Almost thought I forgot how to build PCs!

[ybrew]

My new sage server has been up and running for about 2 weeks.
And it's been nothing but trouble. It's been rebooting at least 4-5 times a week. Never knew what the problem was. Just when I went to look at the server, it was stuck at boot-up with no bootable devices found. A quick power-off/power-on fixed the problem.

Today it finally did it while I was watching TV and I was able to see the blue-screen and get the codes during the memory dump.

It's blue-screening with an atapi.sys error. Pretty common from what I've seen.
All the data drives are SATA with the exception of the boot disk, but that's been replaced soon.
It was frustrating as hell because I didn't know what was causing it and there was nothing in the event viewer. But very relieved now that I finally was able to see the blue screen as it happened.

I've been loving the server other than the BSD.

[waltraud]

You can switch off the automatic reboot in System -> Advanced -> Startup & Recovery.

The PC will not reboot and just hang at the BSOD.

[doc]

I've had lots of stability problems when mixing sata and ide drives.

I have an xp3200 with 2 ide drives thats very very stable.

I have an x2 5600 that has a sata2 drive that is very very stable.

Move the ide drives to the x2 5600 and bang crash wallop. Take the sata2 drive out and its fine.

I know how you feel!

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by ybrew

It's blue-screening with an atapi.sys error.

Make sure you don't have any "Enhanced ATAPI" nonsense enabled in the BIOS...

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Make sure you don't have any "Enhanced ATAPI" nonsense enabled in the BIOS...

will check that tonight.

But this really is temporary. I always planned to make this full sata.
Didn't realize there were incompatibilities. I'd been happy with my xp2600 for many years and lost track of researching parts. And having a 5 year old messed i lost time to play with this stuff.

Hopefully i'll get another sata drive in there in the next week or so, possibly sooner.

[stevech]

XP Pro here has SATA 2 RAID1 as boot and an IDE. No issues

[ybrew]

got my sata drive on order.
I've got a 160gb IDE in there, and decided to stick with a 160 sata. I want to try to keep my OS drive relatively 'bland/empty' so using a smaller drive is fine.

since I was getting an atapi.sys bsd, this should stop it.

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by stevech

XP Pro here has SATA 2 RAID1 as boot and an IDE. No issues

It SHOULD work. I just don't have the patience or time to get it working. Besides, that IDE drive will find a home in one of my other PCs.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by ybrew

since I was getting an atapi.sys bsd, this should stop it.

I thought ATAPI was more to do with optical drives rather than just IDE...

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I thought ATAPI was more to do with optical drives rather than just IDE...

I'm ignoring this response and instead focusing on Doc's response above.

[doc]

When I bought my mobo I did a bios update straight away. There have been 4 more updates in the last 5 months, but asus don't give you much info on what the updates are for.

I'll probably give that a go, then check the bios settings like Rick suggested for anything wierd that might look suspicious.

Failing that, I'll just buy some big sata2 drives, or wait for santa to get me some.

If only money grew on trees........

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by doc

When I bought my mobo I did a bios update straight away. There have been 4 more updates in the last 5 months, but asus don't give you much info on what the updates are for.

I'll probably give that a go, then check the bios settings like Rick suggested for anything wierd that might look suspicious.

Failing that, I'll just buy some big sata2 drives, or wait for santa to get me some.

If only money grew on trees........

I've got an intel board (dg965wh). There were no bios updates as of 2 weeks ago.

I'll look in the bios when I get home, but I'm planning on pulling the ide drive regardless. That was my plan all along. This is simply speeding up my plan.

as far as recording drives, I've got 3 500gig sata2 drives for that (although one is bad and will be replaced soon). I'm considering adding a fourth. Not so much for the extra storage (although that's always nice) but it'll also be nice if no drive is having more than one stream written at a time. Occassionally I will record more than 4 things simultaneously but that's still kinda rare.

[ybrew]

Did a little reading on intel's site.
There is a bios setting I probably have wrong.

SATA mode - IDE or Raid.
I read the manual and it said if not using raid, set it to IDE.
But reading the website, it recommends using Raid mode even if you don't use raid, and make the system "RAID Ready".

I'll make that change and see if that helps.

Regardless - the ide is being removed for use elsewhere, but if I can get this to stop rebooting until the drive is replaced, my family would be happy.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by ybrew

I've got an intel board (dg965wh). There were no bios updates as of 2 weeks ago.

I recently built a system using Intel's dg965wh motherboard and had similar troubles. Shortly after installing, I received several BSOD. Unfortunately, I don't remember which file reported the error, but I can look back at the Minidump files and see that I was getting Stop error 8086 and Stop error CA. Perhaps one of these is the same Stop code that you are getting.

Anyway, I was able to remedy the situation by removing a bad SATA drive from the system (I was and still am using all SATA drives, no IDE). I was using 500 GB Western Digital drives that were either just bad or didn't want to play nice with the dg965wh board. I RMA'd the WD drives and replaced them with 500 GB Samsung drives. Haven't had any issues since.

Not sure if this helps, but thought I'd share my experience.

[ybrew]

all my sata drives are seagate. I have had one failed drive, but I'm thinking it may be a result of all the reboots.

[ybrew]

I replaced the 160g ide with a 160g sata2 today.

And also realized when I did that the jumper for all my sata drives was set to slow speed. I removed the jumpers from all the drives when I put the new drive in.

And I got my usb-uirt controlling two cable boxes now. And for the first time ever, I have zero recording conflicts

I'm considering adding a 3rd cable box, although I don't think I need another one just yet.

I'm hoping my system is finally stable now. I had practically zero reboots in the previous year and tons of reboots in the past 2 weeks. I'm hopeful though that that's all behind me now.

[SHS]

Some thing else make sure your using rigth speed mode which can be 1.5 with jumper or 3.0 with out jumper on all driver

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by SHS

Some thing else make sure your using rigth speed mode which can be 1.5 with jumper or 3.0 with out jumper on all driver

Yep. I had the jumper on. It's removed now.

Another thing to keep in mind too - One of my 500 gig drives failed. I'm getting it replaced, but I wouldn't be suprised if it failed because of a loose connection.

I've learned sata drive connections need to be triple-checked.