SATA2 + nForce + Bluescreen

[jamyskis]

Hi all,

I've been racking my brains trying to figure out what is wrong with my PC for the last three weeks. I was playing Need for Speed Most Wanted under WinXP when suddenly it just stuttered and crashed back to the desktop. I assumed this was a one-off problem and tried again. Crashed again. Tried playing it again, and this time it bluescreened - DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I automatically assumed memory, so I booted into GRUB (I have a triboot WinXP, WinVista, Ubuntu system) and ran Memtest86+. No problems there. I then proceeded to try a few other games. They didn't crash, but some (like Sega Rally) showed some unusual signs of stuttering (complete freezes, sound and all, of around 1-2 seconds).

I've excluded problems with the memory (tried different memory) and graphic card (tried 6600GT). The PC is not even a year old, so guarantee is still available on all of the parts.

The bluescreens are always related to nvata.sys so my guess it is that it's related to the motherboard, SATA2 cable or 500GB SATA2 drive. The problem is, how do I find out which? I don't have a spare cable or drive, and investing in one is pretty pointless...

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Edit: I should mention that the Bluescreen behaviour is the same under XP and Vista, and Ubuntu also regularly freezes up. So it's not software.

Edit 2: I should also mention that I have run HUTIL on the drive (the Samsung drive diagnostics program) several times and it has found absolutely nothing. Also, Windows BSOD's on me when I'm copying large amounts of data.

 

[Quick69GTO]

Nvidia is having problems with their drivers at the moment (especially under Vista).
You may want to try an older version of nvidia drivers or use the drivers from the video card CD.
You may also want to check for updates for the game or their forums for known problems.

 

[jamyskis]

Nvidia is having problems with their drivers at the moment (especially under Vista).
You may want to try an older version of nvidia drivers or use the drivers from the video card CD.
You may also want to check for updates for the game or their forums for known problems.

Hi,

First of all, thanks for your answer.

I've tried both NVIDIA's own nForce drivers on their homepage and without the SATA driver. Same result both ways, with the difference being that without NVIDIA's own driver, nvata.sys isn't mentioned in the bluescreen.

As far as NFS:MW is concerned, I had been playing version 1.3 with no problems for a few months, and it's only in the last three weeks that the problems have been occurring.

 

[headcrabCAKE]

i just found this on a product rpely on dabs.com i dunno what hardware u have so here goes

A Note for anyone having blue screen issues with this board - its probably due to the Nvidia drivers not liking SATA DVD Drives - Mine was blue screening all over the place and I was about to RMA it - doing some research it appears that current Nvidia drivers have an issue with all 780i boards using SATA DVD Drives - I swapped for a EIDE DVD and it cured the problem - you cant use SATA DVD with this board currently - waiting for a Driver update before I can put my SATA DVD`s back in there - this does NOT effect SATA Hardrives thank goodness.