Solved Random BSOD in WIndows 7 Kernel-Power Event ID 41

[DrillHead]

Apparently I missed some events. Went to shutdown the PC last night and it hung up at the "shutting down" screen again. I rebooted and checked the event viewer to find 3 critical errors had occurred in the last 7 days. 1 I remember was due to the power blinking off for a second which caused a reboot. The second I was unaware of. My son said it hung up when he restarted after a windows update. 3rd was from last night. Here are the log files.

Any advice is appreciated. I had really hoped this was fixed. :-(

 

[Arc]

I see only one error, repeating over and over.

Event[57125]:
Log Name: System
Source: iaStorV
Date: 2014-07-30T08:44:08.352
Event ID: 9
Task: N/A
Level: Error
Opcode: N/A
Keyword: Classic
User: N/A
User Name: N/A
Computer: Chloe3
Description:
The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

It is Intel Rapid Storage, which is used as RAID there.

Name    Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO [COLOR=Red]SATA RAID Controller[/COLOR]
Driver    c:\windows\system32\drivers\[COLOR=Red]iastorv.sys[/COLOR] (8.6.2.1014, 400.88 KB (410,496 bytes), 4/11/2014 8:07 PM)

RAID is always problematic. And you have three HDDs, two 1 TB ones and one is of 250 GB. In such a situation, you dont need RAID. To get a permanent solution of this issue, it is the best to break RAID.

Boot into the BIOS. Change the storage controller mode from RAID to AHCI. If AHCI is not available, change it to ATA/IDE whichever is available. Also if there is anything line Intel Smart Response, Intel Rapid Storage etc options, disable them too.

But now windows will not boot at all. Because windows cannot boot to windows if the storage controller mode is changed from that on which it was originally installed. So the way now is to perform a clean install.

Seeing the age of the computer, it would be the best for you to get a driver control clean install following http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html .

So, if there is anything valuable in the C drive, move it to elsewhere, then Break RAID and have a clean install.

Laborious, time consuming, but the best way to deal with this issue.

 

[DrillHead]

There were also numerous occurrences on the following error:

IaStorV, Event ID = 9. And the details show this:

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Could this be causing/contributing to the problems?

I suspected this was a clue 2 weeks ago...
UUHHHHGGGGG!!!!!!!!!! Not what I wanted to hear. But thank you anyways.

Will breaking RAID change my ability to access my other drives? Do I need to wipe the whole drive or just reinstall on my C:/ partition?

 

[DrillHead]

A couple more questions; I guess a clean install of 7 on my C:/ drive will render my apps on my D:/ drive useless. Is that correct?

What is the long term harm of leaving it as is and just learning to deal with it? (just curious)...

 

[DrillHead]

In the BIOS or setup screen all 3 of my drives are listed as "non RAID disk"s. In the boot screen each drive is followed by the statement "this drive is controlled by the RAID bios".

Please help me understand this. Could the error actually be related to the add in PCI RAID controller I am using to connect these 2 extra drives? What would happen if I attached all of my hard drives directly the SATA ports on the motherboard and attached my CD and DVD drives to the add in controller instead?

I really want to understand. I realize I have posted 3 times with multiple questions. I would really appreciate if you could address each of those questions.

Thanks in advance Arch!

 

[Arc]

Breaking RAID will not loss any accessibility to any other HDD.

If D:/Apps is the location where the programs are installed, it will become useless. But if it contains any other sort of files, nothing will be changed for them.

If you keep RAID, the computer will continue to crash. Gradually the magnitude will increase.

In reply to your post #25, I am explaining my apology. I would request my guru essenbe to guide you in the right way.

 

[essenbe]

DrillHead, I am not really a Guru, I just impersonate one occasionally. Arc likes to call me that. If you would, please fill out your system specs, in as much detail as you can. In the meantime I am going to look at your log file in the first post and see what I can see. Also please explain what you mean when you talk about your pcie card. Do you have a raid card installed? Maybe this will help.

Please fill out your System Specs​

   Information

Your System Specs will help us to help you, and doing it in this manner will make them available to all helpers in every post and keep us from hunting for them. We ask that you fill them out in as much detail as possible including Desktop or Laptop, Model number if it is an OEM computer and all components with the Manufacturer and Model number if possible.

If you will go to your last post and click the 'System Specs' in the bottom left of the post, you will find a link to update your system specs. Please fill those out in as much detail as possible. If you would like to know what we would like, you can click 'My System Specs' at the bottom left of this post to see mine. If you do not know what your components are, this will help you accomplish this task. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

Also, could you please give me the manufacturer and model number of your hard drives.​

 

[essenbe]

This is the page for your raid controller card. First at the bottom of the page under tech support they say you can click the link and get updated drivers. See if you can get drivers for it, some cards have raid drivers, which you most likely have and non raid drivers. If they do, download both.
VIA VT6421 - Serial RAID Controller - VIA Technologies, Inc.

 

[essenbe]

Also, would you please go into bios and try to find the sata controller. Dell hides things and locks down the bios pretty tight and it may be a sub menu od another item, but you should find something to the effect of storage controllers or storage configuration. I don't want you to change anything right now, I just want you to tell me what the sata controller is set to (Raid, IDE or AHCI) and also tell me the options you have, ie. do you have all three options Raid, IDE and AHCI. If you will notice in this quote, it appears your controller is set to IDE

There were also numerous occurrences on the following error:

IaStorV, Event ID = 9. And the details show this:

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Could this be causing/contributing to the problems?

 

[DrillHead]

Thanks Arc. Hi Essenbe. I updated my system specs.

I have the VIA VT6421 card in 1 of my PCI slots. I originally added it for the IDE port to connect the 750MB Zip drive. I use this drive to transfer samples from my Roland SP808 to my PC for editing in XP. On the 1TB Seagate drive I have 2 partitions. 1 Is my XP OS and the other is my applications from XP and some other files. The 250GB Seagate drive is the original drive that came with the PC From Dell. I had some issues with it years ago and it wouldn't boot at all. I added the 1TB drive then with a clean install and kept the old drive connected for access to my older data.

Windows 7 is on the WD Black drive on the C partition. I have a D partition as well where I install my apps and store other files.

I still use XP by changing the boot sequence in the BIOS and booting to the other drive. My Windows 7 partitions on the WD drive are hidden from XP to preserve my backups.

Let me know what else you need. And thanks in advance for your help Mr.Guru impersonator.

 

[DrillHead]

I could not find a setting on the onboard controller (Intel ICH8...) in the BIOS. When the system boots it displays some info about the drive configuration but it goes by too quickly for me to really read it thoroughly. It says something about ACHI there but I'm not sure what it's set at. In setup each drive says "non RAID Disk but on booting each drive is followed by the statement "This drive is controlled by the RAID BIOS"...

Oh and the current VIA Drivers are included in Windows 7. I downloaded the latest drivers from VIA when I installed 7 but didn't need them for everything to work. 7 says the most recent driver version is already installed.

 

[essenbe]

I can assure you it's in there somewhere. But, If you go to Device Manager in windows 7, expand ISE ARA/ARAPI controllers, at the bottom you should see something that says either IDE in the name or AHCI Also see if you can find your VIA card and see what controllers are on it. Do you have any PCIE slots that are like X1 or X2? your card is a PCI card, which makes the drives run very slow. I believe 133 MB/s is top end for those, where a Sata III pcie slot will be like 600MB/s. but, I don't know what slots you have available. If you could find an upgrade disk to Professional for your 7 Home premium, you could run what they call XP mode, which is actually XP virtual machine and can run XP programs in windows 7. I run XP in a VMware virtual machine. Just some options for you to consider. If you are not in Raid mode, you don't have to have iaStor. Microsoft has their own AHCI controller If you think that is the problem. But, I did notice on one of the BSODs it said that the drive did not respond within the allotted time, which could very well be the drive messing up and not the controller. As I understand it you only have 3 disks, I'm sure your board has that many sata ports. The raid controller message may be about your VIA controller. Most of those are actually raid controllers even if they are not in raid mode.

This will show what I mean about device manager.

View attachment 327780

 

[DrillHead]

I opened my case to double check how I had things connected. The only thing connected to the VIA controller is the Zip drive. My other HDDs are connected to the motherboard which is using the Intel ICH8 controller. I had the Zip drive disabled in 7 anyways so I went ahead and disabled the VIA SATA / IDE Controller in 7 too. It still works fine in XP.

In my configuration utility the are options to create RAID delete RAID and Change RAID disks but when I try to open those menus I get a message that says "there are no RAID disks" (not word for word but something to that extent). Under another section where it says "RAID" the entry says "none detected"?

The VIA card is PCI. The PCIE slot is only used for my video card.

Not sure how to add screen shots here?

 

[DrillHead]

Not really interested in paying to upgrade to 7 pro. I know about VM but opted not to go that route because my studio software in XP would have to be reconfigured and I'd have to transfer everything and risk losing hours upon hours of work. It works fine as it is (XP that is) Obviously 7 is not liking something about my set up...

 

[essenbe]

OK, then it is up to what controller your ICH8 is in. from what you've described, I don't think you are in Raid mode. So, I'm pretty sure you are in AHCI. Otherwise, iaStor would have nothing to do with IDE, as I understand it. iaStor is IRST driver, which is Intel's raid driver, but it contains Intel's AHCI driver. That is what I am using. It is the only way to get Intel's AHCI driver. The message I mentioned above would seem to me that you could have trouble with a hard drive or that your drives will go to sleep and will not wake up and spin up to speed quick enough. Tat second part can be fixed real easy. the first part can't. Just to be on the safe side why not run the long and short test with Seatools, Seagate's Diagnostic test. Run with a DOS disk will give you a more accurate diagnosis. You can download it at SeaTools for DOS | Seagate

 

[essenbe]

Does your Motherboard have Windows 7 Drivers? Or, did you let Window install all the drivers?

 

[DrillHead]

Windows installed the drivers I think. I tried to update everything when I installed 7 and even before. My initial attempt to install 7 in April failed. My disk was scratched and it is 7 straight without SP1. It hung up while installing and at first I could get into 7's repair utility but the OS would not boot. I downloaded (legally) Windows 7 SP1 install package ISO from Digital River (?). Mounted it to DVD, wiped the hard drive and installed again. It installed and came up smooth as silk. I'm using my original certificate on the same version of 7. Had to call Microsoft to Activate but I assure you and them it's legit. (Just not sure 7 thinks it's legit on my system?). I'm not getting any other problems except my keyboard sometimes doesn't get recognized at boot up (?). It's rare but I had to reboot a few times in since the install to be able to log in from the keyboard. Lights are on but no response.

Does disabling the VIA controller render it irrelevant in 7?

I have my disks set up to not sleep in 7 for trouble shooting purposes. I don't let the system sleep. I also don't keep it on constantly like many of people do. I shut down and walk away.

I may be having multiple issues because of the failing old 250 drive.

I'm a musician and a hobbyist hardware geek. I do experimental music and spend sours recording and editing. I hate to have to disconnect it but I could. Do you think it is worth the effort there to rule it out? Could do the same with the XP drive?

If you have a link to how I can show you my Device Manager layout I will try to upload the image. I don't do forums much but I'm sure I could figure it out if it would help?

Thanks Essenbe. It means a lot...

 

[Golden]

To open Device Manager:

1. Click rb:
2. In the search box, type device
3. Click Device Manager

View attachment 327782

 

[essenbe]

This may help also. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

Also, I would be interested if you have any yellow triangles in Device manager. And just wondering if Intel's update utility would help with some more recent drivers. If you have a bad disk, that could be much of your problems.

 

[DrillHead]

Hi Golden. I know how to open device manage. Just not sure how to post the screen. Thanks for stopping by.

Essenbe, Thanks for understanding.

No yellow triangles. Only the symbol over my VIA card to show it's disabled. My Zip drive had the same before I rechecked the physical connections. No need for the controller card if it's for the Zip which I am not using at all in 7.

Here's my device manager screen.