GA-7NNXP SATA intermittent system lockups

[Bob]

I just built my new system, with my single disk being SATA, and installed
WIN98SE, plus the latest service pack. I am getting continuous system
lockups when the disk is accessed, and terrible disk performance.

For instance, if I run the SiSoft Sandra Disk Benchmark the animation stops
and I can't move the mouse except for brief intervals until I interrupt the
test. I've installed the latest BIOS (F18) and drivers from the giga-byte
website.

I tried setting the BIOS to "SATA BASE" vs "SATA RAID" but it seems to make
no difference. I tried using an IDE disk to boot off of (with the SATA
disk as D, but the SATA disk access still cause this behavior.

If I let the SiSoft Sandra benchmark complete (which takes about 30 minutes)
I get pathetic write numbers:
buffered write 8 MB/s
sequential write 1465 kB/s
buffered read 1148 MB/s
sequential read 2641 kB/s

Any thoughts? My system is:

GA-7NNXP
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 333MHz
Kingston 512MB PC3200 CL3 memory (single DS KVR500/512R, DIMM slot 1)
(I initially was using two of these but my system was unstable, I
believe there is a WIN98 bug for >512MB memory that I need to pursue later)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB SATA drive on SATA0 channel
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800SE 128MB 128-bit 8X AGP
Lite-On LDW-811S DVD burner (IDE0 master)
Antec True430 ATX power
USB kb/mouse

Thanks for any insights,
Bob

 

[jpsga]

When you installed the Windows ME/98 drivers for the Sil3112 did you select
Base Configuration?
Did you fdisk and format for FAT32?
Does the SATA BIOS show every thing correctly?

JPS

 

[Bob]

Just a follow-up. When I happened to look into Device Manager I found
that the Mass Storage device for my SATA was "Unknown". I suspect that
the original WIN98 install did this without telling me, and somehow this
particular driver didn't get installed from the mobo support CD. Once I
downloaded the latest from their website and installed it it works great.

I am having some mysteries with my memory now, but I'll post that on another
more suitable thread.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[McGrandpa]

Just a follow-up. When I happened to look into Device Manager I found
that the Mass Storage device for my SATA was "Unknown". I suspect
that
the original WIN98 install did this without telling me, and somehow
this
particular driver didn't get installed from the mobo support CD.
Once I
downloaded the latest from their website and installed it it works
great.

I am having some mysteries with my memory now, but I'll post that on
another
more suitable thread.

Thanks,
Bob

You are using one DIMM? There must be a few things you don't understand
about the DDR and Dual Channel technology.

The following is excerpted from your motherboards manual:

Dual Channel DDR:

GA-7NNXPV / GA-7NNXP / GA-7N400V Pro / GA-7N400 Pro / GA-7N400-L1
support Dual Channel

Technology. When Dual Channel Technology is activated, the bandwidth of
memory bus will be double

the original one, with the fastest speed at 6.4GB/s(DDR400) or
5.3GB/s(DDR333).

GA-7NNXPV / GA-7NNXP / GA-7N400V Pro / GA-7N400 Pro / GA-7N400-L1
include 4 DIMM slots, and

each Channel has 2 DIMMs as following:

Channel A : DIMM 1, 2

Channel B : DIMM 3, 4

Below are the explanations:

If you want to operate the Dual Channel Technology, please note the
following explanations

due to the limitation of nVIDIA chipset specifications.

1. Only one DDR memory module is installed: The Dual Channel Technology
can't

operate when only one DDR memory module is installed.

2. Two DDR memory modules are installed: The Dual Channel Technology
will operate

when two memory modules are inserted individually into Channel A and B.
If you install

two memory modules in the same channel, the Dual Channel Technology will
not

operate.

3. Three or Four DDR memory modules are installed: Please follow figure
1 to achieve the

 

[Dimitris]

Just a follow-up. When I happened to look into Device Manager I found
that the Mass Storage device for my SATA was "Unknown". I suspect that
the original WIN98 install did this without telling me, and somehow this
particular driver didn't get installed from the mobo support CD. Once I
downloaded the latest from their website and installed it it works great.

I am having some mysteries with my memory now, but I'll post that on another
more suitable thread.

Get the latest bios for your motheboard. Check the sata cables(data
and power). Ensure that the PSU power is adequate.

Set the Sata controller in BASE(or ATA) mode from within bios. Get the
latest drivers from www.siliconimage.com and install them.

If these doesnt work then try to install windows xp in a different
partition if possible.

 

[Dimitris]

I just built my new system, with my single disk being SATA, and installed
WIN98SE, plus the latest service pack. I am getting continuous system
lockups when the disk is accessed, and terrible disk performance.

For instance, if I run the SiSoft Sandra Disk Benchmark the animation stops
and I can't move the mouse except for brief intervals until I interrupt the
test. I've installed the latest BIOS (F18) and drivers from the giga-byte
website.

I tried setting the BIOS to "SATA BASE" vs "SATA RAID" but it seems to make
no difference. I tried using an IDE disk to boot off of (with the SATA
disk as D, but the SATA disk access still cause this behavior.

If I let the SiSoft Sandra benchmark complete (which takes about 30 minutes)
I get pathetic write numbers:
buffered write 8 MB/s
sequential write 1465 kB/s
buffered read 1148 MB/s
sequential read 2641 kB/s

Any thoughts? My system is:

GA-7NNXP
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 333MHz
Kingston 512MB PC3200 CL3 memory (single DS KVR500/512R, DIMM slot 1)
(I initially was using two of these but my system was unstable, I
believe there is a WIN98 bug for >512MB memory that I need to pursue later)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB SATA drive on SATA0 channel
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800SE 128MB 128-bit 8X AGP
Lite-On LDW-811S DVD burner (IDE0 master)
Antec True430 ATX power
USB kb/mouse

Thanks for any insights,
Bob

Yes there is the issue with >512mb memory which affects win95,98 and
windows millenium. You need to run msconfig, go to the system.ini(or
win.ini) tab and put the MaxFileCacheSize=512000 entry in the
filecache section.

I think afterall that it is windows 98 to blame. I cant work at all
with sata in windows ME. I have to disable it to boot windows
ME(millenium).