BSODs + ATAPI parity and HDD controller errors

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Help!!

I have been getting occasional BSODs, with Kernal_stack_inpage error codes x00000077 or 7a. The event viewer is showing frequent HDD contoller errors on \Device\Harddisk0\D (event ID 11), with less frequent ATAPI parity errors on \Device\Ide\IdePort0 (event ID 5) and HDD errors during paging operations (event ID 51). Also, when CDs are being played, cdrom bad block errors occur (event ID 7).


I have an Acer Aspire laptop 1692wlmi:pentium M 170, 1.73 GHz;Acer, Crane motherboard; System BIOS: Acer 3A17; i915GM/PM chipset; 2x 256 Mb DDR2 SD-RAM; Adapter: ATI mobility radeon X700; HDD: IC25N080ATMR04-0 (75GB);CD-ROM/DVD: Mat****a UJ-845D; Windows Pro SP2.

A bit of history--similar errors (event ID 11, 5 and 51) occured in the first few months of operation (last september) with BSODs of an error code 8e (I think). The Acer Techs replaced the motherboard, which fixed the problem until recently. I fear it is the motherboard again, and my warranty has run out.

I installed Speedfan to check the core temp, it is maintained around 53-56 degrees Celius. I used the IBM disk utilities to check the HDD, which showed no errors after testing O/N. I have defragged the pagefile, updated the chipset drivers, and tested each stick of RAM separately using x86 memtest and windows memtest for at least 8 passes (no errors found), and still I have these errors.

I have attached three minidumps from the four BSODs that have occurred since the errors began on the 27th of August (the fourth occurred during start up and no minidump was created, it as a Kernal-stack-inpage error, x000-etc-77

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

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Have you swapped your CDROM. ATAPI is used for CD ROM/ DVD ROMs. There might be something wrong with your CD ROm. Also check your IDE cable for any obvious damage

check to see how your CD is transferring data. If you can enable DMA, which you should, then enbale DMA instead of POI.

If you have a external CD ROM available try that out and see if you get any error, disable your other one just to see if you get any errors with the external one.
 
Just tossing the idea out there, but maybe these errors are unrelated?

Perhaps your hard drive is failing and your CD-ROM is having its own troubles reading your media (scratches or another failing drive).

It might seem unlikely, but I've seen less likely things happen for sure.

You should run a manufacturer's disk diagnostic outside of Windows to determine if this is a hardware or software problem. Run it several times. I imagine the drive is manufacturered by IBM (Hitachi), in which case you should use IBM's DFT. A link can be found in the storage forum under Drive Diagnostic Compendium.

53-56 Celsius
... is hot. My Pentium M 1.5GHz 'freaks out' around 60*C. BIOS temperatures are not always reported correctly and there could be a variation on temperature. I would expect a heat problem to be exposed with Memtest though, as it is very memory and CPU intensive... generating a lot of heat. But you might want to look into getting your CPU heatsink assembly cleaned out because the dust that collects can easily cause a 10-15*C temperature increase under normal operating conditions. In most laptops, it's possible to use compressed air to blow out most of the junk without any laptop disassembly. But again, I don't think this is a heat problem since Memtest doesn't crash your system... still worth considering.

There's not much else that can cause this. The absolute best way to solve whether this is a software or hardware problem is to install a fresh copy of Windows XP onto it. If you're tech savvy enough, you might be familiar with imaging your drive to an external drive, partitioning your hard drive for a parallel install of Windows or even replacing the hard drive with a spare for testing. If a clean install of Windows suffers the same symptoms, then we can be sure your laptop's hardware is to blame.

You can also try updating your laptops chipset drivers, but I don't suspect this is the issue.
 
Firstly thanks guys for taking the time to look at the problems.

Smore468: I haven't moved or changed the CD drive, but I will check the connections. Although I was unaware that laptops have IDEs. My optical drive is transferring data by DMA.

Rick: I recently updated the chipset drivers and I have tried the IBM DFT.
I will get the compressed air onto my air supplies. I don't really have an accurate measure of my system temp because speed fan reads the initial temperature and then the temp remains static until I reboot. I will also try the clean install of windows-I have a pre-error ghost of my system, which should do the trick.
 
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