A couple of problems, if you guys don't mind

[Grimmett]

Okay Guys,
My first problem:
I installed a raptor drive in my computer. I put windows and some games on that drive along with a PATA storage drive. I read on the MSI forums that for my board I have to install raid and storage drivers prior to windows installation even though I only have one raptor(should I still need the raid driver?) The instructions were to put the raptor in mirroring or something like that. Well I tried that and I tried installing windows without the raid driver too. It works fine but sometimes when I change something in the bios hard drive related, it will stop detecting my raptor. I have to turn raid on and back off again for it to recognize the raptor with windows on it. I know that sounds dumb but thats what works. Can anyone give me specific instructions for setting up a raptor drive for my board?

Second question:
I've noticed with various games, not all mind you, that I get like a 5-7 second hang in video and sound. The game will go back to normal. It usually takes a little while for this to occur and after it does it once, it takes awhile for it to do that again. It happens with Unreal 2003 especially, Need for Speed Underground 2 Demo, and its happened with Doom 3. It seems its the more demanding games. It doesn't happen with games like Evil Genius and Myst IV(lower paced games) Ive disabled side band addressing and fastwrites, but its been a no go.

My specs are:
MSI K8N Neo Plat
Athlon 64 3000+
Antec TrueBlue 430W
Gainward 5900xt 450/780
WD 34GB Raptor, WD 80GB 8mb cache
1GB Crosair 2.5 CL (the cheaper stuff)

Thanks for your help guys
Grimmett

 

[Grimmett]

LOL no one has even viewed my post...
Bump

 

[mechBgon]

Take a peek at your system's Event Viewer logs. Anything in there that coincides with the time of one of these hangups?

Bonus idea: what other programs are running in the background? Everything you got, antivirus, firewall, P2P/file-sharing, whatever. Also, is your system patched up, firewalled and anti-virused? Hardware or software firewall, or both?

 

[Grimmett]

Hey Mech
There are a couple errors in my Event Viewer. Under Application there is one that reoccurs that has the source (eventsystem) and category (52) and event 4354. It says something about the COM+ Event System failed to fire the ConnectionMadeNoQOCInfo method......blahblah. The other error that I get is in the system tab. The source is the Service Control Manager and the Event ID is 7000. It says something about the Cardex service failing to start because it cannot create a file when that file already exists. Those are the only two errors I have..
I am running Norton Antivirus 2003 in the background as well as the expertool program made for my video card to run it at enhanced specs. I'm not overclocking it past the recommended clocks. Also there is an icon for my raptor drive, a safely remove hardware icon. (Is that normal for a raptor drive to have that icon in windows??) I'm only using service pack 1 at the moment and I'm using just the firewall that's on my router.
Thanks for your help
Grimmett

 

[mechBgon]

If you didn't already, you might want to go to Windows Update and at least use the Custom update mode, so you can get the latest patches for SP1 (since it sounds like you're avoiding SP2). A plain WinXP SP1 installation is still susceptible to all sorts of stuff.

I don't know what to make of those two Event Viewer items. Maybe do a search on Microsoft's site for them and see what comes up. Also, seems like spyware is all over the place these days, so it couldn't hurt to run Spybot and Ad-Aware to see if you have anything more serious than tracking cookies. Norton 2003 is not as spyware-savvy as the 2004 and 2005 so there could be some junk it's not seeing.

You can enable WinXP's own firewall for a second layer of firewalling if you like. On an SP1 system, I believe you go into your network-connections panel, right-click your NIC, Properties, and then I'm drawing a blank from there. Rummage around, you'll find it on one of the tabs in there.

As far as the Raptor, since SATA is theoretically a hot-pluggable technology, people do often have that safely-remove-hardware icon for it.

 

[Grimmett]

Hey thanks for the advice,
Im going to try a few things out that you mentioned. I'll let you know what I find. Thanks again

 

[Turkish]

MSI has forums? Where? Sorry, not much of a help, I'm having issues with my MSI board as well Thanks!

 

[Grimmett]

Heres a link to the forum:
MSI Forum Did that work right? I've never done that before..lol.

Anyway, I did what you said, Mech. I Updated sp1 and I used both adaware and spybot. Something I noticed is that when the game resumes from the short 5 sec freeze, the textures are jacked up for a couple seconds and they eventually return to normal. Anyone let me know what you think pleaaaase!!
Grimmett

 

[Grimmett]

Well..
So far so good on the video problem. I uninstalled the newest video and sound drivers and used the one's that the video card and sound chip manufacturer's suggested (older). I haven't gotten any hangups yet. I guess the newer nvidia drivers may not be the best for fx cards. I hope everything stays cool.
With the hard drive issue though, if anyone has any input on how exactly you install a raptor drive with the MSI K8N neo bios please let me know. Thanks

 

[Grimmett]

Alright,
Well I installed the 56.72 drivers for my fx5900xt. It seemed to help but after an hr or so of playing, I got that stupid freeze up that lasts 4-6 seconds. The sound kinda freezes too. Then everything goes back to normal. Does anyone have any idea why this would happen??