Troubling computer crash

[Vius]

During raid tonight, I had a pretty terrible computer crash where the computer just completely blackscreened like there was some kind of driver error and went unresponsive. I hit the reset button thinking it would reboot it, but instead, nothing happened. I unplugged the PSU for a few seconds and waiting, but rebooting again didn't register my monitor or my USB devices until I finally saw a screen with something like "could not boot into boot1 after 1 attempt, retrying..." and then it booted up.

What's going on? And how do I fix it?

Here's my computer specs:

CPU: Core i5 2500K LGA 1155
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Pro3
Memory: G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz Blue
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Hard Drive: Crucial M4 128GB Solid State Drive
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card
Case: NZXT Tempest 210 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair 500W ATX12V Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

[DeltrusDisc]

From this site: http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-St...-M4/td-p/74870

Do this and tell me what firmware revision your Crucial m4 128GB is running (assuming you have Win7 on your SSD, of course.):

To check which firmware revision you currently have on your drive, follow the steps below in Windows:

1) Click on the Start menu
2) Open Control panel> System> Hardware
3) Select device manager
4) Expand disk drives
5) Right click on the drive and select properties
6) Select details tab > select hardware lds from the drop down menu and the firmware version will be displayed towards the right hand side.

[Vius]

I am using Firmware version 309.

[DeltrusDisc]

Hmm, well you're on at least the firmware that fixed the 5,000~ hour bug and I doubt you've had it for that long, anyways.

Black screens of death are obnoxiously difficult to diagnose.

Is your PSU Corsair's CX version?

[Rawt]

During raid tonight, I had a pretty terrible computer crash where the computer just completely blackscreened like there was some kind of driver error and went unresponsive. I hit the reset button thinking it would reboot it, but instead, nothing happened. I unplugged the PSU for a few seconds and waiting, but rebooting again didn't register my monitor or my USB devices until I finally saw a screen with something like "could not boot into boot1 after 1 attempt, retrying..." and then it booted up.

What's going on? And how do I fix it?

Here's my computer specs:

CPU: Core i5 2500K LGA 1155
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Pro3
Memory: G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz Blue
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Hard Drive: Crucial M4 128GB Solid State Drive
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card
Case: NZXT Tempest 210 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair 500W ATX12V Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

Check and reseat ssd data and power cable. try moving it to another sata port on the mobo and use another power lead. if that fails to solve it, check for asrock mobo firmware upgrade and run any diagnostics that come with those boards.

[Eroginous]

Well, we need a lot more information. If you can, you need to run diagnostics to narrow down the problem. I'd start with a hard drive check, scan for errors. Use both the windows utility to check for data errors and a hard drive utility to check for hard drive errors.

[Vius]

Hmm, well you're on at least the firmware that fixed the 5,000~ hour bug and I doubt you've had it for that long, anyways.

Black screens of death are obnoxiously difficult to diagnose.

Is your PSU Corsair's CX version?

Yes, it is - a CX500. Here's the link to it on Newegg.

[DeltrusDisc]

Yes, it is - a CX500. Here's the link to it on Newegg.

Yeah, it is possible, (not saying this is definitely it but) that this could be the issue. The Corsair CX line isn't exactly top-notch or anything, and you may have been pulling more wattage than it felt like giving. I know it is a ludicrous idea and I am not even sure if it is probable, since your PC wouldn't pull much wattage at all, but weird shit happens.

I would also definitely recommend you do what Eroginous said, check to see whether your Windows is corrupted or anything.

How long have you had Win7 on your SSD in its current installation form?

[Vius]

I've had Windows7 installed since about early June this year. One thing I've noticed lately is sometimes I'll have "AMD driver has stopped responding" messages, or bluescreens/freezes where it SEEMS to be video card related. Could this be a problem requiring a new video card? I also have new RAM if that's needed.

I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic and it didn't find anything. Can you help me find other diagnostic tools to check things?

[Worgena]

You lost power some how and it might be the PSU like DD said. Try unplugging everything but your MB and reboot. Once booted, then power off again and plug everything back in. reboot and let the MB search for all devices again. that spike could have jarred the MB. It hopefully shouldn't happen again.

[DeltrusDisc]

I've had Windows7 installed since about early June this year. One thing I've noticed lately is sometimes I'll have "AMD driver has stopped responding" messages, or bluescreens/freezes where it SEEMS to be video card related. Could this be a problem requiring a new video card? I also have new RAM if that's needed.

I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic and it didn't find anything. Can you help me find other diagnostic tools to check things?

Next time you have one of these blue screens.... take a good quality picture of it so we can read the error code or write it down.

[Vius]

My most recent bluescreen had these two error codes on the same screen:

NMI: Parity check/Memory Parity Error
NMI: Channel Check/IOCHK

This bluescreen happened probably within a week ago, lately if I crash it's a complete freeze or a blackscreen or "AMD driver has stopped responding."

[Rawt]

My most recent bluescreen had these two error codes on the same screen:

NMI: Parity check/Memory Parity Error
NMI: Channel Check/IOCHK

This bluescreen happened probably within a week ago, lately if I crash it's a complete freeze or a blackscreen or "AMD driver has stopped responding."

Well, to rule ut the amd drivers and software, download and install driver sweeper from phyxion. totally free, no adware/malware, etc. anyways use it to remove amd drivers and all software/utilities video card related that it finds. reboot. cancel windows auto install if it pops up. go to amd's site and either download one version previous (legacy) or one version after (beta) the current driver you have (if it's up to date).

[DeltrusDisc]

Do what Rawt suggested and let us know if you crash again. Next up would be running Memtest86, the free version. Just download, make a CD/USB of it, get into BIOS, choose it as what to boot from, and it will come up with a big blue screen showing what it is doing, let it at least do one FULL pass. It will go through ALL of your RAM, to find any errors. Letting it go for one full pass is minimum for sure. Could take at least a few hours to even longer. I suggest doing this when you go to bed.