I always update from the manufacturer as apposed to going by Gigabytes almost up to date versions..

It's newer than the one I had so I'll give it a try. I got most of my drivers from the ASUS website actually, I'll see if I can update any others from the vendors directly.

Yeah it was just easier to download because they were all in the same place![]()

I might have found a lead as to why the system freezes. It just froze up at around 01:18 and at 01:28 it unfroze again. I check the Event Viewer and found tons of warnings in here about disk0 (I assume this is my C drive) and one error. Screenshots below:
http://s14.directupload.net/images/121204/5bswvy3f.png
http://s14.directupload.net/images/121204/ea8jtnle.png
http://s1.directupload.net/images/121204/8mwt4ui8.png
The error in the first picture appeared only once.
The warning in second picture is the same every time but the block address changes in every listing, it's the one with disk as source.
The warning in the third picture is exactly the same every single time, it's the one that has iaStorA as source.
The reset warning from the third picture is only listed once or twice on other days randomly but during the freeze I just experienced it was listed 11 times from 01:18:31 until 01:28:31, not that this is EXACTLY 10 minutes.
Another thing I noticed is that when I the freeze occurred I also had a game opened, this game (like all my others) is installed on a secondary SSD (my D drive) and this game continued to respond without any issues. See below:
http://s7.directupload.net/images/121204/wjhu4kjv.png
You can see that the sidebar on the right is frozen in place and the preview thumbnail is also frozen. Nothing would respond at all aside from the League of Legends client screen that you see in the middle.
This leads me to believe that the issue is definitely something on my C drive, the question is what. It contains windows and all my applications, only my games are installed on the secondary drive.

I used to have the Intel Rapid Storage Driver installed and I recently removed it reverting back to the Intel AHCI drivers, the computer has experienced freezing with both drivers. The very last thing I can think of is updating the firmware on my C drive, but seeing as both my C and D drives are the same and run on the same firmware I find it strange that only the C drive has freezing issues, and only when running Windows 8.
EDIT: After doing some googling I have found out that Event ID 129 is related to system freezes but I can't find a solution anywhere yet.
Last edited by Cody Kaspers; 12-04-2012 at 11:54 AM.
Just my 2¢ (sorry for butting in here)...
Make sure that you don't have an SSD connected to a controller with outdated drivers (for SSD's anything that isn't from 2012 is considered outdated). In particular (with Asus boards) are the Marvell controllers as the latest drivers date from 2011.
And, FYI, an error due to a hard drive on one controller can actually affect the entire system - that's why (at work) we test all hard drives when we suspect a hard drive issue.
I didn't read the entire topic, but if you can remove the SSD(s), then do so for testing purposes. If the OS drive is on an SSD, leave that test to last - and then put a temporary copy of Windows on a platter based hard drive to see if that fixes it.

As far as I know I know motherboard doesn't even have a Marvell controller and I heard they are extremely bad.
Regarding the drivers, when I check on the ASUS website I find 2 different entries under SATA.
ASUS - Motherboards- ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
It shows Asmedia AHCI Driver V1.3.4.0 for Windows 8 32bit & 64bit.(WHQL), from what I can tell the only newer one is 1.3.8.0 however I cannot find anything official from Asmedia themselves.
And
Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology enterprise Driver Software V3.5.0.1092 for Windows Vista/7 32bit & 64bit.(WHQL)
Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology enterprise Driver Software V3.5.0.1096 for Windows 8 32bit & 64bit.(WHQL)
Intel(R) AHCI/RAID Driver for Windows Vista/7/8 32bit & 64bit.
I have used the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise Driver before but only from ASUS, if I try to download it from Intel the installation tells me that my hardware does not support it. The second one, the Intel AHCI/RAID Driver I can't even find on the Intel website so I am using whatever version windows has found.
From what I know my computer has experienced freezing with both drivers and ONLY with Windows 8. I could check to see if my SSD drives have a loose connection anywhere or maybe I could try a different port, but I have no idea if that would help.
EDIT: I have checked the manual and my SSDs are connected to the Intel X79 Serial ATA 6GB/s connectors. Nothing is connected to the Asmedia ones.
Last edited by Cody Kaspers; 12-04-2012 at 07:36 PM.

So I have installed the Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology enterprise Driver Software directly from intel, which had a slightly newer version to see if anything changes. Turns out there is a difference between enterprise and non enterprise which is why I could never find the correct one.
If this doesn't work my last hope is to update my C drive firmware as well, but this firmware version existed long before Windows 8 if I recall correctly which is why I don't think it will help. It could be that the drive itself is failing (I have heard a few bad things about the OCZ Vertex 3) but personally I think it's simply an issue within Windows 8 and I will revert back to Windows 7 if I really can't solve it.