Official GIGABYTE Forum

Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups

absic

  • *
  • 5815
  • 529
  • Never give up; Never surrender!
    • Bandcamp
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #15 on: December 07, 2010, 02:57:15 pm »
Hi,

No you don't really need to do that just disable the basic things. At this stage all we are trying to do is find out exactly where the problem lies. I think it could be with the HDD, as I mentioned before but, it really is a process of elimination.

The reason I feel it is more likely to be a hard drive issue is the fact that everything has passed all the tests you have thrown at them. Also the fact that you're not getting BSOD's rather that your system is freezing, also points towards this. If it were RAM or CPU then I would expect different symptoms.

The only times I have come across a system freezing, in the manner you describe, it has been either a hard drive problem,  power issue or a bad install of the OS. I believe your PSU is OK and also you have had the same problem despite installing different versions of Windows. The only thing that you haven't changed is the HDD. If the HDD is locking up or failing then it would exhibit this "freezing" of windows, because the OS is waiting for the disk and is unable to progress because that access isn't occurring.

If, after you have re-flashed BIOS you are still getting the problem then the next thing would be to look and see if there is a firmware update for your Samsung drive or try a different make.

Remember, when all else fails a cup of tea and a good swear will often help! It won't solve the problem but it will make you feel better.

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #16 on: December 07, 2010, 03:02:10 pm »
Ok, will do that and get back with the results although it could take some time before i'm able to tell if it made a difference.

Thanks for all the support!

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #17 on: December 07, 2010, 06:15:30 pm »
I found this after i read about your suggestion to update the FW for my HDD, although this a page for Linux but the symptoms are the same:

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Known_issues#Samsung_HD501LJ_may_freeze

Maybe this could be something?? But i guess that this symptom should have been present in my previous system also, which it wasn't,  since i reused this disk in this new system??
« Last Edit: December 07, 2010, 06:19:27 pm by Ettan »

absic

  • *
  • 5815
  • 529
  • Never give up; Never surrender!
    • Bandcamp
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #18 on: December 07, 2010, 06:27:58 pm »
Just because something works OK on one system doesn't automatically mean it will work on another one.
If your previous system was based on a motherboard from a different manufacturer or a different chipset that could be enough to make something work differently. That's why there are things such as software, BIOS and Firmware updates.
Remember, when all else fails a cup of tea and a good swear will often help! It won't solve the problem but it will make you feel better.

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2010, 07:31:35 pm »
Samsung does not release firmwares for their HDDs..I'm thinking of ordering a new disk, even if it is not the Samsung disk that is the problem it never hurts to have a lot of diskspace.  :)

I'm thinking of ordering this HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 64MB 2TB

Any opinions or maybe someone can recommend a better one?

absic

  • *
  • 5815
  • 529
  • Never give up; Never surrender!
    • Bandcamp
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2010, 07:55:14 pm »
I wouldn't use this kind of drive as there can be issues with "Green" or "Energy Saving" HDD's especially if used as a boot drive. These are better for storage use only.

I'm using a Western Digital Caviar Black SATA3 640 GB HDD as my boot drive but I also have a couple of Hitachi Deskstar HDD's
( http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-hitachi-deskstar-0f10383-7k2000c-sata-3gb-s-7200rpm-32mb-cache-89-ms-ncq-oem ) which have proved pretty good and although I now use them as storage drives they have been reliable as Boot drives and also in RAID0.
Remember, when all else fails a cup of tea and a good swear will often help! It won't solve the problem but it will make you feel better.

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #21 on: December 07, 2010, 08:09:31 pm »
Ok, i'll order this one:

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 64MB 640GB

absic

  • *
  • 5815
  • 529
  • Never give up; Never surrender!
    • Bandcamp
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #22 on: December 07, 2010, 08:19:11 pm »
Yes, that's the same model I have been using for some time now without problems.
Remember, when all else fails a cup of tea and a good swear will often help! It won't solve the problem but it will make you feel better.

geekyadz

  • 197
  • 14
  • In the land of the geeks
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #23 on: December 07, 2010, 08:53:27 pm »
Samsung does not release firmwares for their HDDs..I'm thinking of ordering a new disk, even if it is not the Samsung disk that is the problem it never hurts to have a lot of diskspace.  :)
I feel I have to show you these links as a "last ditch" effort before you buy a new HDD:

http://files.hddguru.com/download/Firmware%20updates/Samsung/ or here: http://www.firmwarebase.com/index.php?act=category&id=5
« Last Edit: December 07, 2010, 08:57:20 pm by cchaos »
Nothing to see here, move along....

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #24 on: December 07, 2010, 11:47:32 pm »
Hi and thanks for the links. I could not find a specific FM for my HDD so i have no ordered the above mentioned HDD and as soon as it arrives i will reflash my BIOS and reinstall my system and then hopefully i'll finally have a stable system.

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #25 on: December 10, 2010, 06:51:39 pm »
Hi again,

I have no installed my new WD HDD and removed the old Samsung drive. After the installation i've done the following:

1) Reflashed the F7 BIOS according to the guide here at the forum: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2441.0.html
2) After the reflash i altered the following items:

Standard CMOS Features
Disable the Floppy Drive Option

Advanced BIOS Features
Disable the Full Screen LOGO
Set your Graphic Card Priority to PEG

Integrated Peripherals
Set the Onchip SATA-Controllers to Native IDE
Disable the Serial Port

PC Health Status
Disable the Smart Fan Controls

3) Reinstalled Win XP Pro eng 32-bit
4) Re-Installed the drivers
5) Updated Win XP all the way to SP3
6) Installed some software like, AVG Anti-virus free ed and ZA FW free.

Everything went fine without any problems. Now it's just wait and see while keeping the fingers crossed.

bytheway_r

  • 271
  • 21
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #26 on: December 10, 2010, 10:12:24 pm »
The MB arrived today and I'm almost finished with putting together this old/new PC.

Anyway, everything went smoothly and my board ( bios F3 ) had no problems with Samsung 500GB F3 HDD working in AHCI mode ( Samsung HD502HJ ). Also, something I've figured out earlier, this particular board has normal RAM voltage. Set = reported and real. I wonder what's causing some of Gigabyte's boards to have this problem.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2010, 10:38:40 pm by bytheway_r »

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #27 on: December 11, 2010, 07:03:13 pm »
Sound great and hopefully it will work for me to with this new WD disk.

Ettan

  • 17
  • 0
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #28 on: December 21, 2010, 12:18:21 am »
Hi all i'm back again!

I have now been running my computer for a week, although it haven't been powered on as much as i hoped to but anyways i have not seen any of these systems halts since i swapped to the WD HDD.

There was one system halt but i think that it were related to some application rather than to my initial problem and think that becasue even though i could not click on anything i could still move my mouse etc and wake the system from the screensaver so the system responded.

So i'm starting to feel very optimistic about this. I'll give my system one more week before i see this case as closed.

Dark Mantis

  • *
  • 18405
  • 414
  • 10typesofpeopleoneswhoknow binaryandoneswhodont
    • Dark Mantis
Re: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P & AMD Phenomen II X3 720BE system freezez/lockups
« Reply #29 on: December 21, 2010, 05:18:42 pm »
Nice Christmas present. ;D
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy