[canfiax]

Hey there!

I am experienceing some strange bluescreens, as my computer gets slower and slower. It kinda confuses me, that my computer is that slow, as it is right now - but it comes in waves. Maybe it's because I'm low on HDD-space? (<1.7GB).

I recieve the following error message from bluescreen:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
laStor.sys FFFFF88001311FD9

I would want to include my dump file, but I'm not able to find it inside the minidump folder, even tho i've checked (How to configure system failure and recovery options in Windows) that it should be enabled.

I've read from this thread: http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f299/solved-bsod-driver_irql_not_less_or_equal-229731.html - that after solving the problems, his computer was able to wake faster from sleep mode - mine isn't able to wake up for some unknown reason. Whenever it's been in sleepmode / some other mode, when i then turn on the computer the screen is just black, and have to manually turn off the power and then restart to be able to use my computer.

Hope to get some help!

Have a great day.

 

[VirGnarus]

An increasingly degrading performance on a PC, plus the bugchecks showing IaStor.sys, is conducive of disk failure. It may come in waves because in certain circumstances it may attempt to read or write at specific portions of the bad drive that have bad sectors on them. When attempting to do so, it will try persistently at it, causing the performance decrease. It may not happen to all files, only files or portions of the drive it is attempting to access that unfortunately happen to sit on those bad sectors. With a failing hard drive, the amount of bad sectors will continue to increase.

Your best bet right now is to immediately do a backup of everything you can. That way your data is safe from any potential danger as to the strong possibility of this drive going kaput. Any further operations with a drive that is failing - such as diagnostic testing - will only exacerbate the situation and cause the drive to die earlier. That's why it's best to get the backup out of the way immediately.

If you want to give us more information, try to produce a JCGriff Report. Even if you can't give us minidumps right now, the report can help us with some initial information.

After you have completed backing up your stuff, you may run Seatools. Run a Fix All Long test. It may take a couple hours, be patient. If you notice that is has stopped dead at a point for a good while, you can bet your drive is dying and needs replacement.

 

[canfiax]

Hi there!

Thank you for your reply. I created the dump, but it was stuck at 'waiting for systeminfo' for a long time so i supposed it was done.

I've created a full ghost (norton) of my computer. And i'll try the seatools tonight.

 

[VirGnarus]

Ack, the syslog is in a foreign language, so looks like I won't be able to use it.

Go ahead and do the Seatools thing. Also, what else you can do is do a chkdsk by right-clicking your drive and going to Properties, then Tools tab, then "Check now...". Make sure both options are checked. It'll ask you to restart. Do so, and it'll run the scan. This will take a good while so you may wanna run it overnight. If for whatever reason you come back to see that it's stuck in a spot, and/or you see a boat-load of bad sector errors, again you can confirm this to a bad drive.

 

[canfiax]

The seatools failed as expected. Trying to run the Seatools DOS in a moment.

BTW. I can get you the report in english if you want to - would it be nessecary?

 

[VirGnarus]

Yes, that'd be great. Thank you.

 

[VirGnarus]

What tests did Seatools fail in, btw?

 

[canfiax]

What tests did Seatools fail in, btw?

Didn't notice, I'm going to find out (how?). The log file says:

--------------- SeaTools for Windows v1.2.0.6 ---------------
12-01-2012 19:10:16
Model: Kingston SSDNow V Series 128GB
Serial Number: 06P9B0022311
Firmware Revision: B090522a
Fix All Fast - Pass 12-01-2012 19:10:16
Fix All Long - FAIL 12-01-2012 20:11:59
SeaTools Test Code: 6C9AC2A4

I'm trying to run the SeaTools for DOS on a USB, but it says 'bootmgr is missing' is there a way to make the USB bootable?



*perfmon english report attached

 

[VirGnarus]

Ah, it's an SSD drive. I didn't pay attention to that.

You will want to go to the Kingston website and download any updated drivers and firmware for your drive. The Seatools test may be accurate in that your drive is still puttering out, since SSD drives are known for having a high rate of failure, but often a fix is a driver/firmware update away. Make sure those are taken care of.

 

[canfiax]

Ah, it's an SSD drive. I didn't pay attention to that.

You will want to go to the Kingston website and download any updated drivers and firmware for your drive. The Seatools test may be accurate in that your drive is still puttering out, since SSD drives are known for having a high rate of failure, but often a fix is a driver/firmware update away. Make sure those are taken care of.

Nice - so far so good. But i'm really unexperienced within this subject, and with such techinal issues in general - where do i find those updates?

*
Found some firmware updates here:Tech Support Search | Kingston Technology (where do i find the other update?)

Which one of thoose is my SSD?:

• V100 Drive - SV100S2
  
• V100 Notebook Bundle - SV100S2N
  
• V100 Desktop Bundle - SV100S2D
  
• V200 Drive - SV200S3
  
• V200 Bundle - SV200S3B
  

 

[VirGnarus]

You'll want to go to the Kingston website and locate their technical support section. They should have a drivers area where you can select the model of your SSD drive and then download the appropriate drivers and firmware for it. The drive is the Kingston SSDNow V series.

 

[canfiax]

Yup - found it, but I'm unsure about which one i should select:

Which one of thoose is my SSD?:

• V100 Drive - SV100S2
  
• V100 Notebook Bundle - SV100S2N
  
• V100 Desktop Bundle - SV100S2D
  
• V200 Drive - SV200S3
  
• V200 Bundle - SV200S3B

* Made a guess and took: V100 Notebook Bundle - SV100S2N


So far so good.



1) Is there any special order i need to install the updates? Etc. firmware > update?


2) I've downloaded the firmware ISO file, but it seems empty (atleast in PowerISO). Is it possible for me to burn this ISO file to a USB?

 

[VirGnarus]

Do be warned that if you don't use the firmware for the exact drive you have, you will brick your drive and it will be unusable and cannot be recovered.

As for exact model, I cannot tell you from the information provided. Though, now that I see it, I guess "Compal" is Compaq in your area? If so, stop everything and get all your drivers and firmware updates from the Compaq website instead. You will be able to provide a product serial number or whatever in order to identify the exact computer you have, then you can download the appropriate updates for your drive from it.

 

[canfiax]

Inorder to update the firmware, i need to change SATA mode from ACHI/RAID to IDE. But I'm not able to do so, from the BIOS setup (Insyde, f10 - 10-01-2010). I've been trying to find a modded bios, but seem that noone are avaible for my bios. Any solution for this? Can i change the SATA mode in windows or by some other command?

 

[canfiax]

(or is it possible to change bios version? To an advanced BIOS? From Insyde to something else?) Could be awesome

 

[VirGnarus]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Advanced BIOS", nor do I understand your attempt to look for a modded BIOS. I'm pretty sure these are unnecessary for this procedure. You are getting these instructions and the firmware update from the Compaq website, right?

Anyways, there should be a setting in your BIOS to change it from AHCI/RAID to IDE and back, but you will want to do a complete backup of your drive (as in an image of the entire drive), as this may render the contents of the drive unusable. You can of course always switch it back, but the backup is for extra security. For a free solution, Clonezilla is your best option, though the interface is notoriously ugly and not user-friendly.

 

[canfiax]

I had to change SATA MODE to IDE/Compability for the Kingston Firmware update to work properly (else it wouldn't detect the drives). It was a complicated 'mission', as my BIOS didn't have this option. So i had to find a computer with a BIOS which supported the option to change SATA mode; i did, and so i put my SSD hard drive into the computer, changed SATA mode, and updated BIOS - but update failed. Found out i found the wrong SSD under the Kingston website - i choose V100S2N, but found out my SSD is SVP125-S2. And then i found out, (I'm really good at figuring things out) that there was no firmware update for my drive.

So i guess a firmware update can't be the problem. My system is still slow every now and then, though i haven't experienced as many troubles with my drive lately, as i did around 01-13-2011. But I'm very sure that the problem still persists - just not at the moment, and I am really into getting this resolved.

Could be the reason that my SSD drive failed in the Seatools be due too that Seatools dont support SSD? What else can i do to diagnose the computer, so we can solve this strange problem?

Back when i was gaming a lot, my computer overheated on a nearly daily basis. The cooler in my PC is really bad, and I'm already mad at the company that i bought the computer from, because they put such powerful hardware into a such bad cooled computer (and they are 100% aware of it on every new computer they build and sell), which had caused me a lot of troubles. Could these overheats have damaged my computer? It damaged my battery, which can't last more than 15 minutes.

My warranty expires in march/april, so if the SSD is damaged i hope to be able to have a report proving so, so i can have a new SSD drive in worst (best :angel scenario.

Just to let you know; I'm really satisfied with your help so far, amazing that you spend your free time helping people . I'm very happy with your help!

Anyways - what's next? :huh:

 

[VirGnarus]

Seatools supports SSDs, but the testing regiment is typically designed for HDD and so there is potential of false positives. I'd recommend going to the Kingston website and finding their own proprietary SSD diagnostic utility and using that to test it (if they have it). If you are requesting a replacement of the drive they should recommend you the proper tool to test it with. Usually even with a report that you have ready they'll shrug it off and have you run their own tests, otherwise they will go on your word and replace it.

Overheating could easily cause problematic symptoms after it has occurred, but they shouldn't manifest with drive errors (unless you had really extreme interior chassis heating issues). Plus, sluggishness is not really a symptom of the effects of overheating.

 

[FileAnt]

Those Kingston drives are for 2.5" external USB enclosures. They do not contain all the SMART info (which might confuse seagate) and things like the power light connection are not installed.

Although slow in today's standards, as you discovered it is all relative. They are very reliable and bug free compared to newer sandforce controller SSD's, except as with most consumer SSD's (except Intel 320) if you computer loses power and the MB/PSU does not warn the disks with a power bad signal for a few ms before they lose power, then something may go wrong if it was writing to sector 0. i.e. should be fine on a good MB, but do not hotswap any SSD's. Even the Intel 320 had/has a bug if it loses power, my guess is if it loses power twice and the second loss is in between the power protection logic somewhere confusing it... might be fixed, just a wild guess, I really have no idea, Intel did not explain it anywhere which is unlike them.

irql usually means a motherboard driver needs updating (usually USB or SATA or anything that shares IRQ with the PCIe slots). Get drivers and/or in the BIOS turn off things you do not use like eSATA or USB3 chips, third party RAID, firewire etc. Basically anything that is not standard with the CPU chipset will share IRQ's with something. It could also be a failing drive as someone said, or crappy memory that does not provide a clean signal on the BUS.

If your screen is Black it might be the NVidia black screen bug. Also check you BIOS drive controller in the BIOS is set o AHCI or RAID and hotswap is on. If your drive controller is in IDE mode, you will have to google to fix this as it involves the registry and a few steps.