Intermittent disk read error; just bluescreened
 

Hi all,
I built a gaming desktop back in October 2012. Here are the specs:

Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD80V2 AM3+ AMD 990FX ATX AMD
CPU: AMD Phenom II Quad-Core Processor
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card: EVGA GTX560
PSU: CORSAIR 750W
Hard Drive: Western Digital 500GB

It's been working fine until recently when, every so often, it would start up saying "Disk Read Error - press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart". I would, and it would work fine after that. But it has happened 3 or 4 times.

Just today, I was only running two programs (Excel and Firefox). I believe the last thing I did was close Firefox, and I received the blue screen of death. I started the computer back up and again, and it seems fine.

I must add that Firefox has been crashing incessantly quite recently as well. I just start up the program, attempt to navigate to a website and it crashes instantly. Sometimes multiple times. Could it have to do with Firefox?

I'm also suspecting the Hard Drive because of the disk read errors, but I really know next to nothing about computer hardware.

Any ideas before this gets any worse? :(

Go to the Western Digital website and download the diagnostic software and run it. If it errors, get a RMA for a drive replacement.

Download and run Western Digital's "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows" and let us know the results.

--- edit --- Looks like I was too s-l-o-w again. :( :)

I will try that. Which option would I choose?

QUICK TEST - performs SMART drive quick self-test to gather and verify the Data Lifeguard information contained on the drive.

or

EXTENDED TEST - performs a Full Media Scan to detect bad sectors. Test may take several hours to complete depending on the size of the drive.

Run the quick test first. If it fails, there's really no need to run any further tests. If it passes, then run the full scan overnight.

In order to get a RMA, you have to run the extended test if the quick fails and get the failure code. With that system and size drive it should only take a couple hours.

Thank you for the suggestions so far -- it passed both tests, so I guess it's not likely to be the hard drive itself. I'm pretty sure everything is connected securely.

I've heard this could be a RAM thing, as it's intermittent...?

Any other ideas? Thanks again for your responses, everyone!

Wouldn't surprise me - G.skill does have quality issues.

Go to Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool and download Memtest86+. Download the auto installer for USB key and use it to make a bootable USB key, boot with it and run it overnight. It will run till you stop it, if there are errors it will be obvious.

If you don't have a spare blank USB key or you can't get it to work, download the iso and use that to make a bootable CD.

Sorry it took so long to respond. I am running the Memtest program right now and if I'm not mistaken, my RAM is failing spectacularly. Am I correct?

(See the photo that I hope will show up when I post this)

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...47226046_n.jpg

Yep, you definitely have bad ram!

Contact G.skill and get a RMA for the pair.

I will do that and hopefully replacing the RAM (probably not with G. Skills this time lol) will show some improvement.

Thank you both (glc and SpywareDoctor) for all your help!

G.skill won't give you a refund, they will replace the ram. You are stuck with it unless you want to buy different ram. If you haven't noticed, ram costs about twice now what it did last October.

Oh yes, I figured that might be the case. I'll have to consider if I want it replaced by them or if I want to buy an entirely different set.

But actually, I may have to do some more extensive testing on my RAM. Last night, I ran Memtest+ with both sticks in and got what you see in my image above. But later, I read that you should do multiple passes with individual sticks. So I will try that out first before I start any returns.

Save yourself the headache, bite the bullet and get quality ram. Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 1.5V low profile ram is the most stable, performance ram on the market. ADATA XPG 1.5V DDR3 1600 ram is excellent as well. Corsair or Kingston DDR3 1.5V Value RAM is a great choice if your not into tweaking and on a budget. In my opinion, GSkill is using remarked chips and or their quality control is crap.

It doesn't matter whether one module is good or not - the matched pair has to be replaced as a matched pair. Now - if both pass standalone then you may have a motherboard issue.

I'm beginning to suspect the motherboard. I ran the test with one stick in the first slot (DIMM1). No errors. I am testing the second stick alone in DIMM1 and still am seeing no errors.

I put the first stick in DIMM2 by itself (to test the slots as well) and did get errors. Now would that be because DIMM2 is not a primary slot? I know that if you run with only one stick, you are required to put the stick into DIMM1 to actually boot the system. Or could that mean that DIMM2 is possibly messed up?

Try slots 3 and 4.

Sounds good - do you think I should test with both sticks in 3 and 4 as well as each stick individually?

I would test all possible combinations to see if you can pin down a trend.

Memtest86+ is indicating a particular data bit is bad. If both sticks work okay in slot 1, that suggests the problem is with the motherboard, not the DIMM. I'd get a good, bright light and magnifying glass and look at the contacts in the suspect slot. You could have a bent dirty pin that might be easy to fix.

Running in slots 1 and 2 is easier electrically than 3 and 4 but it will probably just work anyway. I'd run memtest86+ overnight on it to be sure, though.

Hi all,
I have been doing some better-organized and thorough testing on my RAM, which is why it's taken so long for me to respond. I was not being organized at first and may actually have mixed up the sticks as I was testing them so I decided to be smart and write down their numbers and run/re-run all the tests.

I ran each stick individually in each slot. If no errors showed up right away, I let it run for at least 3 passes. Any errors I got showed up right away, so I figured there wouldn't be much point in letting it run once I saw them.

Stick 1 passes all individual tests for 3 passes.
Stick 2 fails all individual tests.
Both sticks together fail in slots 1 & 2 and slots 3 & 4.

So I am strongly led to believe that Stick 2 is bad and that it is not my motherboard. Does that sound about right to you guys?

Sounds exactly right to me. Good job!

Being a dual channel kit, both sticks have to be RMA'd. All it will cost you is shipping one way - from you to them. If you want something different:

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9R - Newegg.com

Awesome, thank you, glc and everyone else for your helpful responses. I'm probably going to go for a new set of quality RAM and am taking all the suggestions of the best into consideration. Hopefully that takes care of it. Thanks again, everyone!