Dell dimension 9200 keeps freezing with Vista home Premium

**Spiritual** · 13-03-2007

Am using Windows Vista Home Premium on a desktop (Dell dimension 9200). It was working fine since 8 months but suddenly started freezing. And they way it freezes is weird. While working properly, it gets freezed for about a minute or 2 and then again gets normal. It happens 7 to 8 times in an hour.

As the system was in warranty I called Dell guys, they even replaced the computer but the same thing is happening on the new computer as well. Do you guys have any idea what could be the problem ?

If you need, here is the event viewer log:

Event ID 9.
device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0 did not respond within timeout period"

**Indravan** · 13-03-2007

Hello Kendor, you are not alone with this annoying problem. Even I am having a dell system Dell Dimension E520 which I got with Windows XP. It started giving me same problem as you have mentioned above, gets freezed for about 30 seconds and comes normal like nothing happened. I tried calling Dell various times but they were just unable to fix this in a month also.

Later they just told me to try out upgrading it to Vista, well I did the same but still I was getting the same problem. That means the problem is not with Operating systems but with the hardware itself, right ? But dell is not ready to accept this. They always keep saying problem is with your software or printer but not with Dell hardware. Now they say me to do a clean install of Vista. Isn’t it worst kind of solution by dell ?

BTW, did you managed to fix yours any way ? can somebody help us out ?

**Allanoo** · 14-03-2007

I don’t have faced this problem ever personally but as per the searches and results I found on internet, many people suggested doing two things: First, you must witch Off your Raid and Second, re-install Windows Vista.

Yes, you will need to reformat the system and do a clean install. Try both of this and see if you getting the same problem. But I guess it will work for sure

**Indravan** · 17-03-2007

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. As there was no other way left, i gave it a try and reinstalling without Raid fixed my problem.

**Spiritual** · 10-12-2007

I think I finally managed to fix the problem with the help of a Dell technician. This is what he suggested me to do:

He told me to move the CD drives from SATA ports 2 and 3 to ports 4 and 5. Yeah, finally they agreed that theproblem was with the hardware settings itself and not with the softwares. Anyway, when you open your cabinet you will find two orange cables connected from the CD drives to the motherboard. And there would be 2 free connectors located underneath. You just have to disconnect both cables and connect them into the lower set of connectors. Once this is done, start the system and keep tapping F2 to enter the setup.

Once in the setup, just change the the status of the SATA ports 2, 3, 4 and 5 as follows:

SATA-2 set to OFF
SATA-3 set to OFF
SATA-4 set to ON
SATA-5 set to ON

That’s it. Save the changes and exit the setup. Computer will boot and should be working fine. My computer is working fine from last 5 hours without freezing. So you guys can also tryout doing the same. Note that my computer model was Dell dimension 9200.