HDD detection problem on Asus A7V8X-MX

[Patrick Dunford]

Machine spec:
Asus A7V8X-MX
Athlon XP2600
512MB DDR266
Integrated audio, video
WDC WD800JB-00FMA0 HDD 80 GB
ASUS CRW5232AS CD rewriter

There have been a few instances of it failing to detect the HDD on
startup, or taking a very long time to complete detection. The BIOS
settings are to auto detect the HDD each time the machine starts. This
is a new computer only 3 months old.

On this occasion after "Primary master hard disk fail" was reported I
went into the BIOS settings and attempted to have the drive auto
detected by the setup program, which also failed. However on the next
power up of the machine the HDD was detected and I was able to get the
HDD parameters entered into the BIOS.

On other occasions that I have observed, auto detection has been
extremely slow, and/or boot times have been extremely slow to complete
booting and loading Windows XP.

The power supply voltage monitor reads the following voltages:

Vcore 1.71 V
3.3v 3.34 V
5.0v 4.91 V
12v 11.55 V

CPU temp 32°C
MB temp 25°C

Bios revision: 1003 (current release is 1006). No specific related
issues addressed by any released BIOS updates.

Have looked in the case and can see no problems, all connectors and
jumpers on the HDD appear to be properly seated.

 

[Rider]

Machine spec:
Asus A7V8X-MX
Athlon XP2600
512MB DDR266
Integrated audio, video
WDC WD800JB-00FMA0 HDD 80 GB
ASUS CRW5232AS CD rewriter

There have been a few instances of it failing to detect the HDD on
startup, or taking a very long time to complete detection. The BIOS
settings are to auto detect the HDD each time the machine starts. This
is a new computer only 3 months old.

On this occasion after "Primary master hard disk fail" was reported I
went into the BIOS settings and attempted to have the drive auto
detected by the setup program, which also failed. However on the next
power up of the machine the HDD was detected and I was able to get the
HDD parameters entered into the BIOS.

On other occasions that I have observed, auto detection has been
extremely slow, and/or boot times have been extremely slow to complete
booting and loading Windows XP.

The power supply voltage monitor reads the following voltages:

Vcore 1.71 V
3.3v 3.34 V
5.0v 4.91 V
12v 11.55 V

CPU temp 32°C
MB temp 25°C

Bios revision: 1003 (current release is 1006). No specific related
issues addressed by any released BIOS updates.

Have looked in the case and can see no problems, all connectors and
jumpers on the HDD appear to be properly seated.

I would be inclined suspect the hard drive being dicky before the
motherboard. Have you run diagnostics on the hard drive?

Rider

 

[Patrick Dunford]

I would be inclined suspect the hard drive being dicky before the
motherboard. Have you run diagnostics on the hard drive?

How do you do that?

I just checked the IDE channels in Device Manager and found XP is only
using PIO mode on device 0 of the primary (the HDD) even though it is
supposed to use DMA if available. What does this mean?

 

[colinco]

I just checked the IDE channels in Device Manager and found XP is only
using PIO mode on device 0 of the primary (the HDD) even though it is
supposed to use DMA if available. What does this mean?
[/QUOTE]
How is the drive connected? If the WD is the only device on a channel it
has to be jumpered as such not master

 

[EMB]

How is the drive connected? If the WD is the only device on a channel it
has to be jumpered as such not master

Yep.... jumpered to use CS (as should all devices on this channel) and
as addressed as the master by being connected to the end connector on
the (80 pin) cable.

 

[Patrick Dunford]

How is the drive connected? If the WD is the only device on a channel it
has to be jumpered as such not master

It has the standard jumpers (not the funny ones that earlier Caviars and
such like had) e.g. MA SL CS and is jumpered CS

 

[~misfit~]

Yep.... jumpered to use CS (as should all devices on this channel) and
as addressed as the master by being connected to the end connector on
the (80 pin) cable.

Colinco's point is that Western Digital drives have two jumper settings
where most other drives have one that does the same thing. With a WD drive
it can either be set as 'master' which is the setting you use if there is a
slave drive present or 'single' if there is no slave. Having it set as
master when there is no slave causes problems, it needs to be set as single.
WD are the only ones who do this AFAIK, other drives are fine just set to
master whether there is a slave present or not.

 

[Harry]

Have looked in the case and can see no problems, all connectors and
jumpers on the HDD appear to be properly seated.

What disk jumper setting have you set?
Cable-select or master or slave?

 

[Harry]

Yep.... jumpered to use CS (as should all devices on this channel) and
as addressed as the master by being connected to the end connector on
the (80 pin) cable.

Isn't the master the connector in the middle, not the end?

 

[Harry]

Colinco's point is that Western Digital drives have two jumper settings
where most other drives have one that does the same thing. With a WD drive
it can either be set as 'master' which is the setting you use if there is
a slave drive present or 'single' if there is no slave. Having it set as
master when there is no slave causes problems, it needs to be set as
single. WD are the only ones who do this AFAIK, other drives are fine just
set to master whether there is a slave present or not.

But it is set for cable-select!
There should be no jumper on master or slave pins whatever they are.
Master/slave is determined by cabling.

 

[Lil' Dave]

WD. Yep, use those alot.
My standard blurb for WDs standalone is do not use CS. Do not use any
ribbon cable except spec 80 wire, 18 inches long. Do not place on middle,
use end of ribbon cable connection. Remove all jumpers from the drive, this
is standalone or master w/o slave setting.

 

[Paul]

How do you do that?

I just checked the IDE channels in Device Manager and found XP is only
using PIO mode on device 0 of the primary (the HDD) even though it is
supposed to use DMA if available. What does this mean?

Disk manufacturers have a "Drive Fitness Test" for their drives,
and this test is typically used to determine whether the drive
should be RMAed or not under warranty. Such a test can be destructive
(i.e. if it does writes to the drive), so a backup wouldn't be a bad
idea. Check the WD site to see if they have such a test.

Another test is to find a utility that can read the drive S.M.A.R.T
statistics. SMART is intended to give an early warning that the drive
is not healthy, by counting detected errors and the like.

As for your observation that Windows is running in PIO mode, this
can happen if Windows is having trouble talking to the drive.
There is a knowledgebase article that talks about the algorithm
that Windows uses to throttle the communications rate to a
drive it is having trouble with. This could be why you are in
PIO mode.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

"After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a
cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check
(CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the
transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode
to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive
time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer
mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode)."

Workaround:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=#[email protected]

I notice you have one hard drive and one CDRW. Try placing them
on separate cables, so the troubles of one drive are not
upsetting the other drive.

Your three PSU voltages look fine, as they are within the normal
tolerance of +/- 5%.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Patrick Dunford]

Colinco's point is that Western Digital drives have two jumper settings
where most other drives have one that does the same thing. With a WD drive
it can either be set as 'master' which is the setting you use if there is a
slave drive present or 'single' if there is no slave. Having it set as
master when there is no slave causes problems, it needs to be set as single.
WD are the only ones who do this AFAIK, other drives are fine just set to
master whether there is a slave present or not.

Old WD drives have strange odd jumper settings (I have one in my machine
at home, you may recall) with 8 - 10 pins on the jumpers.

But this drive has the standard jumpers: MA, SL, CS with 6 pins on the
jumpers.

 

[colinco]

Old WD drives have strange odd jumper settings (I have one in my machine
at home, you may recall) with 8 - 10 pins on the jumpers.

But this drive has the standard jumpers: MA, SL, CS with 6 pins on the
jumpers.
[/QUOTE]
http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp

They still have a single setting

 

[joe_90]

Machine spec:
Asus A7V8X-MX
Athlon XP2600
512MB DDR266
Integrated audio, video
WDC WD800JB-00FMA0 HDD 80 GB
ASUS CRW5232AS CD rewriter

That DDR266 on an XP2600 looks suspicious to me
(unless you're one of the lucky few).

 

[~misfit~]

Old WD drives have strange odd jumper settings (I have one in my
machine at home, you may recall) with 8 - 10 pins on the jumpers.

But this drive has the standard jumpers: MA, SL, CS with 6 pins on
the jumpers.

http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp

They still have a single setting[/QUOTE]

Thought so.

 

[Patrick Dunford]

That DDR266 on an XP2600 looks suspicious to me
(unless you're one of the lucky few).

That's what the BIOS reports on startup. I haven't looked at the RAM to
see what is marked on it.

 

[~misfit~]

That DDR266 on an XP2600 looks suspicious to me
(unless you're one of the lucky few).

It does indeed. Two possible reasons I can think of. Firstly the RAM and CPU
FSB could be running asynchronously. (not good performance-wise) or secondly
it could be one of the older XP2600+'s, T'bred core, 256KB L2cache, 133Mhz
FSB.

 

[D]

The reason for using CS is???

It has the standard jumpers (not the funny ones that earlier Caviars and
such like had) e.g. MA SL CS and is jumpered CS

 

[Lil' Dave]

Disk manufacturers have a "Drive Fitness Test" for their drives,
and this test is typically used to determine whether the drive
should be RMAed or not under warranty. Such a test can be destructive
(i.e. if it does writes to the drive), so a backup wouldn't be a bad
idea. Check the WD site to see if they have such a test.

Another test is to find a utility that can read the drive S.M.A.R.T
statistics. SMART is intended to give an early warning that the drive
is not healthy, by counting detected errors and the like.

As for your observation that Windows is running in PIO mode, this
can happen if Windows is having trouble talking to the drive.
There is a knowledgebase article that talks about the algorithm
that Windows uses to throttle the communications rate to a
drive it is having trouble with. This could be why you are in
PIO mode.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

"After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a
cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check
(CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the
transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode
to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive
time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer
mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode)."

Workaround:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=#[email protected]

I notice you have one hard drive and one CDRW. Try placing them
on separate cables, so the troubles of one drive are not
upsetting the other drive.

Your three PSU voltages look fine, as they are within the normal
tolerance of +/- 5%.

HTH,
Paul

Don't mean squat if the jumpers are not configured for proper operation
considering position on ribbon cable, and any other device on that cable.