Problem with PCI IDE controller

[Mark]

Using Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 IDE contoller with two WD drives (80GB,
120GB), each with 3 partitions. System uses a Chaintech 6BTM Slot1
motherboard (BX chipset) with Award BIOS, Celeron 1400 MHz processor
in slotket, 448MB RAM with Windows 98SE. Internal IDE controller has
6GB and 2GB HD drives plus a CD and DVD+RW drives.

I've had 4 crashes in 6 months now, and only since adding the IDE
controller. The system locks up and trashes the FAT on one or more
partitions on the "external" controller hard disks, typically the
partitions being accessed at the time of the crash. Result: many
orphaned files, trashed directories and worse. Maxtor's Drivemax
utility reports no problems on any HDD. And I'm using the latest
drivers.

Any ideas? Would XP be more stable? It seems to have the same
driver.

Separately, Windows Explorer takes several tens of seconds to update
the file list after a multiple file copy or file delete. Is this a
caching issue?

TIA.

 

[Graham]

Using Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 IDE contoller with two WD drives (80GB, 120GB),
each with 3 partitions. System uses a Chaintech 6BTM Slot1 motherboard
(BX chipset) with Award BIOS, Celeron 1400 MHz processor in slotket, 448MB
RAM with Windows 98SE. Internal IDE controller has 6GB and 2GB HD drives
plus a CD and DVD+RW drives.

I've had 4 crashes in 6 months now, and only since adding the IDE
controller. The system locks up and trashes the FAT on one or more
partitions on the "external" controller hard disks, typically the
partitions being accessed at the time of the crash. Result: many orphaned
files, trashed directories and worse. Maxtor's Drivemax utility reports
no problems on any HDD. And I'm using the latest drivers.

Any ideas? Would XP be more stable? It seems to have the same driver.

Separately, Windows Explorer takes several tens of seconds to update the
file list after a multiple file copy or file delete. Is this a caching
issue?

TIA.

It's a bit frightening expecting that lot to run smoothly under Windows 98.
If this is some sort of server I would say you need to upgrade the OS to
Windows XP.
But to return to your main problem, I would suspect your power supply here.
Is it big enough to power all four drives? Modern hard disks have fast spindle
speeds, they eat amps! I would say your PSU wold need to be at least 300 Watt
for all those drives 350 Watt would give you a bigger safety margin.

Graham.

 

[Eric Gisin]

My first guess is data corruption between chipset and the Maxtor IDE. Second
guess is bad power to drives, especially with power splitters. Third guess
is bad memory or too many SIMMs.

Your MB&chipset is an antique. You can get a much better i815 chipset MB on
ebay and use its UDMA IDE.

 

[Mark]

[snip]

It's a bit frightening expecting that lot to run smoothly under Windows 98.
If this is some sort of server I would say you need to upgrade the OS to
Windows XP.
But to return to your main problem, I would suspect your power supply here.
Is it big enough to power all four drives? Modern hard disks have fast spindle
speeds, they eat amps! I would say your PSU wold need to be at least 300 Watt
for all those drives 350 Watt would give you a bigger safety margin.

It's a general purpose machine mainly used for speech
recognition/document editing and DV storage and basic video
editing/encoding before writing to DVD.

Hence the huge disk space and RAM.

But you may have a point about power although the disks are (only)
5400 rpm devices. A higher grade power supply is a cheap next option.

 

[Rod Speed]

It's a bit frightening expecting that lot to run smoothly under Windows 98.
If this is some sort of server I would say you need to upgrade the OS to
Windows XP.

But to return to your main problem, I would suspect your
power supply here. Is it big enough to power all four drives?
Modern hard disks have fast spindle speeds, they eat amps!
Bullshit.

I would say your PSU wold need to be at least 300 Watt for
all those drives 350 Watt would give you a bigger safety margin.

Its unlikely to be the problem.

 

[Rod Speed]

Using Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 IDE contoller with two WD
drives (80GB, 120GB), each with 3 partitions. System
uses a Chaintech 6BTM Slot1 motherboard (BX chipset)
with Award BIOS, Celeron 1400 MHz processor in slotket,

That could be your problem.

448MB RAM with Windows 98SE. Internal IDE controller
has 6GB and 2GB HD drives plus a CD and DVD+RW drives.

I've had 4 crashes in 6 months now, and only since adding
the IDE controller. The system locks up and trashes the
FAT on one or more partitions on the "external" controller
hard disks, typically the partitions being accessed at the
time of the crash. Result: many orphaned files, trashed
directories and worse. Maxtor's Drivemax utility reports
no problems on any HDD. And I'm using the latest drivers.

Any ideas? Would XP be more stable?

Yes, but it may well not be relevant to that particular hardware problem.

It seems to have the same driver.
Nope.

Separately, Windows Explorer takes several tens
of seconds to update the file list after a multiple
file copy or file delete. Is this a caching issue?

Nope.

 

[Graham]

Its unlikely to be the problem.

Please enlighten us with your pearls of wisdom.

Graham.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Please enlighten us with your pearls of wisdom.

Already did. Obviously it was just pearls before swine in your case.