Hi guys

I thought my post went dead after seeing no answers after the first two weeks Finally seems as though I was not the only one to experience the problem. So here's an update on my part :

I have narrowed down the problem on my part, and it isn't caused by ATI's drivers. Mine is caused whenever i tinker with XP's disk cache function. How do I know? I cleaned up my drive, installed XP, and installed absolutely no third party drivers. First thing I did after that was to switch WIN XP's preference in allocating memory from programs to disk cache. I then set XP Cache size to a bigger size. I rebooted, and bang.... those failures start poping up like crazy.

So since my first post, I have run that pc without those failures because I did not change any of XP's disk cache options. I have installed many third party drivers, and Ati's Catalyst sets every update... and it hasn't caused a single problem. I have now updated my BIOS file and VIA drivers to the latest... So tonight, i'll try a clean format and start all over again to see if the problem persists...

I'll let you know in a couple of days... in the meantine, feel free to reply in case you've had the same problem by tinkering with the Disk cache function...

Yep, I know what you mean.

To adjust the IOPAGELOCKLIMIT setting under memory management, I have to use Rage 3DTweak 3.8. Doing it manually, or doing it with a program like TweakXP Pro causes an irreparable crash, and corruption of the root drive.

Don't even think about making the minimum and maximum on virtual memory the same, or bother moving it to another drive on a second IDE cable. I've tried almost every combination possible.

I can set the IOPAGELOCKLIMIT to 32768; going higher causes a crash and a quick run of Norton Ghost, as does moving the virtual memory do the F: drive on the second IDE cable. The reason I think the Radeon drivers cause a problem is that I CAN move the virtual memory and I CAN set the page limit to 65536 when running an AIW Radeon 7200. Go figure.

AIW Radeon 8500
Asus A7N266-VM AA
Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Digital
Kingston PC2100
Seagate Barracuda IV x 2
Toshiba SD-R1202 Combo
Creative RW8438E
Athlon XP 1800+ (soon to be 2400+)

Have you installed ATI's latest drivers (3.2, available on their site since friday) to see if it fixes the problem?

A couple Q`s Hugues? What type file system are you using ? How many partitions do you have? The mobo disk that came with the mobo are you using any of the sis drivers off it other than multi-media driver ? And in bios are you using (write thru) or (write back)if you would give me these answers I might be able to help you ! Thanks

It did`nt give me anything Hugues??

Sure thing Roy...

File Sys : NTFS
Partitions : 1
Drivers : I use none from Msi's disk
Write-Back, write-thru : no such option in MSI's bios (AMI 5.7 release)... care to expend a bit on that write-back option? might have been given another name... Or in case you want to check, here's the link to the mobo's manual from MSI's website :

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/manual/mnu/spt_mnu_detai...E=MS-6380E

Thanks for the help, it really IS appreciated

Very odd...

I went through your book Hugues .Have you tried to load f7 default settings ,then go back into bios and enable S.M.A.R.T. for your HDD .then try to load the system back I personaly like fat32 it works better for me ,my friends Wyatt and Ray use ntfs they say it is better for them but it is not for my system I`ve tried it, post back

Hi Roy

I've tried just about everything... including running the computer with bios default options and using SMART... the hard drive isn't defective BTW, i tried every diagnostic software there is, including Maxtor's own... I even did a burn-in once...

As for the file system, i'd have to get my hands on win 98 in order to format in Fat 32. If I remember correctly from a previous installation, Win XP only offers NTFS as a choice

Yes your`re right but you can go to ( bootdisk.com ) Download windows 98 oem boot disk put it on a floppy.When you use Maxtor and it asks for that boot disk ,put it in and format fat32 . Then do a clean install. Try this and see.

Hey Roy,

I just reformated and repartitionned with FAT 32 instead of NTFS.First thing I did before setting up drivers for my ATI board was to try to tweak the disk cache function under xp. I did so, setting a larger cache size and letting windows manage it. Right after I do that, which is the very first thing I do afetr install, some files or something gets corrupted. Reason I know this is right after i reboot, my screen resolution goes beserk, color reverts to 4 bit, and I loose WIN XP's blue bottom bar, which turns to gray. The difference now with my previous experience is that I don't seem to get those 'delayed write failure' popup which used to corrupt the drive. I have since proceeded to install the new ATI drivers, and they let me set my res back to 1024 and color back to 32 bits, whitout problems. I have also managed to get the blue bottom bar back, so so far, so good, everything seems back to normal after some tweeking... and disk cache is still managed by windows, which is what I wanted all along and what I couldn't do previously (this is what caused those failures to pop-up). I haven't installed anything else aside from what I have told you in this post, so those delayed write failures might pop-up this evening... I'll keep you up to date on this later tonight.

Thanks

Thanks Hugues,you know most people after finding their problem never return to let us know that it was fixed or corrected.So I appreciate you posting and letting us know how it is going .Good luck and keep us posted to your progress. Roy

Alas, it was too good to be true. As i had assumed, my disk got corrupted again after installing a couple of programs. I had a "page fault in nonpaged area" BSOD and WIN XP would not run anymore... Man, i'm running out of options on this one Seems as though XP writes something somewhere where it isn't supposed to. When I Install a couple of programs and take some space on the drive, problems begin until everything goes beserk... Bios is set at default BTW... Now what could it be? The drive is ok, i tripled-tested it with maxtor's software... seeing my display options go beserk, and knowing many people had problems with ATI radeon cards and this particular setup, could there be a link between my problem and my display adapter? Could my AGP port be defective in such a way that it renders XP very unstable?

BTW, problems keep coming... After this one, knowing that the file system was not to blame, I reformated in NTFS... after a couple of program installs under XP, the drive became beserk again!!! I could not access it, it gave me an "unmountable boot volume" BSOD.... I'm up to my third install for the night... so far nothing wrong, but i haven't turned any option on, nor have I installed programs... I'll keep you up to date later!

I'm still wondering... could it be the video card or the AGP slot? Using ATI's control panel, i just can't set fastwrite on. Everytime i do so, after rebooting, it shows fastwrite off, even though the function is activated in the BIOS... could i be on to something?

It's not the Maxtor drive, it's not Windows XP, it's the video drivers. Change your video card and get compatable drivers.

Ok, but why would everything go beserk when I had no ATI driver installed? I began tweaking everything before installing those drivers; I was using a generic VGA driver for the card, the one that WIN xp set up, which didn't identify the card as an ATI card but as a standard VGA adapter...

Hugues why are you setting a larger cache size ? And where are you doing the settings at? Try goin back to fat32 reinstall win. leave all the tweaking alone until all is finished and cleaned and defragged .Then you can star with the tweeking ! But I dont understand why you are wanting the cache larger,if you would explain this to me I would appreciate it much,also tell me where you do it ,and what size it is to start with before you change it.Then what size you make it ?? Thanks we will get you going be patient you must be anyway to do it that many times.

Hi Roy,

Thanks for the help... I always want to set a larger cache size since it usually speeds up system performance (not by much mind you, but still, it helps, specially with games like Simcity 4 which is a real power hog... ), and I use about half my disk space, so IMHO, better use the rest in some way... Problem is, I can't touch that cache. Once i set a new file size, larger OR smaller, the problems start coming my way. Seems as though the minute the page file needs to change or move, something goes bunkers... Here are the steps to access those settings under XP, loosely translated from french:

Start ->Control Panel->System->Advanced->performances->Configure->

This is where i Go... notice the choices :

2-Speed up performances for applications or system cache (something like that). If I click on system cache instead of applications, system goes AWOL
3- Cache size->configure (this is where you can either change the cache size or let windows manage it. either way, the system corrupts after changing anything)

For now, my system is running smoothly. I haven't touched a single thing under those settings, and I probably won't for now. My last installation went corrupt presumably because I let my Bios be cached (BIOS option... forgot to turn the darn option off.. System is unstable under this condition). I reinstalled everything since and all is well. Still, I'd like to fix the problem... might be indicative of things to come... and if it is, then i'll be in trouble when they strike again for no particular reason.

Thanks again for your help, it's appreciated

Hugues If you will leaveit like it is for now .( in visual ,let windows decide)
in advanced (leave it on programs in both places) the 768mb should be enough mem. to do what you need to do if not after a complete install,try whatever you are going to do like it is ! Then and only then if you need to change do ( 1 ) thing at a time then run all the programs you run for a while to see how it does. If you leave it like it is ,and there is no problem why would you want to change .I know sometimes I will see that where if you will change something it will cause this or that to run or operate better but it hardly ever does.I read from 2 diff. sites where NTFS was so much better than fat32 it was quote (faster,better security,less defragging,faster transfer of data ) well Hugues I tried it both ways 2 diff. times. No joking fat32 was faster in every sense of the word I took 5 diff. tests each time with each change fat32 was better not by a little but by FAR EVERY time now this might not be true with other peoples systems and setups but it is true with this system and setup EVERY time.So good luck with your system ,and if it works good with the setup it has ,leave it at that setup no matter what anyone says .If NTFS works better useit.If fat32 works better use it. If the windows setup works good leave it like that. Thanks have a good day.

I know this is an older issue, but I recently ran into this problem. I got a window that would pop up and say delayed write failure [filename/sharename] and I couldn't even log into the machine. I couldn't boot into safe mode or anything.

What happened was my room-mate gave me a 8500 to replace my older Geforce 2 GTS.

When the machine first booted up XP detected the video card and installed its default driver (which is of course featureless) and it worked (yay). So I went to install the ATI video driver which I got here,

http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/powered.html

Then rebooted - came back up with the above error.

Panicked at first because I thought my disk drive had got t**s up or something.

But I popped my old Elsa card in and everything was fine.

I then deinstalled the ATI driver - updated the 4 in 1 driver (which up to this point had never been installed on this machine) and then popped the ATI card in again. Once again it came up just fine - XP installed its default driver, I once again installed the driver I downloaded and same error as above.

My system is configured thus,

first channel - Western Digital 120 GIG hdd running in UDMA 5
second channel - Mitsumi 24x CDR drive running in UDMA 2

Since I was unable to even boot the machine into safe mode I wasn't able to change any of those settings.

So for now and later I'll probably stick to Nvidia cards.