hdd woes. i'm all outta ideas.

sinjin · Jan 3, 2003, 11:12 PM

picked up another box the other day and have been attempting to shuffle different cards/parts i had lying around between the three here. this one is an Asus A7V333 non-raid board with a WD hdd as primary master, a Maxtor hdd as secondary master and an Afree DVDrom as secondary slave. win2k sp3 is installed on the WD, the pagefile is located on its own partition on the Maxtor. my problem is this....

obviously the transfer between the hdds isnt very good. however, when i disconnect the DVDrom from the slave position the speeds go back to normal.

things i've tried...
-moved both hdd's to and from primary and secondary ide.
-moved the dvdrom in the slave postion on both hdd's.
-the jumpers are set correctly (master for hdd, slave for dvd)
-the blue ends of the ide cables are attached to the mobo
-dvd is functional, tried it in another box
-prayed to God, Allah, Mohammed, the sun god, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

any response would be appreciated. thanks in advance.

digitalwanderer · Jan 4, 2003, 02:17 AM

...waving a dead chicken over it in a circle three times? (Sorry, I don't know much about HDD or win2k so I thought I'd at least try and be humorous for ya.

) G'luck, I'm pretty sure someone here will know something.

Dom · Jan 4, 2003, 02:24 AM

Quote:

-prayed to God, Allah, Mohammed, the sun god, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

any response would be appreciated. thanks in advance.

You should try praying to Satan. I'm sure he'll be able to help you, for a price.

digitalwanderer · Jan 4, 2003, 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dom
You should try praying to Satan. I'm sure he'll be able to help you, for a price.

Wow, talk about your tech support from hell...... <"Bada-boom........ching!">

Dom · Jan 4, 2003, 02:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
Wow, talk about your tech support from hell...... <"Bada-boom........ching!">

I was quoting an AOL tech support rep. I called about TCP/IP problems w/ Win98SE, he said it to me when I asked him if reformating was my last option.

sinjin · Jan 4, 2003, 10:41 AM

thanks for the ideas. unfortunately, neither santan nor chickens helped much.

let me clarify...

i have 2 hdds, 1 on each controller set as master. win2k is on the primary, my pagefile and media is on the secondary. when nothing else is added i get the following hdd performance results....

as soon as the dvd drive is attached as a slave on either controller i end up with problems. if its added to the primary controller (win2k hdd) i can't boot into windows, when added to the secondary controller (pagefile/media hdd) i end up with 2mb/s bandwidth on that channel.

thanks for the reply.

Necrosis · Jan 4, 2003, 11:17 AM

sinjin

I'd recommend you get a nice ide controller for that board. Just remember a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. The DVD ROM is the problem.

If you do get one pop it in and load the drivers. Once the card is installed connect the Hd's up. Problem Solved & better DVD playback.

sinjin · Jan 4, 2003, 12:40 PM

thanks for the reply. i think i remember seeing a highpoint ide controller card for $25 across the street at my local pc shop...

however i just don't have any accessible pci slots to use (unless i go with the onboard sound and tear out the sound card).

might have to do that i suppose.

sinjin · Jan 4, 2003, 12:45 PM

maybe a new(er) dvd drive would do the trick?

Vampyromaniac · Jan 4, 2003, 01:08 PM

Hmmm, I couldn't tell exactly from the first line of the stuff you've tried, if you already did this . . . but . . . what the hey . . . .
What about putting both HDD's on the same controller, master & slave . . . , and putting the DVD as master on the other controller?

sinjin · Jan 4, 2003, 01:45 PM

i didnt want to sacrifice the added performance of reading the pagefile from its own controller independant from the system drive. i might be wrong...

Matth · Jan 4, 2003, 06:51 PM

What modes do they support - is the DVD a higher or lower mode than the HD.

The performance of 2 HDD's chained on the same cable may still be better than one, depending on the access pattern.

One desperate measure (and I thought it was daft as well) -
Try making the DVD Secondary MASTER, and the HDD secondary SLAVE.

And look for BIOS and IDE driver updates - and depending on chipset/drive options available, try locking the mode LOWER

3 Mb/s suggests that it may be failing over to IDE PIO mode 0, so try to find a less agressive setting that it CAN hold out at!

Try using a standard 40 wire IDE cable, to force the mode to no more than ATA/33 - which would seem to match the SUSTAINED throughput of the second drive anyway

Louie6666 · Jan 4, 2003, 07:36 PM

I was under impression that putting hd & dvd or cd on same controller was bad idea & that it would always slow down the hd!

so you need hds on primary & others on secondary...or another controller

Vampyromaniac · Jan 4, 2003, 09:14 PM

Well, performance issues aside, might as well see if it works, right? If for nothing more than to narrow things down. And, I doubt the performance difference would be tooo much anyway

ToshiroOC · Jan 4, 2003, 09:14 PM

If I recall correctly, some/all IDE setups will only work at the fastest speed of the slowest device on the IDE cable - so move one hard drive to slave, and then put the DVD as a master and see what happens - what should end up happening is the DVD will keep going at it's max transmission speed (probably ATA 33 if its fast, otherwise some PIO mode), and the hard drive will run at the connection speed (ATA 66/100/133) of the slowest hard drive - which will be faster than the DVD rom drive. Hope this helps ya.

Jan 3, 2003, 11:12 PM	#1
sinjin the last samurai Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,086 Rep Power: 0	hdd woes. i'm all outta ideas. picked up another box the other day and have been attempting to shuffle different cards/parts i had lying around between the three here. this one is an Asus A7V333 non-raid board with a WD hdd as primary master, a Maxtor hdd as secondary master and an Afree DVDrom as secondary slave. win2k sp3 is installed on the WD, the pagefile is located on its own partition on the Maxtor. my problem is this.... obviously the transfer between the hdds isnt very good. however, when i disconnect the DVDrom from the slave position the speeds go back to normal. things i've tried... -moved both hdd's to and from primary and secondary ide. -moved the dvdrom in the slave postion on both hdd's. -the jumpers are set correctly (master for hdd, slave for dvd) -the blue ends of the ide cables are attached to the mobo -dvd is functional, tried it in another box -prayed to God, Allah, Mohammed, the sun god, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. any response would be appreciated. thanks in advance. __________________ Last edited by sinjin; Jan 3, 2003 at 11:33 PM.

Jan 4, 2003, 02:17 AM	#2
digitalwanderer Colour Commentator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Highland, IN USA Posts: 5,619 Rep Power: 0	Did ya try... ...waving a dead chicken over it in a circle three times? (Sorry, I don't know much about HDD or win2k so I thought I'd at least try and be humorous for ya. ) G'luck, I'm pretty sure someone here will know something. __________________ WTF is up with the sigs?

Jan 4, 2003, 10:41 AM	Thread Starter #6
sinjin the last samurai Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,086 Rep Power: 0	thanks for the ideas. unfortunately, neither santan nor chickens helped much. let me clarify... i have 2 hdds, 1 on each controller set as master. win2k is on the primary, my pagefile and media is on the secondary. when nothing else is added i get the following hdd performance results.... as soon as the dvd drive is attached as a slave on either controller i end up with problems. if its added to the primary controller (win2k hdd) i can't boot into windows, when added to the secondary controller (pagefile/media hdd) i end up with 2mb/s bandwidth on that channel. thanks for the reply. __________________

Jan 4, 2003, 12:40 PM	Thread Starter #8
sinjin the last samurai Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,086 Rep Power: 0	thanks for the reply. i think i remember seeing a highpoint ide controller card for $25 across the street at my local pc shop... however i just don't have any accessible pci slots to use (unless i go with the onboard sound and tear out the sound card). might have to do that i suppose. __________________

Jan 4, 2003, 12:45 PM	Thread Starter #9
sinjin the last samurai Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,086 Rep Power: 0	maybe a new(er) dvd drive would do the trick? __________________

Jan 4, 2003, 11:17 AM	#7
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 131 System Specs	sinjin I'd recommend you get a nice ide controller for that board. Just remember a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. The DVD ROM is the problem. If you do get one pop it in and load the drivers. Once the card is installed connect the Hd's up. Problem Solved & better DVD playback.

Jan 4, 2003, 01:08 PM	#10
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	Hmmm, I couldn't tell exactly from the first line of the stuff you've tried, if you already did this . . . but . . . what the hey . . . . What about putting both HDD's on the same controller, master & slave . . . , and putting the DVD as master on the other controller? __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250

Jan 4, 2003, 01:45 PM	Thread Starter #11
sinjin the last samurai Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,086 Rep Power: 0	i didnt want to sacrifice the added performance of reading the pagefile from its own controller independant from the system drive. i might be wrong... __________________

Jan 4, 2003, 06:51 PM	#12
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,426 Rep Power: 93 System Specs	What modes do they support - is the DVD a higher or lower mode than the HD. The performance of 2 HDD's chained on the same cable may still be better than one, depending on the access pattern. One desperate measure (and I thought it was daft as well) - Try making the DVD Secondary MASTER, and the HDD secondary SLAVE. And look for BIOS and IDE driver updates - and depending on chipset/drive options available, try locking the mode LOWER 3 Mb/s suggests that it may be failing over to IDE PIO mode 0, so try to find a less agressive setting that it CAN hold out at! Try using a standard 40 wire IDE cable, to force the mode to no more than ATA/33 - which would seem to match the SUSTAINED throughput of the second drive anyway

Jan 4, 2003, 07:36 PM	#13
Louie6666 Just One Sick-Lizard Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Bristol, UK Posts: 501 Rep Power: 0	I was under impression that putting hd & dvd or cd on same controller was bad idea & that it would always slow down the hd! so you need hds on primary & others on secondary...or another controller __________________

Jan 4, 2003, 09:14 PM	#14
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	Well, performance issues aside, might as well see if it works, right? If for nothing more than to narrow things down. And, I doubt the performance difference would be tooo much anyway __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250

Jan 4, 2003, 09:14 PM	#15
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	If I recall correctly, some/all IDE setups will only work at the fastest speed of the slowest device on the IDE cable - so move one hard drive to slave, and then put the DVD as a master and see what happens - what should end up happening is the DVD will keep going at it's max transmission speed (probably ATA 33 if its fast, otherwise some PIO mode), and the hard drive will run at the connection speed (ATA 66/100/133) of the slowest hard drive - which will be faster than the DVD rom drive. Hope this helps ya. __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)