Slowness, BSoD, atapi.sys nw8440

[nw8440]

First, there was an issue related to 80GB Seagate original hdd inside the nw8440.

Simply, without known reason it stopped working, after starting laptop, it just endlessly repeats HP logo, hdd light lights for a second then again it goes back to hdd logo, then again and again. There is a sound of the DVD/CD in the middle of it, but those restarts are very, very frequent - one time per few seconds.

I replaced hdd with 320 GB SATA. I manage to have 4 partitions three partiotions with 29GBs, forth, biggest, rest of the space.

Installed Windows XP, and SP2. First installation absolutely slow, hours and hours and hours. Then I deleted the installation, started it again. Change one BIOS parameter in relation to SATA native or bit / LBA, at the moment not sure.

Installation was much faster - as it should be.

SP2 installed as well.

Lot of devices not recognized, so I downloaded drivers for them from HP site.

Then there was the change.

Slowness, incredible. Mouse pointer is moving okay, but when I click something on the screen, sometimes response is okay, instant, but sometimes - 3-4 seconds (without reason, normally it should be instant response), sometimes 20-30 seconds.

Also, after I start some applications slownes is getting more problematical.Firefox, for example - entering anything in search form is - one letter per 2-3 or even more seconds, not easy to explain how bad it looks.

Then BSoD.

Sometimes, after 5 or 10 or 15 minutes (not every time, I may say BSoD is happening when some specific Windows applications are started like Freshdiagnose, for example).

In the created file, after BSoD - there is message related to atapi.sys. BSoD - driver_irql_not_less_or_equal.

Memory was checked today by newest memtest (complete pass), no errors at all.

SDHC card 4GB was all the time inside (thru all the time - even before Seagate hdd was broken), I did not remove it at all - better to say I forgot that it was inside. I cannot be sure if this has anything with the problems, just in cause - I am mentioning it.

Also, I am checking new hdd just at the moment using HD Tune - I just saw progress on the screen - aproximately half of the drive checked - no errors at all.

Few days ago, I tried to check old Seagate disc, which I removed - I was able to do that thru SATA USB adapter. Drive works! I was able to see the filesystem, folders, files.

Just in case, I trid old hdd again - no success - everything was the same as it was before, frequent reboots.

I tried to explain all details related to the issue, have to say - the post is large, but I just hope that there is an explanation and solution for what happened.

Lot of time spent on attempts to resolve this.

Please - answer - there must be some explanation and solution for this.

[nw8440 · Accepted solution]

SOLVED!!!!

All mentioned problems solved.

Seems that HP Compaq nw8440 does not like (understatement) hard drives from (some) other vendors. 320GB hdd I used as a replacement for Seagate 80GB simply made all mentioned issues.

Today I just replaced nonSeagate hdd with Seagate 500GB. After that - completely different story.

Windows installed, very, very fast (cannot be compared to what happened previous few days).

Tomorrow Linux installation.

Laptop is working fast, smooth, no delays, no slowness, no BSoD, no problems.