Hardstaff.COM

This ones too weird, when I found what it was I didn't find anyone else who was having the same problem, so I post it here in the hope that someone can shed some light on it. We built some new servers using these nice new Antec cases with Antec PSU and Intel Server Board S3200SHV, all was going well until I installed SQL 2005 on 2 of them, they were all running Windows Server 2003 SP2. When memory use got high they would bugcheck, or blue screen.

The error

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    System Error
Event Category:    (102)
Event ID:    1003
Date:        3/14/2009
Time:        8:12:40 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    ERICA
Description:
Error code 0000009c, parameter1 00000000, parameter2 808a07a0, parameter3 f2000040, parameter4 00000800.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 53 79 73 74 65 6d 20 45   System E
0008: 72 72 6f 72 20 20 45 72   rror  Er
0010: 72 6f 72 20 63 6f 64 65   ror code
0018: 20 30 30 30 30 30 30 39    0000009
0020: 63 20 20 50 61 72 61 6d   c  Param
0028: 65 74 65 72 73 20 30 30   eters 00
0030: 30 30 30 30 30 30 2c 20   000000,
0038: 38 30 38 61 30 37 61 30   808a07a0
0040: 2c 20 66 32 30 30 30 30   , f20000
0048: 34 30 2c 20 30 30 30 30   40, 0000
0050: 30 38 30 30               0800   

This is a hardware error pure and simple, or supoosedly, if you listen to Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329284

We had eliminated memory as a culprit, we were using non ECC memory but bought some Kingston memory that was on the Intel approved list. We had Q6600 processors which are also on the tested processor list for this board. I even tried a different PSU just in case, no dice. I started with the BIOS disabling all the CPU options like multi processing, execute disable bit etc etc, no go again, same thing would happen. I was using SATA hard disks, Western Digital that I knew were good. We even changed the processors with some known good dual cores on the approved list, same thing.

So, I was running out of things to try, in fact I didn't have much left apart from the hard disks, then I got an idea, I had seen Intel Server Boards go apeshit about DVD drives before, I have some older servers with Intel Server Boards, 7250's I think that would just dump the drive, ie say it was ejected, this would affect the server at the same time, so on a couple of those boxes I have the DVD drives disconnected, I thought stuff it, nothing to lose.

The config I had was 2 x Western Digital hard disks in software RAID with 1 x LG  DVD rive model number GH22NS30. So on three of them I disconnected the DVD drives, 3 days now and not one bugcheck, this is going from blue screens 2-3 times day to just working perfectly. !!and all I did was disconnect the SATA DVD drives !

I am not finding anything on the Internet with anyone having the same problem with the same board, bizarre !  

Update : To be clear, I am not saying this is the only cause of this error, but one I nearly didn't think to try, so you have to look for the unobvious some times

Update 3 July 2009 : I have sort of narrowed this down to just about any Windows system with SATA DVD and Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2, they don't live together very well :) Completely different system, only thing in common was a SATA DVD drive, shit itself every 24 hours, disconnected the DVD drive and all is well ! Go figure. PJH