windows server 2008 freezing/crashing issue

[oblivionx]

Hi guys,

I have an issue with my desktop right now that I am not able to resolve, though I've managed to narrow the problem down somewhat.

First, the hardware:

4x 2gb patriot ddr2 pc6400
core 2 duo e6600
gigabyte n650SLI-DS4 mobo
2x 8800 gtx
320 gb seagate sata hd (system), 500 gb wd hd, 750 gb wd hd

My computer seems to randomly freeze when doing certain disk intensive tasks. The freezes require a hard restart. Additionally, occasionally the computer will just power down.

I first noticed the issue when trying to install Adobe CS4 from a secondary hard drive in my desktop. At about 67%, it freezes, forcing me to hard reset the OS. Here are some observations I've made:

When the computer first freezes, its only the window that is doing the activity that freezes. I can't run any new stuff, but if the task manager and performance monitor are left open they still show activity. I'll even be able to move windows around, and kill tasks through the open task manager. However, despite this, the computer will eventually fully lock up, and I will have to hard restart. I can tell when the computer is about to go into a frozen state because the disk activity monitor drops to 0, and programs will start fading out one by one.

The freezing seems to be related to disk activity. my first suspect was memory, since i just recently upgraded 2x1gb chips to 2x2gb chips (moving total from 6gb to 8gb). I ran memtest for a couple hours though, and I finished the test successfully with no errors. I will leave it on all night to make sure, but right now I don't think its the RAM.

Now, with regards to disk activity - if I try to copy the contents of the adobe directory (around 8gb) to my C: drive from my secondary drive, the computer will freeze during the copy. I tried copying data from my third drive to my C: drive (some random stuff, about 13gb), and this worked with no problem. I then tried copying a different folder on my secondary drive to my C: drive, and I again got the freezing. This leads me to suspect its my secondary drive that is somehow causing the computer to lockup BUT, when I copy the same data over remote desktop (meaning, from a networked computer I access the data on my main computer), it appears to copy with no problem.

I'm right now running a diagnostic on my secondary drive, so I'll see if that leads me anywhere, but at the moment I am completely stumped. I wanted to get some input from you guys on what to do next. what else can i try to isolate the problem? my intuition is telling me its a hardware drive problem, but i'm having trouble figuring out which drive/conditions is causing the issue.

any help/input is appreciated.

thanks

kevin

 

[oblivionx]

So, after running some more tests, I am even more bewildered.

Here is the sequence of events I went through after the last post:

Copying data from D: to C:, freeze
Copying different data from D: to C:, freeze
Copying data from D: to another drive on the network through the other computer on the network: success (meaning, remote desktop to different machine, and copy data from local machine using that remote session)
Installing CS4 from network drive on local machine: success (wtf?? here is where I am confused - I expected this to fail)
Copying data from D: to C: ((same as first step), success (even more WTF?? this was failing EVERY time before))

I am now at a point where I cannot reproduce the freezing issue. This doesn't really make me feel any better, because I KNOW the issue still exists, as I did not fix anything. I thought I was close to solving it, but now I'm back to square one, and I don't even know if its hardware or software. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Kevin