Groonx

That was a logical partition in an extended series that occupies the entire hard drive. I removed all the data I wanted to keep in Drive Management, selected "remove partition" which then resulted in that area being designated by Windows as "Free Space". I didn't realize there could be anything operating in free space. The closest I have seen to that is when my brain is attempting to operate in free space, as it has often been required to do of late. Then I immediately created a new partition there, which I wanted to format. I had to restart the computer first. It didn't say so; I just thought I'd try that, and it worked. (Later it seemed strange to me, too, that there was no advisory saying a restart was required, because XP loves to give popups to that effect.) Maybe in the past I have reformatted the partition and then removed it, although that wouldn't seem right. Of course it doesn't matter at all; I have no problem with doing a restart. I was puzzled because I didn't remember that happening before, and I've done it so many times. Now that I think of it, those "many times" were likely with XP 32. Perhaps there is a difference between XP 64 and XP 32 procedure there, although Black Viper doesn't mention that. Tanagers, for those who come later to this thread, are birds. The Tanagra is a tropical family, and only a few of its very bright-coloured members go north in the summer to nest; most remain in their tropical paradises. Im Europe and North America, if you are interested in escaping your computer constraints for awhile, you likely have a few hundred species of birds to see outside your back door; yes, even in the cities. Their voices just come to you along the way, so in waking in the morning, you recognize a dozen or maybe two dozen species from your pillow, and you know them like hearing your friends' voices on the telephone. These are valuable gems in all of our lives, not just to give us a change from computer-consciousness, but also to take us into realms that were here millions of years before any human being. I wish happiness and love and learning to everyone for 2009. Carson Vancouver

I'm going to end this thread, because it is too cumbersome with unanswered questions and such. I think I'll take my computer back to the building stage. I can retain my important data on safe partitions or DVDs, while I take off every vestige of Windows. I have installed xp32 so many times, and I have never had problems like these. I think, as I've said several times, that my SATA drivers may be wrong or incomplete for the system. I intend to set up the simplest rendition of my basic XP disks that I can, adding only SATA to them. But I have one last question: why do I find "the media is write-protected"? It seems to be the final curse. This morning, using a different XP in a different hard drive, using Disk Management I deleted a partition which had another XP on it. Then I created a new partitition in that very same location, but when I went to format that new partition, I was stopped with a popup telling me the media was write-protected. Is that just Microsoft having fun? Were they simply curious as to whether I would then take a baseball bat to the whole system? I did get around it. I restarted the computer, and I was then able to carry out the format. Those write-protections used to follow the memory dumps I was getting a week ago, although I have not had any of those for a few days now. No blue screens at all. Anyway, please answer me abou why that format would have been disallowed like that—even though there was no problem in deleting the partition itself and replacing it. Yes, it was a logical partition in an extended series. Then I'll end this thread. And thanks very much, everyone, for all your help.

Hi, Jaclaz, I really appreciate all your help. My registry, in the places you mention, reads as follows (although the real registry is sure a lot more neat & tidy): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk (Default) REG_SZ (value not set) AutoRunAlwaysDisable REG_MULTI_SZ Brother RemovableDisk(U) DependOnGroup REG_MULTI_SZ SCSI miniport DisplayName REG_SZ Disk Driver ErrorControl REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1) Group REG_SZ SCSI Class ImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ system32\DRIVERS\disk.sys Start REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) Tag REG_DWORD 0x00000002 (2) Type REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1) "You will see that disk.sys is the "SCSI miniport" driver that is used to acces the devices that you can see in:" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk\Enum (Default) REG_SZ (value not set) 0 REG_SZ SCSI\Disk&Ven_ST350032&Prod_OAS&Rev_SD15\4&2765364e0&000000 1 REG_SZ SCSI\Disk&Ven_ST350032&Prod_OAS&Rev_SD15\4&2765364e0&000100 Count REG_DWORD 0x00000002 (2) NextInstance REG_DWORD 0x00000002 (2) "OR, as it seems probable by now, something somehow interferring with the "normal" behaviour of the driver, like the CD/DVD-ROM, which share the same cable/controller but however use another driver:" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom (Default) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .REG_SZ . . . . . . . . . (value not set) AutoRun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000001 (1) AutoRunAlwaysDisable . . . . . . REG_MULTI_SZ . . . . . NEC MBR-7 NEC MBR-7.4 PIONEER CHANGR DRM-1804X PIONEER CD-ROM DRM-6324X PIONEER CD-ROM DRM-624X TORiSAN CD-ROM CDR_C36 DependOnGroup . . . . . . . . . . REG_MULTI_SZ . . . . . . SCSI miniport DisplayName . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_SZ . . . . . . . . . . CD-ROM Driver ErrorControl . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000001 (1) Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_SZ . . . . . . . . . . SCSI CDROM Class ImagePath . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_EXPAND_SZ . . . . . system32\DRIVERS\cdrom.sys Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000001 (1) Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000002 (2) Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000001 (1) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom\Enum (Default) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_SZ . . . . . . . . . . (value not set) 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_SZ . . . . . . . . . . SCSI\CDRom&Ven_PIONEER&Prod_DVD_RW_DVR-212D&Rev_1.24\4&2765364e&0&000200 Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000001 (1) NextInstance . . . . . . . . . . . . REG_DWORD . . . . . . . 0x00000001 (1) The two identical-twin Seagate Barracuda SATA hard drives show up there as ST350032. At the moment, my PATA hard drive is disconnected. — I didn't know that I owned anything built by either Brother or NEC. On the back of my box, I have a USB keyboard plugged in, as well as a sending device for a wireless USB mouse. PCI Cards: — Those 2 USBs are both on USB slots that are part of a USB PCI-card. — I have one other PCI-card, which is a wireless network adapter (which I don't need, but it would allow my desktop to function wirelessly). There are no USB devices on the front ports at the moment. (Jaclaz, there is one other anomaly I have noticed on my machine. When I insert a USB memory stick or a USB digital camera stick, XP-64 tells me it would like to do a restart to install the appropriate driver. It works without my doing that, but I have never had messagers like that on XP-32.) I don't think I can get you a memory dump file now, because I am not getting any blue screens now. _____________________________________ However, on a cold start, I press the front power button, and the monitor comes on but then goes into power-saving mode. Meanwhile, the fans turn in the box and the power button remains illuminated, but there are no sounds for about 2 minutes. Then I hear be-BEEP! (as 2 tones), and the computer comes up. It seems to take a fairly long time to load Windows, but it operates normally until the next full power off. Restarts operate normally. —This behaviour is the same whether the PATA cable is in use or not. _____________________________________ Here is another clue—I am sure. But I haven't been able to interpret it: —Today I bought several new USB sticks. I always format USB sticks as NTFS, using the free hp utility (via Google). When I placed my new USB stick in the computer, XP-64 said it recognized the new hardware, but a system restart was required for the drivers to be properly installed. (I think that is very strange.) I did the restart. Then I tried to use the hp utility to format the USB stick. It refused, saying it was write-protected. So I went into the stick and wrote a textfile and placed it on the stick with no trouble. Also, I copied boot.ini and saved the copy, without any read/write problems. — However, when I tried again to reformat the USB stick, no, it was write-protected. So I removed the USB stick and put it in a different computer (xp32) and it used the same hp utility to reformat the same stick as NTFS; no trouble at all. —Is there any possibility that I have made a terrible mess of my file system on XP-64, and that is affecting the whole computer? Is it possible for files on Windows to have a disruptive effect on the very first things a computer does on startup? There are so many variables that I am very confused. — Jaclaz, you said that 5 days ago. Guys, just imagine for a moment that when I nLited my ASCI drivers, I did something wrong. Somewhere earlier in this thread I mentioned I was worried that I had installed the x64 driver only. (nLite warns us that we should not install multiple drivers, so I selected one of two that showed as available: the driver for 64-bit. I thought, but I might have been wrong, that it covered everything a 64-bit system required. But maybe I really was supposed to select BOTH the x64 and the x32 driver that showed there, side by side, in the selection box?????) — Supposing that was a crucial error, might it have these effects? The entire system is running in SATA mode, as SATA—not as IDE. So this afternoon I am setting the BIOS back to SATA AS IDE, to see what happens. Pretty chaotic, huh, Jaclaz? I certainly agree with you that a read-out of a dump would be a far more systematic way to figure this out. But there are no memory dumps now. Oh, by the way (to answer a question of yours), whatever went wrong before was seemingly in my making some kind of error in following the procedure. I made the registry changes, and I had everything set up, but after the experiment, I had only the file I mentioned at the time. The results, such as they were, are detailed above.

The 4th pin is probably a PWM pin that allows you to adjust the fan speed from Windows. Otherwise you can do it in the BIOS or sometimes physically inside the case. [Pulse-width modulation (PWM) allows for information or control according to the way the dog is barking.] In the BIOS (and maybe also via software that acts between you and the BIOS), you can set your fans to S.M.A.R.T. or not. SMART sounds good, but sometimes SMART ain't so smart. It all depends on your settings. You could enable SMART and enable an alarm or system shut-down, and if you messed things up you could create a situation like this: — The fan is SMART, and only turns as required. When the system is cool, the fan might not turn at all. — The system is SMART, and recognizes a fan that fails to operate. — There is a fan not turning (our first item here) and so either a siren sounds or the whole system shuts down. The remedy might be to go into the BIOS and in HEALTH see what you can see about CPU temperature and about SYSTEM temperature. If they are around 30º, that is very cool. If they are around 80, you have a serious temperature problem. But I would look right in the BIOS, because software might report the sensors incorrectly. I would trust what I see in the BIOS. Okay, once you feel confident that your temperatures are just fine, then you can adjust your fan controls (in the BIOS) accordingly. If you turn OFF the SMART control to either of your System or CPU fans, you will cause that fan to turn at full speed, all the time. That might be a perfectly good way of doing things, actually. — Is it too loud for you? Then you might not like it that way. — Will it reduce the life of the fan? Not necessarily at all [because the fan might be built to spin at full speed as default, which, in that case, would be its most efficient speed]. — Will it use more energy/electricity? Yes, but negligibly. (Fans are among our most efficient electrical gadgets.) I hope there is something in there that is useful to you.

Okay, thanks. Cluberti said the other day: and I recalled that as a Stop 50, instead of a Stop 0x50. Well, back to my tanager analogy, if you referred to Tanagra, I would still be able to make that leap. Not so in the computer world, I suppose. By the way, I know you love that "litany", and I know you are trying to be helpful, and so is it. But the litany badly fails some of the primary rules of communications theory. It assumes, for just one example, that the novice explaining the problem will not "helpfully" write three pages of details in trying to conform to what the litany asks. My own background, my friend, is pure science; the university courses I instructed included both communications and applied logic. — If I knew enough to ask you questions precisely as you would like, I would have to know as much as you; and I would not be here asking you — The First Rule of Communications must always be: What the listener/student fails to comprehend is the communicator/instructor's fault—not the listener/student's fault Yes, I photographed blue screens like that one. I thought you required the complete dump record, which I failed to get. Technical Information: STOP: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFAE01C772839, 0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFFADF2F5B1290, 0x0000000000000005) disk.sys -- Address FFFFFADF2F5B1290 base at FFFFFADF2F5AD000, DateStamp 45d69708 Beginning dump of physical memory. . . .

Hi, Jaclaz, As I said before, apart from knowing that all of them being Stop 50, I was not able to carry out the complete crash dump when I attempted it. I posted that above. Yes, I did manage to stop the automatic reboot, so the blue screen was readable. Maybe you are telling me that the information I needed was displayed right there on that screen. But I wouldn't know. If I did, I would not have been asking. I think you steered me to that the other day: people ask questions because they don't know the answers. I can teach you how to recognize tanagers, but if you don't know what a tanager IS, then I am not being very helpful to you, am I? In any case, there are no blue screens now. The voltage setting for the RAM was increased to fit the RAM specifications. However, as you said, there is more to it than that. On a cold start, there is a 2-minute (silent) delay after the power button is pressed. The monitor waits in a power-save mode. After about two minutes, there is a 2-tone be-BEEP! and the system comes up with everything seeming to work just fine. I can use all the analysis apps, and none are showing any errors. But the 2-minute wait is wrong, and so is that double-beep. I have looked on Gigabyte's POST error codes, but not found it yet.

Update Christmas Day _______________ For those following this thread, at this point infiniti connected with me via chat, and he walked me through various possibilities related to his expertise in voltage and his familiarity with Gigabyte, high RAM, and other details. His instructions were invaluable, because I was having trouble proceeding when I felt I might do real physical damage to my new system. At this moment, I have all 3 hard drive on and working just fine. The various analysis programs are also working perfectly. The "groans" I described at startup, which were like this: grrrr . . . . grrrr . . . . grrrr . . . . grrrr . . . . have ceased. Basically the system is working ALMOST exactly right. What is missing from the system is the CD-RW, which was Master (and later Slave) on the IDE cable shared by the PATA hard drive. I had used the CD-RW to play and to burn disks (which it did flawlessly) in just the past few days. But it was producing those startup "groans". We did not know whether the CD-RW was faulty, or whether the system was faulty and unable to accommodate the CD-RW. I'll be testing it out further on an older PC. Infiniti had me adjust the voltage in the BIOS so that the System is running at [Normal] voltage, but the DDR2 voltage control is +0.3 volts to be 2.100, equal to this RAM's specified requirements. I'm expecting there will be more for me to find out, still. But it's a new system, and the first one I have ever built. Maybe I'll be fine-tuning it for the next six months. My only real complaint is about myself—I find that my moods go WAY up or down according to computer failures and successes. I'm not bipolar, but the computer must be an extension of some part of my personality, because I just can't distance myself from the latest bad or good results. Fortunately, with infinite help, I'm doing all right. You know, as the song says: "with a little help from my friends".

I've just returned, and in a few minutes I'll see about getting that complete memory dump. However, I'm not sure exactly where I'll upload it, assuming it is a big file. At present: — Both times I started the computer by a cold power-on today (this morning and now), I heard 10 or more of those single monotone "groans" from the CD-RW, as it was doing before the voltage was adjusted yesterday. Eventually I did a Ctrl-Alt-Del to try again, but this time I heard a single very long beep—something new. After a moment or two, it repeated: a single long beep. — I didn't like that, so I shut the power off. Power ON again: everything okay. — I had read that some BIOSes would change power settings they didn't like back to default, so I checked the BIOS just now. But it still has the adjusted voltage settings: DDR2 +0.2V = 2.000V Northbridge +0.1V = 1.200V Okay: F10 to single short beep POST (good) and into Windows. Seemed a bit slow. However, the PATA hard drive remains connected and working, so I am really in an improved position over the way things were originally. Having checked this thread, I am now about to try for the (guaranteed) crash and complete memory dump, which I hope I'll be able to duly report back to you. Here I go. ============================== — First is set the Registry value to 0, as jaclaz indicated, to disable the automatic restart from the blue screen. I used Everest. When I received the blue screen, I held down the Right Ctrl key and pressed Scroll Lock twice. — "Beginning dump of physical memory" — "Dumping physical memory to disk" It took maybe 2 minutes. THEN it did an automatic reboot into Windows. (So I assumed the registry value of 0 was not intended to hold it beyond the dump.) — But when Windows was on, there was a second blue screen. This surprised me. It counted to 100 again, all by itself. This time, when it reached 100, I held down the Right Ctrl key while I pressed Scroll Lock twice. I thought maybe I had done something wrong the first time. — Nothing happened. I pressed Ctrl Alt Del. Nothing happened. — Hard power off at PSU. — Waited 20 seconds — Power On I heard a "two-tone" du-dip POST beep. — Windows booted okay — I waited; absolutely hands off Another blue screen; like always, a Stop 50. This was the 3rd blue screen since I purposely had initiated what I thought would be just one. — "Dumping physical memory to disk" to a count of 100 Power Off Disconnect the IDE hard drive. — Why? Because it seemed very likely that there was no other way to get into Windows. Power On du-doop 2-tone POST beep. System booted up to Windows. I waited for a time, hands off. When all seemed okay, I looked for a memory.dmp file. No such file. I asked Agent Ransack to check the whole computer. It found no such file anywhere on the system. — BUT, there IS an i2api_debug.log in the C: \ root of some 11,446 kb. Oh. And C:\adplus is empty. I await further instructions. Yes, I have the 11,446 kb log, but as I said last night and earlier today, I'm unsure how to upload it—if indeed that file is any good to you. jaclaz, I'm sorry that I have fallen off the tracks again. Actually, your earlier advice about following instructions missed the point. I'm trying; I'm trying. But as the advice given itself suggests, if these things were that straightforward to people like myself, we would not be here asking for help. I'm quite willing to accept that I must have done something wrong, as these results seem to me to be far, far away from what the instructions suggested. ____________________________ Edit # 2 At 3am, I am adding this ASIDE: When I attempted to use ASCI on this XP-64 install, I had a lot of trouble. Nothing seemed to work, until I made an nLite disk. In nLite, I was successful. However, there was one setting which confused me: just where you go to add in ASCI, nLite contains a warning against using multiple drivers. There were two drivers available to me there: one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. I would have selected both, but because of the warning, I considered the matter for a time and selected only the 64-bit driver. — This is a Gigabyte motherboard. For XP, that file is in Gigabyte's download under SBDrv >RAID7xx, and I think it is the AHCIx64.inf file there. However, nLite definitely showed two files in any case; a 32- and a 64-bit file, and (as I said) I chose just the one because of nLite's warning at the very same place. — I wasn't sure I was right about that. I am wondering now whether I should set the BIOS for all IDE-mode and see if that works. (By the way, for those who question my not just using IDE-mode anyway, well, I built the entire computer because I wanted to learn how to do it. I could have stayed with my old computer, which was terribly slow and outdated but which worked. Instead I made this my project for 2008, and I was darned if I was going to stop at ASCI, at the very very end of the project, because I didn't know how to do it.) — However, I realize that such wild, unguided, shot-in-the-dark experimentation as re-trying IDE-mode might be offensive to jaclaz and cluberti, who must be wondering why I cannot come up with something as simple as a memory.dmp file. I won't even mention that it is COLD in here, because the building manager thinks it should be—"put towels by the windows"—as the outside temperature has gone down to zero Celsius. So much for an $800 a month rental suite in Vancouver. Merry Christmas.

All advice well received. I find this morning that I must be away for much of the day; will recommence as soon as I return.

Cluberti, yes, I'll do that tomorrow. It looked for awhile as though the blue screens had vanished, as those associated with the third hard drive do seem to be a thing of the past. Now I have found that all 3 of SpeedFan, Everest, and Alex Nolan's Drive Manager—all of which monitor S.M.A.R.T. information—will cause the blue screens and automatic restarts. I'll use your technique to get a report. I have System SMART Fan Control disabled, as I like my rear case fan to stay at high speed all the time. When SMART was enabled, that fan would not even start with the computer. I guess it was too cool. The side panel of the case is still off, while I finish working with components inside, and the BIOS reports a system temperature of 37º and a CPU temperature of 30º. I tried enabling the SMART Fan Control, but Drive Manager wiped out the system anyway. I would not have expected it NOT to, as it would be a pretty stupid analysis app that crashed a system just because System SMART Fan Control was disabled. So there is something more to it than that. In the BIOS: Vcore = 1.392V DDR2 1.8V = 2.048V +3.3V = 3.392V +12V = 12.239V System Temperature = 37º C CPU Temperature = 30º C CPU Fan Speed = 771 RPM [This is a 120mm Scythe I use on the Xigmatex cooler, instead of the stock Xig fan.] CPU SMART Fan Control enabled. System Fan Speed= 1439 RPM [This is the Xigmatek fan, which I use as the rear case fan.] System SMART Fan Control disabled. In the case of Lavalys Everest, you can actually see that the app is reading SMART information at the moment the blue screen crash occurs. All of these recent crashes have been during "analysis scans". No other programs seem to be having any trouble at all, and the computer seems to be behaving very well. The third hard drive remains connected and functioning properly. The CD-RW on the same IDE cable is starting properly. If it were not for all 3 of these "analysis" apps causing crashes, I would not have any reason to think anything was wrong. So, more sophisticated and complete crash info tomorrow morning. ___________________________ [EDIT] I have done the registry work, and this is all set for a test in the morning. Two questions: — Following the instructions exactly, I've set up the pagefile for my 8GB of RAM as 8192 + 50 = total 8242 MB. This could be bigger. No problem with 8242, right? — Does anyone have a good idea for a place where I can upload the results? I'm thinking of doing it as a 7-Zip file. I would do it tonight, but it is past midnight, and I'm very tired. I'm better to do it when I'm wide awake. The crash itself is all too easily replicated. — Any preference? SpeedFan, Everest Home Edition, or Alex Nolan's Drive Manager? I'm thinking of Everest, because it takes the longest time to crash (by a couple of seconds), as it goes through a few things successfully.

Well, I installed SpeedFan okay, but when I pressed on the icon to try using it, I immediately got a blue screen again which went (very fast) into an automatic restart of the computer. I haven't had the guts to retry SpeedFan. Maybe tomorrow. I've never had that happen before, and I play with hundreds of software programs. Strange. At the moment, without making any changes, I still have SpeedFan installed but not in use, and I'm running a full AVG scan, a TuneUp Utilities maintenance scan, CCleaner, the Windows Disk Cleaner, and Firefox. All together, and they are doing fine. Maybe SpeedFan has some constraints. I'll read some more. I'm still happy anyway. __________________________ [EDIT:] So I tried a download of Lavalys EVEREST Home Edition 2.20. Same thing happened, exactly. I downloaded it and installed it; no problem. I got into it with no problem, either. But when I pressed on Computer/Summary to get EVEREST to check things out, I got another very fast blue screen and automatic reboot. Just like with SpeedFan, the system is working fine as long as I don't ask for an analysis. Something in the analysis, whether performed by SpeedFan or by EVEREST, is crashing the system. I've done zillions of analyses before, on all my systems. I'm very used to using analysis software. I wonder what is being tested that has such a violent reaction. It is as though the tests trigger something that can't tolerate being tested. By the way, CPU-Z seems to run fine. More tomorrow.

YOU GUYS. . . are SUPERLATIVE! Okay, it is evening, and I'm back from a long tiring walk downtown through fairly rare Vancouver snow. I was not planning on doing this until tomorrow, but, well. Anyway, please bear in mind that I have not done everything yet. I haven't recorded the crash dumps. Er—if there ARE to be any more crash dumps to record. Now, let's see. First I scored a point myself. When my computer starts up from a cold power on, it has—or had—the definite tendency to make up to a dozen quiet, monotone groans. More or less the way your stomach might in anticipation of starvation, but very much on a single tone. Each groan lasted a second or so; then there was a silence; then another groan. Meantime, the monitor waited on power-saving mode. It was a bit disturbing, but eventually the system would come up. With so many pieces of hardware in a small space, I didn't think I would be able to get my ear close enough to the offending piece. However, I tried, and I succeeded. I realized it was one of my two optical drives. So I opened the drive bay door in the front and started the system again. This time I could SEE that the green LED for—okay, c'mon, Guys: for WHICH optical drive??—t-h-i-n-k. . . for the CD-RW which is the Master on the same IDE cable on which the problematic HD is the Slave!!!!—I could see that that CD-RW's green LED was coming on repeatedly, or staying on (in truth I forget which, but it sure was NOT doing what it should have been doing). So I done good, huh? Okay, I felt my next move would be to replace that cable. It is a brand new, rolled-type IDE cable. However, I also felt that poor old infiniti, despite his name, would not be able to wait forever for me to make a move on my BIOS. So, merely out of kindness to his infinite patience, you understand, I entered the BIOS and I did exactly as I had been instructed, like this: 1. System Voltage Control: Change from [Auto] to [Manual] Northbridge: Change from Normal to +0.1V — Now the Northbridge showed 1.200V beside it. Make no other changes, and reboot into Windows. I thought the system came up a bit slowly—it seemed to—but it came up okay. The PATA hard drive remained disconnected. 2. Back to the BIOS: DDR2 Voltage Control: Change from [Normal] to +0.2V — Now it shows: DDR2 Voltage Control = 2.000V Northbridge Voltage Control = 1.200V CPU Voltage Control = Normal Normal CPU Vcore = 1.3500V Make no other changes. Save and reboot into Windows. It seemed to come up slowly again, but it came up okay. The PATA hard drive remained disconnected. 3. Power down. Attach the PATA hard drive. Power up. Strangely, for the first time ever, since I built this system several weeks ago, I did not see a verbose screen preceding the bootscreen. I had intended to look to see where I could eventually turn off the verbose display, but this time the machine went directly and very quickly into the bootscreen. To disambiguate, by verbose pre-bootscreen I mean a black screen covered from head to toe with lots and lots of white-lettered information about a ton of things I know nothing about. By bootscreen I mean a silhouette of a young lady swimming up toward the surface of a tropical sea. — Very quickly, faster than I'd ever seen things happen before, the system came up into Windows. With the PATA hard drive connected. WITHOUT a subsequent I'm-Outta-Here Boot Dump. This is very early in the game. I was so excited that I came here and wrote this right away. Maybe next time the whole thing will blow up. But maybe it won't. So I'm sending each one of you who helped me, a free Rolls Royce. I think it is the least—oh, PHOOEY. I forgot that I had promised the dog I'd buy some new dogfood for him. Well, gee, I'm sure you all realize that it is the THOUGHT that counts. After all, what would you have wanted with new Rolls Royces anyway? They are good for little more than trading for a house. Infiniti told me to spend more time on my system, and less time saying thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you, every one of you!! (I don't always follow advice.) _________________________________ [EDIT:] Following the above, I did another restart. Then I did a full power off/power on startup. — The verbose screen still precedes the silhouette of the lady swimming in the tropical sea. (Well, I only assume it is tropical, as she would appear to need not an overabundance of attire.) Maybe I simply didn't see the verbose screen that one time. — I get the strange feeling that some startups are rather slow, and some are very fast. I shall look into that, but honestly, I'm so happy I couldn't care less! — The third hard drive is attached and working flawlessly. — The empty-stomach monotone groans of the CD-RW are gone. All is quiet and serene. You know, I had always THOUGHT it seemed as though the system was lacking juice. I mean, "I knew that." I was just testing you. No; not so. It really did seem to be lacking power somehow, but our friend's infinite wisdom was what made it work. And also I learned a lot from all of you other guys, because next time I get a crash dump, I'll know what to do about it. Poor Infiniti. He kept on saying, over and over, in his quiet way: "Uh, say, uh, you really should adjust a few things in the BIOS, y'know." Infiniti, you deserve the right to say at least a dozen "I told you so"s, perhaps one a month all through 2009. But I am so very impressed with all of you. I wonder if you can imagine how much this means to me. It's my first self-built computer, and it is by far the nicest computer I've ever owned. Doggone it, I am very very very happy. P.S. — I'm 62.

Okay, I think I've made some progress here. (Please note that I shall not be back after this for 5-6 hours.) 1. Master and Slave jumpers now positioned as Master and Slave, rather than Cable Select. — As before, the PATA CD is Master, and the PATA HDD is Slave. 2. I attached the PATA HDD for the first time in a few days. I turned on the power but I kept my hands away from all keys for the duration: On startup, it did exactly what it did before. After a minute or two of what looked like a stable Windows screen, there was a blue screen and an automatic restart. I let it continue into Windows for a second time. Again, after a minute or two, without my touching any keys, there was a (second) blue screen and there would have been a (second) automatic restart, but I turned the power off while it was down. 3. These are the first instances of the blue screen since I ran the system with the PATA HDD connected a few days ago. 4. The Event Log showed no warnings or errors. However, I found the following, extracted from a much longer series of events: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xfffffadfc82af9cb, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffadf2f5ad290, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: E:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini122208-02.dmp. 5. Here is more of the Event Log information around that time, with the bugcheck message: First Blue Screen 11:44 am :46 The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the running state. 11:44 am :52 The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the stopped state. 11:44 am :59 Tcpip The system detected that network adapter \DEVICE\TCPIP_{F41AA613-DA59-4D8E-AC53-B0CDE0EFCD86} was connected to the network, and has initiated normal operation over the network adapter. 11:46 am :54 eventlog Microsoft ® Windows ® 5.02. 3790 Service Pack 2 Multiprocessor Free. 11:46 am :54 eventlog The Event log service was started. 11:46 am :55 DCOM The COM sub system is suppressing duplicate event log entries for a duration of 86400 seconds. The suppression timeout can be controlled by a REG_DWORD value named SuppressDuplicateDuration under the following registry key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Ole\EventLog. 11:46 am :55 Save Dump The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xfffffadf84841fe3, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffadf2f5ad290, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: E:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini122208-01.dmp. 11:46 am :40 IPSec — [NOTE: This one displays as here, out of time sequence] The IPSec Driver is starting in Bypass mode. No IPSec security is being applied while this computer starts up. IPSec policies, if they have been assigned, will be applied to this computer after the IPSec services start. 11:46 am :53 Application Popup Application popup: : \SystemRoot\System32\ATMFD.DLL failed to load 11:46 am :55 Tcpip The system detected that network adapter \DEVICE\TCPIP_{F41AA613-DA59-4D8E-AC53-B0CDE0EFCD86} was connected to the network, and has initiated normal operation over the network adapter. 11:47 am :11 AeLookup Svc The Application Experience Lookup service started successfully. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Second Blue Screen 11.52 am :03 Save Dump The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xfffffadfc82af9cb, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffadf2f5ad290, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: E:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini122208-02.dmp. compared with the other: 11:46 am :55 Save Dump The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000050 (0xfffffadf84841fe3, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffadf2f5ad290, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: E:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini122208-01.dmp. @Jaclaz, I am afraid that what I have been calling a crash has been a hang or else an automatic restart following a bugcheck. Er—I apologize if my unskilled vernacular is once again at fault. 6. RAM and BIOS I have looked but not touched anything, so far: "Intelligent Tweaker" DRAM Configuration DDRII Timing Items [Auto] [Manual] Auto — under SPD and Auto: CAS # Latency = 5T RAS to CAS R/W Delay = 5T Row Precharge Time = 5T Minimum RAS Active Time = 15T System Voltage Control [Auto] [Manual] DDR2 Volt Control = Normal [+0.1, +0.2, +0.3] Northbridge Volt Control = Normal [+0.1, +0.2, +0.3] CPU Voltage Control = Normal [1.6000V to 1.9000V, in increments] Normal CPU Vcore = 1.3500V 7. Hard Disk Priority is set as: SCSI-0 ST3500320AS — This is my first 500GB SATA drive SCSI-1 ST3500320AS Ch0 S ST 3320620A — This is my older 320GB PATA drive, whose presence coincides with the blue screens

Jaclaz, that is great! I've stumbled across the Event Viewer from time to time, but from now on, I can see it will be a useful tool—thanks to your pointing it out for me. (I've made a shortcut from Sys32 so I can go straight to it in my own System group.) I've been scrolling through mine since I read your last post. Unfortunately I didn't record the exact times of the crashes. Most of the various logs are very quiet. In the System section, I see a few of these warnings: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts. There are a few of these errors, usually in pairs, as though I were attempting something twice. Following the blue screens, the system would create a no-write state which I had trouble with. Maybe my attempts to write to read-only files caused these (but I'm just guessing): The machine-default permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {555F3418-D99E-4E51-800A-6E89CFD8B1D7} to the user NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE SID (S-1-5-19). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool. There is almost nothing else that displays as a warning or error. (Some system restores warned me that I'd disconnected my PATA drive so it was missing from the system.) In any event, from now on I can see this will be a valuable tool. Thanks again.

You have both been very helpful. I'll be following all your instructions carefully. More information: RAM DDR2-1000 CAS Latency = CL5 dual channel As noted by infiniti, there are 2 kits @ 2x2 each, total 4 sticks @ 2GB each; in total they take up all 4 slots, total 8 GB performance rating by G.Skill is "Performance", middle in G.Skill's series which are called Gaming, High Performance, Performance, Mainstream, Normal The CPU runs this RAM as DDR2-800. CRASH DUMP TEXTS from the BSoD crashes—I thought of this when you mentioned the Event Viewer, jaclaz: [01]OS Major Version:5, Minor Version:2, Build Number:3790, Platform Id:2 [01]wManualLangID = 24951 [01]LangFile_Manual = E:\DOCUME~1\Carson\LOCALS~1\Temp\English.bin [03] wInitLang = 1033 [03] LangFile_Auto = E:\DOCUME~1\Carson\LOCALS~1\Temp\English.bin —I received this identical message at least twice, but I had no idea how to interpret it. I have now run the computer for 3-4 days without the PATA drive connected, and I am definitely free of problems at startup.* So now I can say that the problem is definitely with the connection of the older PATA hard drive, which itself works perfectly. Today I am learning about RAM and setting things in my BIOS. I'll let you both know my progress and results. Again, thank you very much indeed. ____ * Well, apart from a strange tendency for the computer to hesitate at the very first press of the power on button, repeating a particular sound half a dozen times, as though it is having trouble persuading something to work; this is long before the BIOS. I suspect a case wiring problem, but so far I've found nothing; all wires are tight and properly placed. But, er—the restart button does not function, even though its wire is also tight and properly placed in the mobo. (I expect these things to be minor hardware fix-ups that I have to troubleshoot; I hope so.)