember correctly. Obviously the best installation of a OS would be a clean Installation with the drive wiped prior to install.

Fresh install. Always. This current environment is a dual boot of XP & Win7.

The lockup issues can be alleviated by putting the SATA controller into IDE mode in the bios, but disk performance is abysmal. The lockup can also be cured by unplugging the power cable on the disk, and plugging it back in. Cures it almost immediately

The last time I tried updating the BIOS on this board, it locked up and hosed itself and I had to buy a new bios chip, and the board was less than a day old at the time. #1 reason to buy boards with a socketed or dual bios. I've just updated the system BIOS as a last resort early this morning (4AM) and let the machine run overnight idle. Also checking the disks again with Seatools. No errors or lockups yet Its still screwing up.

Edit: Nope, still screwed. Now to decide if its worth fighting with ASUS or just putting bullets through it and calling it a day.

AHCI is not supported on Windows XP, support out of box requires Windows Vista and newer.

Windows XP would need to run in IDE mode or hardware-specific drivers in order to support AHCI mode under XP.

1. Which System was installed first XP or 7 ?

2. Was AHCI mode enabled prior to both installations ?

3. Are you using a HDD or SSD ?

1. XP was installed first (looooong ago).

2/3. Both XP & 7 were installed with the HDDs in AHCI mode with the text setup drivers slip-streamed into the CD (F6 to install 3rd party raid drivers - done it many a times on servers).

I'm booted into XP now. XP runs incredibly faster and things are much more responsive on XP than on Windows 7, but there are a few minor hiccups in XP as well but not as bad (due to its age). I've already formatted & zero-filled the Win 7 partition and will try a fresh install and not install the AMD SATA driver next time. There seems to be many problems in some configurations with any newer AMD driver after some additional searching online. I think its the core of the issue but I think there's an underlying hardware problem somewhere.

Regardless how this pans out, I will be replacing the board and CPU and go back to an Intel based system sometime in the future (hopefully). I have zero trust in this system anymore and it will probably never get it back. I can always go back to my DL360 G2 server and use it.

Wouldn't hurt to delete the Windows 7 partition, wipe the drive and reinstall the OS without adding the SATA driver (allow Windows update pick the driver and install it).

If you still have same issue, it's mostly a driver or chipset compatibility issue. Assuming you have checked the HDD for errors and controller is working properly.

Wouldn't hurt to delete the Windows 7 partition, wipe the drive and reinstall the OS without adding the SATA driver (allow Windows update pick the driver and install it).

I had done just exactly that after my last post. Avoided installing the AMD SATA driver and just kept the driver that comes with windows. Of course I did get another error This time an event id 508 on the fresh install. "Windows (2368) Windows: A request to write to the file (a/windows/file/path/i/don't/remember) but took an abnormally long time (60 seconds) to be serviced by the OS". More searching led me to bad cables, loose connections, failing disks & bad ports. I have moved the disks to different ports and going to see how that works as all the other things have been checked out ok.

If you still have same issue, it's mostly a driver or chipset compatibility issue. Assuming you have checked the HDD for errors and controller is working properly.

Please note that I had already done the above twice already with no change in problem, but the difference this time is that I'm not installing the AMD SATA driver, and I'm using different SATA ports. So far no problems as of now However it is continuing to do this even on different ports, but this issue occurs on its own and I haven't found a way to make it do this on-demand so it may show up in the first 20 seconds after logging in, or not see it for days. I think its a bad/failing board/controller at this point. Surface scans all come up clean and SMART shows no reallocated sectors.

I have actually given up on actually "fixing" this machine as I am now planning on replacing the board & cpu with an i5 on the "cheap". Even if I can get this problem sorted, I cant trust this machine for anything more than facebooking or grandma pinterest but I still want to figure it out. ;)

Sounds like a compatibility issue since you're still experiencing the same issue.

Core i5 is a good option, the CPU will provide very good performance while gaming or running multiple tasks especially if you get a Core i5 4670K or 4690K.

All Modern games will only take advantage of 1 - 2 Cores max (hyper threading doesn't give any benefit in gaming, only if you're running multiple task simultaneously).

Intel chipsets from Z68 and newer are way better than the older nForce and AMD chipsets.

Yup, that's what I'm suspecting as well. However, I'm beginning to also wonder if the primary disk is bad. Yes, I did swap the disk awhile back but both disks are identical. Same model, type, firmware, batch, etc since they came from an old server. Maybe a bad batch, or just really terrible and windows 7 cant cope well? I don't have any more sata disks to test with, but I have been highly considering getting a small SSD for my OS's. I may go that route, and if it works it will buy me more time until I can replace this monster and the SSD will give me much better performance on the new build. Win-win. ;)

I originally wanted an i7 when I built this thing but couldn't justify the cost ($1K+ vs $400). Plus being that I do *much* more multitasking than gaming, I went with the 8 core (FX-8210). No complaints performance wise considering it was much cheaper than an i7 and even an i5. I mentally think of the i3 as a 'celeron' chip for lower spec and/or more power conscious laptops. I'm looking heavily at the Core i5-4590 ($194 USD). Unfortunately, my 'new' board/cpu budget is a firm $350 and I know it greatly reduces my options.

The nForce 2 chipset was nifty until the novelty wore off because I ran into several compatibility issues most notably with the LAN controller and Spore Creature Creator. After a month of troubleshooting with EA, I found that the "firewall" was blocking the registration system from loading correctly. It didnt matter that I didnt install the nForce firewall driver or not. Even after installing the driver and creating a rule for SporeCC, it refused to work. I was only able to get the registration to work after installing a pci network card. I have actually been looking at the Z87 chipset offerings because I have some specific requirements so I'll be dualbooting XP. I found some good (price) combos using ASUS boards, but I'm hesitant to get another ASUS board. I'd prefer to go back to my old friend Gigabyte.

SSDs will increase the performance in Windows 7 and newer, however SATA 3 is limited to 600 MB/s transfer speed unless you get a PCI-e SSD.

I custom built a Untangle UTM server (Linux) and home file/media server (Windows 8.1 Pro) using a Core i3-4130 with ASRock Z87 socket mainboard and Hydro H55 cooling solutions. Both systems use multiple SSDs in different arrays and overall system performance is excellent including the dual core.

An update on this "problem". I disassembled the machine again, re-secured the board, and reinstalled all components and moved my disks to a different SATA ports with new cables.

The issue has not occurred since Mar 4 and has been stable, even at a 800mhz OC using the AI Tuner on the board. The only errors I'm getting in the error logs are from known buggy applications, and shadow copy provider throwing fits here and there.

No problems. *knocks on wood*

Update:

I havent had the original issue since my last post. However, the backup power supply I was using was about to choke. It started making a weird high pitch clicking sound not consistent with failing fans and only got louder as the machine shut off. I'm now back to using the TX750. Lets see if the issue returns...