KX7-333R ...WinXP reboots ... Highpoint HPT372 RAID driver issue

[psxjunky]

I am having a serious stability problem (random reboots) with my Abit KX7-333R based PC running WinXP Pro ... and I believe the problem is related to the Highpoint HPT372 RAID controller (more specifically, the WinXP driver for it). If anyone has seen similar issues, or know how to get the Highpoint RAID controller working properly under XP Pro, I would very much appreciate ANY feedback.

Before going any further, I should first mention that I am not using the RAID channels as true RAID (i.e. in RAID 0 or RAID 1 modes); instead I am just using them as extra IDE channels. I use this PC for a lot of video editing related work, so I often deal with large files (~3-5GB). Whenenver I have heavy traffic to/from the drives connected to the RAID channels, WinXP reboots without any warning. There is no specific pattern to when it reboots, and it almost never reboots for short operations. But usually if I keep it running overnight doing some disk intensive operation ... it almost always reboots sometime during the night.

To prove that it is indeed a problem with the RAID, I have temporarily connected one of the RAID drives to the primary slave IDE and disabled the RAID contoller in BIOS altogether. Doing this made WinXP run solid as a rock without any problem at all.

Also, in this same machine, if I run Win2K (from a different drive) and do the exact same operations (involving the RAID channels) the PC runs very stable ... which makes me think that the RAID driver for WinXP is the culprit and there is nothing wrong with the RAID hardware.

I have done other stress testing on the PC (using 3DMark2001, Prime95 etc.) and the machine has passed all those with flying colors ... ruling out any heat related or other general system stability issues.

I have the latest BIOS installed on this board along with the latest drivers for everything that I could find.

Here are my PC specs --

Mobo: Abit KX7-333R with BIOS version B6
CPU: Athlon XP 2000+ (unlocked but NOT overclocked)
HSF: Thermalright AX-7 with a Vantec Tornado 84CFM 80mm fan (using Arctic Silver 3)
Memory: Mushkin 512MB PC3000 DDR
PSU: Antec 400W PS
Drives:
- Primary IDE Master: Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM
- Primary IDE Slave: Quantum 40GB 7200RPM
- Secondery IDE Master: Pioneer DVR-A04 DVD burner
- Secondery IDE Slave: TDK 24x10x40 CDRW
- RAID Primary Master: WD 120GB 7200RPM 8MB cache
- RAID Primary Slave: none
- RAID Secondery Master: Maxtor 80GB 5400RPM
- RAID Secondery Slave: none



Any idea what might be wrong ?

 

[wizdum]

If I were you I would refund that board as fast as possible. I've had so many problems with *3* different KX7-333Rs and no luck from the RMA Repair service. Refund! Run forest Run!

 

[psxjunky]

Hmm ... I wouldn't blame the board ! In fact I am *quite* happy with it. Like I mentioned above, under Win2K this board runs rock solid ... even with extensive traffic on RAID. So I am pretty convinced that the issue is with the WinXP RAID driver only.

Thanks for your reply though !

 

[psxjunky]

After trying various different things, I seem to have finally fixed my problem. I have done a lot of really big file transfers and lots of video editing over the past couple days and the machine has been rock solid so far (earlier it used to crash after a few hours of video editing with a single 3.5GB file).

While I don't remember *all* the things I did, here is a list of the more important steps that I can remember. This may or may not work for you ... but may be worth a try.

1. Re arranged all my PCI cards. On the KX7-333R, PCI slot 1 shares IRQ with AGP and PCI slot 5 shares IRQ with the HPT372 controller. So it is best if you don't use these two slots at all.

2. After re-arranging the PCI cards, I made sure that HPT372 was getting an unique IRQ. Checked this in the BIOS as well as in WinXP device manager.

(After doing the above two, the situation became a *lot* better but I was still seeing crashes once in a while ... so I kept on trying different things).

3. Re-set the Master/Slave jumpers on all drives connected to the RAID channels. Specifically, when I have only one drive on the channel, put the Western Digital drive in the "Master with no slave" mode (i.e. no jumper) and put the Maxtor drive in "Cable Select" mode. This was done per the suggestion of a Tech Support person at HighPoint (Tel: 510-623-0968).

4. Uninstalled and re-installed the WinXP driver for HPT372. Note that the latest driver in HighPoint website is ver2.34 ... BUT ... they highly recommend using the same version number for BIOS and Driver. The latest HPT372 BIOS included with the latest ABIT BIOS for KX7-333R (ver B6) is version 2.32 ... SO YOU MUST USE HPT372 DRIVER VERSION 2.32 ONLY.

That's all I can remember. If you have a question, drop a line here ... I'll try my best to answer as specifically as I can.

Good Luck !

 

[RideFree]

PSX,
I remember many times when WD and Maxtor had to be jumpered differently than stated on the mfg. spec. sheet glued to the drive.
Maxtor seems to like the CS setting.

 

[RideFree]

PSX,

Mobo: Abit KX7-333R with BIOS version B6

You might want to keep an eye on the condensers on this board as I think there have been reports...

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: RideFree
PSX,

Mobo: Abit KX7-333R with BIOS version B6

You might want to keep an eye on the condensers on this board as I think there have been reports...

Thanks RideFree !

Hmm ... do you know what kind of problems have been reported with the condensers ? I am guessing you are talking about the condensers around the CPU, right ?

 

[ThetaOne]

Glad to see you got it all worked out!

I went through the same torment with the KX7-333R board about 4 months ago, and finally got everything straightened out.

I, too, have heard reports of components failing left and right on these boards... Might be time for an upgrade soon.

 

[RideFree]

PSX,
Apparently any and all capacitors from some Taiwanese capacitor manufacturers have immediate &/or long-term corrosion built into tham in the manufacturing process.

This pretty well explains it.

 

[CaptnKirk]

If you have anything installed in the PCI-5 slot, you could be having an IRQ conflict.

PCI-5 shares the IRQ with the Hi-Point RAID headers.