C
Col. Lingus©
I doubt Diskeeper has anything to do with it, really......well...here
goes.................
a7n8x rev. 2.0 (not deluxe)
Athlon 2800+ (clocked at 333 FSB)
1 gig Corsair XMS Series DDR 400 w/ heat spreaders (2 x 512mb)
(no overclock (now) Ram timed at 200 (400)FSB
Bios flashed to 1007 and all timings stock (now)
onboard serial ports, midi, game and sound disabled
Originally running a W-D 2000JB mastering a W-D 800JB on IDE 1
A DVD rom and a CDburner occupying IDE 2.........
all hard drives running NTFS partitions
Installed all the original NV Chipset drivers that came with the board
(1.16 pack, I think) when I built it 6 months ago
Everything has been great for months now.....this thing rocks !!
Ive mild overclocked and installed a huge Volcano, added ram,
Ive fiddled played and tweaked....it was bulletproof and stable.
Installed a GIGANTIC Zalman Heatpipe cooler on my Radeon 9700 Pro
Upgraded to an Audigy 2 Platinum
NO COMPLAINTS ....NONE
I ran Diskeeper on all the partitions and defragged them.
seemed to get alot more disk activity after that....hmmmmm
So, one day, I upgrade to a nice Chieftec Dragon chassis
and an Antec True430 P/S, blue LED fans...all that cool shit.
( to "finish" the package nicely )
Tranferred everything over exactly as it was into the case.....
All cards in the same slots....everything
Immediate problems
Boot time took forever ( I mean like 10- 15 minutes)
Hard drive constantly thrashing and clicking
I had made a recent backup image, so I pulled the drives,
checked the jumpers, replaced the 80 pin cable, checked the bios and
re-dected the drives, booted from floppy and blew a recent POWERQUEST
DRIVE IMAGE back on to the first partion of the 200 gigger.
Same problems...
Put the 200 gigger in another machine, ran W-D diag ...it failed the
test...after a day of cooling in the fridge, I got 95 percent of my
data off of it (whew)
Replaced it with a Samsung sp1614n 160 gigger (very quiet and cool
running drive) 2000JB was always like a "spinning hot plate"
This is master over the WD 800 JB in the first IDE
Samsung is split into 4 NTFS partitions C,D,E,and I drives
800JB is split into F,G,and H dives
F drive is the only FAT 32 drive because it holds my powerquest drive
images and can easily be accessed from DOS in an emergency
(How I partition my drives is my business) Always worked just fine.
Over 6 months...not a hitch
OK...so.....The Samsung is fast and working great, I start getting
thrashing and clicking from the 80 gigger (great) expletive deleted
I backup the data,(lost a few items) test the drive, fails w/ read
errors..........
Still under warranty, get an RMA, wipe the drive, write zeros to it
and retest it in another box...passes this time (oh well)
recieve and install an RMA drive, partition it the same and transfer
all the data back on. 80 gigger as slave to the Samsung.
Ship the "suspect" drive back to W-D...........
Well the new 80 gigger is RIDICULOUSLY slow as well.
Transferring any files off of F, G or H drives is painfullly slow.
HD activity light just stays on constantly, everything grinds to a
halt. Just retrieving headers for Agent (installed on H drive)
causes non stop activity and major slowdown.
I mean "retrieving headers" not "updating headers in a group"
Scrolling thru the headers is a joke (this drive is SLOW !!!!)
Ive tried jumpering the W-D to cable select, no better
Successfully removed the Nvidia IDE drivers.
device manager says "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller"
Still, no better.
I was running BIOS 1003 because 1005 had ram issues
Today I cleared RTC Ram and flashed to 1007....still no better
Ram issues appear to be resolved, though.
Tried re-installing the Nforce chipset drivers 1.16 (actually got even
slower...if that is possible)
heard the newer ones had issues (didnt try them)
Cant really move the 80 gig to IDE 2 without long cabling issues
and creating a "Rat's Nest" in there.
Went to samsung, read the faq's and checked the jumpers
I dont have any more large fast drives on hand or another A7N8X to
try.
So ..what's the concensus here??
Do I have a failing Primary IDE controller ?
Do I have a Samsung/Western Digital conflict?
Do I have a driver issue?
Your help is much appreciated.
Col. Lingus©
goes.................
a7n8x rev. 2.0 (not deluxe)
Athlon 2800+ (clocked at 333 FSB)
1 gig Corsair XMS Series DDR 400 w/ heat spreaders (2 x 512mb)
(no overclock (now) Ram timed at 200 (400)FSB
Bios flashed to 1007 and all timings stock (now)
onboard serial ports, midi, game and sound disabled
Originally running a W-D 2000JB mastering a W-D 800JB on IDE 1
A DVD rom and a CDburner occupying IDE 2.........
all hard drives running NTFS partitions
Installed all the original NV Chipset drivers that came with the board
(1.16 pack, I think) when I built it 6 months ago
Everything has been great for months now.....this thing rocks !!
Ive mild overclocked and installed a huge Volcano, added ram,
Ive fiddled played and tweaked....it was bulletproof and stable.
Installed a GIGANTIC Zalman Heatpipe cooler on my Radeon 9700 Pro
Upgraded to an Audigy 2 Platinum
NO COMPLAINTS ....NONE
I ran Diskeeper on all the partitions and defragged them.
seemed to get alot more disk activity after that....hmmmmm
So, one day, I upgrade to a nice Chieftec Dragon chassis
and an Antec True430 P/S, blue LED fans...all that cool shit.
( to "finish" the package nicely )
Tranferred everything over exactly as it was into the case.....
All cards in the same slots....everything
Immediate problems
Boot time took forever ( I mean like 10- 15 minutes)
Hard drive constantly thrashing and clicking
I had made a recent backup image, so I pulled the drives,
checked the jumpers, replaced the 80 pin cable, checked the bios and
re-dected the drives, booted from floppy and blew a recent POWERQUEST
DRIVE IMAGE back on to the first partion of the 200 gigger.
Same problems...
Put the 200 gigger in another machine, ran W-D diag ...it failed the
test...after a day of cooling in the fridge, I got 95 percent of my
data off of it (whew)
Replaced it with a Samsung sp1614n 160 gigger (very quiet and cool
running drive) 2000JB was always like a "spinning hot plate"
This is master over the WD 800 JB in the first IDE
Samsung is split into 4 NTFS partitions C,D,E,and I drives
800JB is split into F,G,and H dives
F drive is the only FAT 32 drive because it holds my powerquest drive
images and can easily be accessed from DOS in an emergency
(How I partition my drives is my business) Always worked just fine.
Over 6 months...not a hitch
OK...so.....The Samsung is fast and working great, I start getting
thrashing and clicking from the 80 gigger (great) expletive deleted
I backup the data,(lost a few items) test the drive, fails w/ read
errors..........
Still under warranty, get an RMA, wipe the drive, write zeros to it
and retest it in another box...passes this time (oh well)
recieve and install an RMA drive, partition it the same and transfer
all the data back on. 80 gigger as slave to the Samsung.
Ship the "suspect" drive back to W-D...........
Well the new 80 gigger is RIDICULOUSLY slow as well.
Transferring any files off of F, G or H drives is painfullly slow.
HD activity light just stays on constantly, everything grinds to a
halt. Just retrieving headers for Agent (installed on H drive)
causes non stop activity and major slowdown.
I mean "retrieving headers" not "updating headers in a group"
Scrolling thru the headers is a joke (this drive is SLOW !!!!)
Ive tried jumpering the W-D to cable select, no better
Successfully removed the Nvidia IDE drivers.
device manager says "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller"
Still, no better.
I was running BIOS 1003 because 1005 had ram issues
Today I cleared RTC Ram and flashed to 1007....still no better
Ram issues appear to be resolved, though.
Tried re-installing the Nforce chipset drivers 1.16 (actually got even
slower...if that is possible)
heard the newer ones had issues (didnt try them)
Cant really move the 80 gig to IDE 2 without long cabling issues
and creating a "Rat's Nest" in there.
Went to samsung, read the faq's and checked the jumpers
I dont have any more large fast drives on hand or another A7N8X to
try.
So ..what's the concensus here??
Do I have a failing Primary IDE controller ?
Do I have a Samsung/Western Digital conflict?
Do I have a driver issue?
Your help is much appreciated.
Col. Lingus©