Pundit-R S-ATA throughput low

[Christian Pedersen]

Hi!

I've got a Pundit-R system running Windows XP SP2, and I've just
fitted the Western Digital Raptor 740GD drive.

I'm experiencing unsatisfactory thorughput, at around just 40MB/s,
where other people I've spoken to, get as high as 65MB/s average read,
and 100MB/s burst. I only get around 40MB/s burst. I'm using HD Tach
3.0 for testing. I would expect the drive to deliver much higher
throughput on my system.

See: http://www.tweak.dk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4004&sid=e16e94ed7cb55514d099e9d6eecca5f8

My settings are as follows:

Block mode: 16 sectors
PIO mode: 4
Async DMA: MW DMA 2
Ultra DMA: UDMA6
32-bit datatransfer

The can't be altered much, so I assume they should be the optimum
settings.

Did any of you experience the same when fitting S-ATA drives to the
Pundit-R? Any S-ATA drives, that is. I used to have a Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 9 drive fitted to the PATA-port, and it benchmarked
much better. The Windows installation is brand new (OEM-version came
with the WD-drive)

(the Pundit-R is fitted with a 3.0GHz Prescott and PC2700 DDR memory)

I'm looking forward to hearing you experiences.

Best regards,
Christian

 

[Paul]

Hi!

I've got a Pundit-R system running Windows XP SP2, and I've just
fitted the Western Digital Raptor 740GD drive.

I'm experiencing unsatisfactory thorughput, at around just 40MB/s,
where other people I've spoken to, get as high as 65MB/s average read,
and 100MB/s burst. I only get around 40MB/s burst. I'm using HD Tach
3.0 for testing. I would expect the drive to deliver much higher
throughput on my system.

See: http://www.tweak.dk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4004&sid=e16e94ed7cb55514d099e9d6eecca5f8

My settings are as follows:

Block mode: 16 sectors
PIO mode: 4
Async DMA: MW DMA 2
Ultra DMA: UDMA6
32-bit datatransfer

The can't be altered much, so I assume they should be the optimum
settings.

Did any of you experience the same when fitting S-ATA drives to the
Pundit-R? Any S-ATA drives, that is. I used to have a Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 9 drive fitted to the PATA-port, and it benchmarked
much better. The Windows installation is brand new (OEM-version came
with the WD-drive)

(the Pundit-R is fitted with a 3.0GHz Prescott and PC2700 DDR memory)

I'm looking forward to hearing you experiences.

Best regards,
Christian

What, exactly, does the Pundit-R use to control the SATA port ?
AFAIK the ATI chipset doesn't do SATA, so there must be a separate
chip to do it ? (The user manual doesn't have a picture of the
motherboard in the Pundit-R, so I cannot read the chip numbers
for myself. The diagram in the manual is missing a label for the
chip near the SATA connector.)

Your HDTach results are a flat line. If the drive was media (head)
limited, the line would slope, as drives are faster at the beginning
of the disk, than at the end. On my old IDE drives, the ratio between
beginning and end of disk is about 2:1. Raptors are a bit different
than that ratio, but no drive should be a flat line.

The implication is that the data transfer method is slowing you
down. When you check with a Windows utility, what does it report
for the current operating mode of the drive ? Does it say UDMA 5
or does it say something else ?

If a drive is experiencing errors, modern OS like WinXP have the
ability to throttle down the transfer rate. That could be what has
happened to your drive - the driver detected CRC errors while
doing operations on the disk, and has ramped down the transfer
rate. This article, suggests as a workaround, that you uninstall
the driver for the disk, reboot, and let Windows reinstall
the driver - this should clear the records of any detected CRC
errors:

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

HTH,
Paul

 

[Little TeaPot]

Weird that, i get 115 burst and average 50

What, exactly, does the Pundit-R use to control the SATA port ?
AFAIK the ATI chipset doesn't do SATA, so there must be a separate
chip to do it ? (The user manual doesn't have a picture of the
motherboard in the Pundit-R, so I cannot read the chip numbers
for myself. The diagram in the manual is missing a label for the
chip near the SATA connector.)

Your HDTach results are a flat line. If the drive was media (head)
limited, the line would slope, as drives are faster at the beginning
of the disk, than at the end. On my old IDE drives, the ratio between
beginning and end of disk is about 2:1. Raptors are a bit different
than that ratio, but no drive should be a flat line.

The implication is that the data transfer method is slowing you
down. When you check with a Windows utility, what does it report
for the current operating mode of the drive ? Does it say UDMA 5
or does it say something else ?

If a drive is experiencing errors, modern OS like WinXP have the
ability to throttle down the transfer rate. That could be what has
happened to your drive - the driver detected CRC errors while
doing operations on the disk, and has ramped down the transfer
rate. This article, suggests as a workaround, that you uninstall
the driver for the disk, reboot, and let Windows reinstall
the driver - this should clear the records of any detected CRC
errors:

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

HTH,
Paul

 

[Christian Pedersen]

Yes, that is wierd. Are you running SP2?

What are your BIOS settings?