SSD and win 7 upgrade

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:50 pm

I still havent been able to get rid of my system crashes with XP. System still freezes, almost on a daily basis....and I cant take it anymore.
I changed over to firefox, thinking it was the IE causing the problems, but the next day I had a system freeze right after startup.

So my last step (after I try a windows repair) is a new OS. I've been holding off on Windows 7 till it matured, but now seems as good a time as any (still using XP 32 bit, and only get 3gb of use out of my 6gb of RAM).
I decided to upgrade my old HD at the same time, since I have to start from scratch with the install.

So I'm ready for the SSD. Any recommendations?
I need 200gb or more (I only use about 125gb, but more is always better), and I'm looking for stability.
I was saving for two new monitors (to replace my small 19\" LCDs), so I have a few $$ to spend.

Thanks for any recommendations!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:40 pm

OCZ Vertex series are pretty popular, but regardless you are going to pay a lot of money for a 200+ GB drive (like upwards of $700). Intel makes some of the best drives but cap off at 160 GB for the largest one. There are a ton of SSDs out there and for the most part they are all faster than hard drives, but there is a huge variance between them. Right now the fastest ones on the market are ones that use a \"SandForce SF-1500\" controller chip, with Intel's X25-M coming in second and Indilinx Barefoot right behind that. Sometimes all three trade blows depending on what the test is, but the Intel and SF drives have the best random 4k speeds (which is the most demanding and important metric).

Honestly SSDs are still in their infancy and I wouldn't call them the most reliable things on earth, even Intel had some serious screw ups with their mainstream SSDs bricking and or corrupting data. Not to mention the enormous expense of the things compared to hard drives. One thing I'll recommend is keep a HDD partition the same size as your SSD around and regularly clone the SSD to the HDD as a backup.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:52 pm

Stink!
I had done a search on newegg and seen a few but was thinking I might get away with $350 or so.
Sheesh. Guess I'll have to wait on the SSD. Cant see the value of $600+ for a HD.

I guess I'll just have to upgrade to win 7 on my current HD.

Thanks Krom!

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 6:25 am

System freezes or the screen freezes?

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:02 am

The screen freezes AND the entire system hangs. Nothing works. I cant move the mouse, I cant bring up explorer, control-alt-delete doesnt do anything.

I thought it was IE, so I installed IE 8, but no joy.
I installed firefox, still have same problem.
I did a sfc /scannow and it asked for the windows CD, so I'm assuming it loaded something from it, tho I didnt get any message that it did....system still freezes up.

I have a nagging thought that it might be the setpoint software that came with my logitech g9 mouse. I had unchecked it from startup in msconfig a while back, so I just put it back into startup. Dont know if that will fix the problem...it's a long shot. (interestingly, I have both setpoint 1 and setpoint 2 in the startup, since I got a new logitech kb a month or so ago...but the system freezes predate this kb by a few months.)

It must be something in my msconfig that I unchecked. I've had trouble with a Creative file called DLLML.exe. I unchecked it from msconfig, but it still loads every time. I have to manually delete it from the Task Manager to get it to stop running...tho I still have hangs when it's not running.

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:10 am

An unrecoverable memory error is bad news and would completely explain why (1) the system is locking up and (2) the lockups have no apparent relation to any software running.

Check the memory modules in said computer ReadyMan

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:22 am

Yeah, this sounds a lot more like a hardware problem than a software one.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:29 am

Hrmmm... Do you mean get a memory checker? I vaguely remember using one a few years ago. Any suggestions on a good one?

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:34 am

http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.5.iso.zip

Here's a bootable CD image with memtest86. Use your favorite image burner to create the CD, then boot from it to run the test.

http://www.memtest86.com/

Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:49 am

Thanks!
I'll give it a try this afternoon (just leaving now) and post back what I find.

Sure seems to make the most sense...

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:48 pm

Just a note about memtest, its a very good program but on occasion it simply does not get along with certain motherboards. Also it may say some weird things about the amount of memory it is testing when it is over the 3 GB range, such as it will say it is testing 9+ GB of memory when you only have 8 GB installed. This is not an error, it is because of the way mapped memory and reserved space works. On the other hand if memtest reports LESS than the installed amount of total RAM available, then you may need to turn on memory mapping (recommended).

Once you have memtest running smoothly, you want to complete at least one full pass which can take a couple hours depending on the amount memory and speed of the system, to be totally sure it is necessary to complete a full 32 passes which cycles all available patterns and can take several DAYS (I never really bother though, one overnight run should be good enough).

As for the result, the acceptable amount of memory errors after any length of time is: Zero. There should never be a memory error on a healthy system. Just be aware that bad memory isn't always the cause of errors in memtest, a problem with the CPU or motherboard can also cause them. If you have problems, be sure to check and make sure the version of memtest you are using is compatible with your specific CPU/motherboard combination along with other potential causes.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 3:20 pm

Yea, never mind…I did miss it.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:04 pm

cant get memtest86 to work.
Dont have a floppy drive for the 3.4 version (which tests memory in excess of 4gb (I have 6gb).
and cant get memtest86 3.5 to work either (it is supposed to hang the system on most machines if more than 4gb are installed, but I tried anyway).

Any other memory test programs you recommend?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:17 pm

http://www.memtest.org/

Use the ISO download to burn it to a CDRW and boot from that.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 10:09 pm

thanks Krom!
made the disk and am testing now.
I just finished 10 passes with the Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic. No errors.

Will run memtest for 1/2 hour and see what it says.

I think somewhere in my tweaking that I corrupted the registry or something. I hate to back everything up for the move to win7, but 64 bit with a full 6gb of memory will run better than my 32bit with 3gb memory.
Fortunately, I have an external drive, so I can back stuff up to that, and then format my current (internal) HD, and then copy things over.
The SSD will have to wait. Maybe I'll put the OS and a few choice programs on a 100gb SSD in the future.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:52 pm

I decided to run the memtest+ for 2 hours. No errors.
So with both tests coming up negative, I'm back to the drawing board...

Thank you for the ideas though!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 8:31 am

Run memtest overnight next time, let it complete a few passes. If it still comes up error free then pull nonessential hardware out of the system (like sound cards) and disable stuff you aren't using in BIOS (like unused RAID controllers, extra LAN chips, serial/parallel ports) and see if it helps.