SATA drives on P5AD2-E premium...

[snakedjip]

Hi,

I'm having problems with my P5AD2-e premium board. I have 5x200GB
Seagate drives, one being the boot drive, the four others are all data.

I have Windows XP Media Center Edition installed.

My problem was this : the computer would periodically freeze for a
couple of seconds. No mouse movement, and if ever there was sound
being emitted at the time of the freeze, the emitted sound would
stutter (repeat itself) for the duration of the freeze. This would
happen either in My Music or My Videos in Media Center.

One thing I noticed is that if I only install the OS drive to one of
the red master SATA connectors (and disable the Silicon Image
controller in BIOS), the PC works great (it is really fast, and no
freeze-ups). If I then install 3 of the 4 other drives to the 3 other
connectors, the PC takes forever to boot, and it sometimes freezes up
again.

So, I'm wondering now if I'm at all supposed to connect four SATA
drives to the same controller ?!??!

And why does Windows slow down the boot process and / or freeze up when
installing data drives ?!?!?

Let's say I can figure out a way to only use four drives total (one OS,
three data), can I connect them all to the IT8212 (?) controller ? Why
are there MASTER and SLAVE connectors for SATA drives ? I thought
Master and Slave were for IDE only ?

What should the BIOS settings be ?

Does it seem like I have a faulty board ?

Thanks.

 

[DaveW]

Just out curiosity regarding your problem, with (5) Seagate harddrives and
all your other computer components, are you certain you have a powerful
enough High Quality Power supply unit that can drive everything when the
computer is up to temperature?

 

[snakedjip]

Yes, the power supply was chosen accordingly.

I'm testing the four data drives independently as I'm writing this, and
they are behaving differently. While one caused a very slow bootup,
the second one had no impact on bootup time.

Why would adding a hard drive cause a slow bootup ?


DaveW a écrit :

 

[Paul]

Yes, the power supply was chosen accordingly.

I'm testing the four data drives independently as I'm writing this, and
they are behaving differently. While one caused a very slow bootup,
the second one had no impact on bootup time.

Why would adding a hard drive cause a slow bootup ?

Have you used a Seagate test program, to verify the drives are operating
properly. Maybe one of the drives is bad - like the one causing
the slow boot for example.

Download "Seatools Desktop" from here:

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html

Prepare the test floppy, using the download. The floppy contains
some kind of DOS environment plus the test program.

Try connecting a single drive to be tested, to a
Southbridge port. Disk drive test programs will be
most compatible with a Southbridge. Run the test on
each drive, and see if any drive is not performing
correctly.

If all drives are healthy and exactly the same in performance,
try moving the drive from one port to the next, and testing each
time. Perhaps one of the ports has marginal electrical performance.

Paul

 

[BC]

Yes, the power supply was chosen accordingly.

Wattage & amp ratings?

Decent name brand?

Some power supplies are rated at a cool temperature, then blow up when
subjected to real world loads and temperatures:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/11/stress_test/

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/technology/myths/

To properly compare power supplies, wattage claims must state the
maximum ambient temperature for continuous, full-load operation.
Unfortunately for the consumer, this information is usually withheld,
opening the door for manufacturers to exaggerate their wattage claims.
They do so by assuming an unrealistic ambient temp of only 25°C (77°F),
even though the actual internal power supply temp is at least 40°C
(104°F). Since the proper full-load rating is 15°C higher for home use
and 25°C higher for industrial use, these power supplies produce 33%-50%
less power than their advertised ratings. See the derating chart on the
right.

 

[snakedjip]

It was finally a faulty drive, I now have 4 drives connected and the
system is blazing fast... I hope that in the future this thread will
help someone troubleshoot their system : if you have a slow-booting
system, it could be a faulty drive, even if it's not your boot drive.

The only way I could make the 4 drives was to connect one drive to the
first red SATA connector (referred as master SATA 1 in the manual),
another one to the adjacent black one (SATA 3), and the two other
drives to two of the Silicon Image connectors.

If I try to connect the four drives to SATA1-SATA2-SATA3-SATA4, the
BIOS only recognizes two drives...

Is there a way to connect the four drives to these connectors ? Some
BIOS setting ?

Thanks.

 

[Paul]

It was finally a faulty drive, I now have 4 drives connected and the
system is blazing fast... I hope that in the future this thread will
help someone troubleshoot their system : if you have a slow-booting
system, it could be a faulty drive, even if it's not your boot drive.

The only way I could make the 4 drives was to connect one drive to the
first red SATA connector (referred as master SATA 1 in the manual),
another one to the adjacent black one (SATA 3), and the two other
drives to two of the Silicon Image connectors.

If I try to connect the four drives to SATA1-SATA2-SATA3-SATA4, the
BIOS only recognizes two drives...

Is there a way to connect the four drives to these connectors ? Some
BIOS setting ?

Thanks.

If you use one drive, and move it from port to port on the
motherboard, do all eight ports work ?

Make sure this is not a motherboard hardware failure of some
sort. All the ports should work. You can also try a "cardboard
test" and move the motherboard outside the computer case, and
test that way. The last two systems I built, I assembled them
on a table top first, before putting them in the computer case.
That makes it easier to access the hardware and find any
defective goods, before putting them in the case.

It could be something is shorting to the bottom of the motherboard.

If the motherboard is defective, get it replaced with your
vendor or use the warranty with Asus.

You could also try clearing the CMOS (with the computer unplugged),
but I don't see how the contents of the CMOS RAM could cause
these symptoms. Have you looked in the BIOS menu for the disk
interfaces, to see if all ports are enabled in there ?

Paul

 

[snakedjip]

You know, with all the problems I had with the faulty drive, I never
saw a screen that would let me enable or disable one port at a time in
the BIOS menu... Where exactly is that screen ?

I did see the IT8212F Controller item, which I set to [Disabled], and
the Silicon Image Controller item, which I set to [SATA]. Should they
be set that way ?

You have a good point when you're saying I should try to boot from all
8 ports... if I'm supposed to be able to boot from all 8 ports, that
is

Thanks.