Maxtor/Epox compatibility problem?

[bigjp]

I?m having a problem with my system and I think it has to do with the motherboard rather than the HDD. When one of my DiamondMax SATA drives is hooked up everything works fine. However, every once in a long while my computer will freeze and I?ll have to open it up and move the SATA connection to another slot. This always clears things up?.until the next time, but I?m not too concerned about that since it only happens once in maybe 4 or 5 months. My big problem is when I try to connect my other DiamondMax. My computer will boot up and run for 20 minutes or so and then will freeze up. It does this every time.

I?m current on the bios flash for my EPOX board, and the last one said something about fixing something for the DiamondMax 10. I was hoping that would fix my problem, but it didn?t. I understand there were some problems with my board and this drive, so that?s why I think this is a MB problem and not a drive problem. The second drive I?m trying to use was my primary drive at one point and it worked fine then. I don?t think the drive is messed up, but that could be a possibility too. I?m pretty dumb about this stuff, so really couldn?t tell.

Anyway, I?m hoping someone here can offer some advice and maybe a way to fix this. I?m ready to buy a Seagate and move my Maxtors to external backup. I don?t know if I?d be better off putting a different brand in as my primary drive or not. If anyone can offer some advice on how I can solve this problem, I?d really appreciate it. My computer specs are below.

Also, I have 4 extra fans running. I would think my PS could handle all of this...could that be the problem? Power here in Japan is 100v, so not as strong at US.

Thanks!

 

[bigjp]

After mentioning the PS, I thought I'd try and unhook some of the fans. I have 2 fans running now and both drives connected. So far everything has been running for 3 hours with no freezing. I want to give it more time and see what happens, but maybe it is my PS.

If anyone thinks it could also be something else, I'd still like to hear it.

 

[Kenshin911]

I own the Epox EP-9NPA+ (non-ultra version) and I have a 400GB sata WD and a 500GB sata WD drive in it and it's completely stable. I have an Athlon x2 3800 overclocked to 2.3GHz and all four memory slots filled with 191MHz memory bus and somewhat agressive 2.5-3-3-8-2T timings. I'm using a no-name brand 550Watt PSU and I have an X850XT video card.

I've found that this board (or maybe the processor) doesn't like 1T memory settings. It would lock up with them even when it wasn't overclocked. I would check to make sure you have 2T memory set first.

If that doesn't help, try setting the sata back to 1.5Gbps. I think it's a jumper on the drive. AFAIK your board is the same as mine except for that you have the higher performance chipset that supports 3.0Gbps. I don't know how well sata II works on the board, but I haven't had a single problem with mine.

Thirdly you would want to check your PSU. That could be it as you've stated.

 

[crossrode]

Any overclock to your CPU and to your system in general could be causing the freeze ups. One backup system of mine has an Epox socket 754 SLI NF4 MB and a Maxtor 300 GB SATA drive. I have no issues like you mention.

 

[bigjp]

Well, the freezing is back. Man, just when I was feeling happy about things again.

I haven't done any overclocking and I don't run anything hard in my pc at all. My timings are 2T.

I tried to find a jumper on the drive to set it to 1.5bps, but didn't see anything. Did I overlook something?

Sorry if I'm missing any useful information or misstated any information as I'm pretty illiterate with all this stuff.

thanks!!!

 

[Kenshin911]

well on my western digital theres a jumper block where you can set some things. Some kind of sata address. (I left that alone) and you can also force it to 1.5Gbps (sata I) The default is 3Gbps (sata II).

You could also check bios to see if it gives you this option or not.