[fortknight]

Here's the specs on this computer:

Windows XP Pro
ASUS P5NE-SLI mobo LGA775
Intel Core2Duo Allendale E4500 2.2Ghz
ASUS EN6200LE video card
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB
Syba CL-U2CR-FD102
Gigabyte GN-WP01GS Wireless
Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus RS-460-PMSR-A3 460W
Kingston 2 1G DDR2
External WD Passport 250GB - USB

This machine is about 5 months old and has been crashing occassionally the last two weeks after the machine is up and running awhile. I checked the system log and there is nothing leading up to the crash but I do get a crash dump for each one. There is nothing I can pin down as coinciding with the crashes. The vents and fan on side were blocked by a bookcase so I pulled it out in the open. Checked the CPU temp last at 37 deg c. Ran "Memory Diagnostic 1" (from download.com) 4 passes of all the tests were clean - this took about 15 minutes. Ran chkdsk on the Seagate - no bad sectors. I can't tell with chkdsk whether it notifies you when it finds problems. All appeared good there. Did the "auto fix file system errors" but not the search for bad sectors on the external WD Passport. I think I need to analyze the crash dumps but don't know where to start. I hear there's a MS debugger or some such? Haven't looked on MS site yet. Is that where it is?

I'm thinking mobo, cpu, memory, psu as possible culprits. Can I rule out the video card? and the hard drives?

Seems like next step is to analyze the crash dumps..

Thanks for any help

[Frank4d]

The crash dump files are usually found in the C:\Windows\Minidump folder. You can use the MS debug utility to analyze them, or ZIP 4-5 of the most recent ones and post here as a ZIP or RAR attachment and we will analyze them.

[fortknight]

Thank you. I'll do both - zip up several here for you to take a peek at and try taking a look myself too though I don't know what I'm looking for. I hope to learn a few tricks from the experts. Thanks again

[Frank4d]

Three of the logs (on 4/29, 5/25 and 8/5) point to "nvata.sys" crashing which is an Nvidia raid/serial ata driver. I found a few Google results saying that you should install newer Nvidia drivers, and other advice saying to delete the Nvidia driver in Control Panel (and the Windows driver will take over). Good luck, because I don't have experience with raid drivers.

The other two errors (7/21 and 7/28) indicated "memory corruption" but no definitive cause.

[fortknight]

I collected all the driver details and found that nvata.sys is the NVIDIA nforce 430/410 Serial ATA Controller driver from 4/24/2006. My mobo has a NVIDIA 650i chipset (different chipset) and I found another driver online (through ASUS mobo downloads) for a Jmicron JMB36X SATA/PATA Controller driver 12/26/2006. I'm thinking I have the wrong driver installed for this chipset??

How do I go about replacing the NVIDIA driver with the JMicron driver? Is that an *Update Driver* or do I uninstall the NVIDIA and install the JMicron or can I just install the JMicron. The thing I'm worried about is losing access to my only hard drive in the process. Maybe I'm just worrying for no reason. Let me know how to go about doing this..

Thanks for your help!

[fortknight]

Oh, I forgot to say - I believe the NVIDIA drivers I loaded were the ones packaged with the board and I've noticed on other systems lately that the drivers packaged with a board or with even a pre-built computer aren't the correct drivers for the system they're shipped with. I guess that's par for the course?

[fortknight]

OK. I was afraid I'd blow away my connection to the hard drive while messing with the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller Driver, NVIDIA nforce 430/410 SATA, 4/24/2006 5.10.2600.666 (uninstall, update, or whatever).. (this is the one with the suspect nvata.sys driver file).

So, I had another machine with the same P5N-E SLI board and installed Windows XP on it. Checked out the JMicron JMB36X SATA/PATA Contoller Driver but it turns it is actually a SCSI/Raid Controller (I'm not using RAID on this board though it is available) and it is not an IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller Driver.. so it makes no difference (i did install it)..

Then I went to the NVIDIA site and did the "Automatically Find My NVIDA Products" button and the "Motherboard drivers" button. It found a newer version of some drivers - calls it version 8.43 dated Feb 7, 2007. So on install it asked to uninstall existing [nvata.sys, etc.], restart, and then continue the installation. So, when it came up again after the uninstall (it came up again! - no data lost!) the New Hardware Wizard also came up and I canceled out of that to continue the driver install. Everything looks great! Dev Mgr shows a NVIDA nForce 430/410 SATA Controller dated 10/18/2006 ver 5.10.2600.692 (a new SATA driver! yes!). I guess I'm just not a big risk taker..

Now I've got to try it out on the other computer and wait a couple weeks to see if the crashes subside. I'll touch base again in a couple weeks..

Just for information downloading the Microsoft Debug Tools and the Symbols for WinXP provides the tools to analyze a crash dump. So cool!

More later..

[fortknight]

No luck. Still crashing, just not as often. Different crash dumps say ntoskrnl.exe and nvata.sys are probable causes. Now I'm not sure it's a driver problem at all.. haven't had much time to spend on it at any one time so it's taking me forever.. thanks for the help.. i guess i have a few more things to try? - uninstall the new driver, swap out memory, swap out the mobo? I hope not the latter..

[panicrooster]

Not sure what's going on with the serial ata driver or what the deal is with jmicron. Depends on what Asus recommends for that specific board but isn't the chipset made by Nvidia? I'd stick to Nvidia and their recommendations myself. But I believe you listed the latest nforce drivers for your board. Not many clues to go on beyond the Nvidia in the crash dumps and happens after the pc has been running awhile. I would simply start with making sure all of the proper drivers are installed and your system is being properly cooled. One question I would ask is what do you remember doing to it before the crashes started? Odd it would suddenly be the driver acting up after 5 months of working.

[fortknight]

Thanks for the reply, panicrooster. The crashes have been happening off and on since just one week after assembling the machine and loading the software back in early May as it turns out. So I guess something has been wrong from the start. Yes NVIDIA seems to have the latest good SATA driver for the board (along with several other drivers for the chipset) which I installed. Actually, they all come in the same package together, 8.43. I guess I should double check the video driver for ASUS EN6200LE. Oh, and the Gigabyte wireless. That's all I can think of driver-wise. I keep checking the temperature, runs about 38 C (CPU). Slightly higher for the mobo. Seems OK.. It would be great if it's just a driver problem..

[panicrooster]

Well, this isn't uncommon to build a pc and keep having problems from the start, many do. THe worst thing is it's really hard to pinpoint any action taken to cause this because EVERYTHING was just done to it during the setup. If you have been screwing with this since May when you built it and still no resolution I would highly consider reinstalling the OS and start over BUT I would do these things 1st.. reset the bios and make sure any adjustments made are reversed to defaults and specifically focus on making sure your cpu fsb and memory are like they should be, ram alone can cause tons of problems, and then recheck the drivers and there seems to be some discrepencies on the drivers you are trying. You did say your cpu is running at 38 C but that your mobo is running hotter. Usually it should be the other way around, unless that's actually a different temp. Some temp sensor app's can be confusing and/or vague. Not sure what to say beyond that but the driver issue stands out the most.

[Rich-M]

Well one thing I have trouble with here is a 15 minute ram test and that can't really help you. I would run memtest86 where you run 4 full tests and each has 8 passes which should take 3-4 hours.www.memtest.org
The other thing that bothers me is we have heard a lot of bad things about nvidia chipsets and Intel processors in the last year.
I would remove every single Nvidia driver from Add/Remove Programs and only install the chipset driver, nic driver and sm buss controller of "?" shows in Device Manager and nothing else. If you have any Asus software installed I would remove that also as both are notorious for conflict issues and make really useless and annoying software that almost never works right. I haven't used Asus boards in over 2 years because I sent back so many that were defective I got tired of it but I remember all kinds of issues with Asus monitoring software etc and other types of utilities....

[fortknight]

Thanks Rich-M, panicrooster.

I'll try the memtest next weekend.

The factory BIOS settings (except date/time/boot order) are what I'm using that includes a setting that says JMicron SATA controller - enabled. My assumption is that way the SATA drive is recognized without intervention - nice. Dev Mgr shows the NVIDIA nforce 430/410 SATA controller installed.

In Add/Remove Programs there are four NVIDIA drivers - 1) Display driver, 2) ethernet driver, 3) IDE driver, 4) nforce PCI System Management driver. I can't tell which one is a chipset driver. I figure I deep-six 1) and 3)?? and keep 2) and 4)??

I didn't install any ASUS software - didn't want more s/w crud to deal with. Another thing is the audio for the DVD was hardly audible so I installed a Media Player Codec Pack I got from download.com..

[Rich-M]

I would eliminate 3 and 4 and then leave 3 off as that one always screws things up and put back the chipset driver from driver cd as #4 is chipset driver.

[panicrooster]

If I was having that many problems from a setup build I'd reinstall Windows and try again. But make sure I'm installing exactly what the hardware requires. I'm not even sure what drivers are correct but the ones you just listed are all required. I'm still not even sure if you don't have an actual hardware incompatibility problem with that setup. Not sure if you ever did say what ram you are using.. that can cause all kinds of problems if incorrect, over the limits of the board or adjusted/altered in bios.. and that's if the ram is working properly. Hard to say, but a new install that fixes the problem will at least let you know your hardware is fine. If same problem after install, then good dang chance something isn't right with your hardware and/or settings in bios and it's leading to your crashes. But at the same time the drivers your fooling with can cause crashes if incorrect. I'd lean toward fresh install.