Long story short:
I built a new PC a few weeks ago. Now it randomly freezes up, or drastically slows down, usually resulting in a hard shutdown. I have watched CPU cycles spike to almost 100% while nothing is running except a couple browser windows and WMP playing an MP3, sometimes with nothing but a single browser window open.
Specs:
Asus A8N-E mobo (nVidia N-force4 chipset)
AMD 64 X2 4200+ Dual Core CPU
1GB (2 x 512) RAM (Patriot brand)
Asus Radeon X550 PCI-E graphics card
Samsung 250GB SATA-2 HDD
Sansubg 160GB PATA HDD (from old system)
2 Lite-on DVD RW drives
Raid Max 450W PSU
Errors in event logs:
Error 51: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk 0\D during a paging operation
Error 9: The device, \Device\IDE\IDE port4, did not respond within the timeout period.
What I've done:
disconnected PATA drive, and the older DVD drive (was starting to make some suspicious noises)
installed latest chipset drivers and BIOS version from Asus/nVidia
installed new AMD dual-core drivers and Microsoft multi-core hotfix.
disabled Native Command Queuing, and rolled back IDE-ATA drivers to Windows drivers
None of these have helped (though I seem to get more "long pauses" than actual freezes now)
I have looked in several forums and this problem seems to have no definite solution that works for everyone.
The Asus boards with nForce4 chipsets and SATA drives seem to be the most common denominators.
My options seem to be dwindling to A: buying a new (No nVidia chipset!!) motherboard, or B: adding a third party SATA raid controller card.
I'm trying to avoid option C: pulling my hair out. I need to keep all I still have!