[Resolved]Topic change ... Should I flash my RAID controller with a BIOS straight from the controller manufacturer?

[MrGrim]

Err ... I only just noticed this but I can't find the DMA setting for my HDs. The tab Advanced Settings under the IDE controllers is not there! I have a TH7II-RAID motherboard.

 

[MrGrim]

Up up and awaaaayyy.

 

[Colt45]

should be under the specific IDE channel, not the controller as a whole. (is for me at least)

 

[WarCon]

Did you install the Intel Application Accelerator? If so its acting as the controller (same as bus mastering controllers on other chipsets). Start it up and you can see what mode it is running your stuff at. But I am sure it will have DMA on devices that it detects are capable.

 

[MrGrim]

I did install IAA, I'm experiencing slowdowns while HDs are accessed and I think DMA could be the cause. I will unistall it and see if it makes any difference.

Thank you for your prompt replies

P.S Colt45 You would have thought so, wouldn't you?

 

[CAMS]

If your Hard drives are on the RAID controller there are no advanced settings under the SCSI & RAID controllers.
The Advanced Settings only applies to the onboard IDE controllers.

 

[speed01]

What CAMS said.. I found the same thing when I switched to the ATA 100/RAID controller on my BE6-2

 

[CZroe]

What WarCon is saying is NOT that IAA is causing a problem! He's saying it takes controll of all DMA settings. Start *IAA* up and you can see what mode *IAA* is running your stuff at. IAA, not Device Manager>Device>Properties will give you control over the DMA settings. And TRUST me, you want either the chipset drivers (Which work the same way) or IAA installed instead of using Window's DMA checkbox (Which is gone when they are installed). In WinME for instance, 3DMark2001 ALWAYS locks up on the second part of the demo (Worm looking ting in a hole), so it's ATA chipset drivers affect more than you think!

 

[MrGrim]

Sorry for the mixup, I wasn't referening to my HDs that are on the RAID controller. Anyway you are right, IAA is not the cause of my problems, could anybody think of what could be causing these hickups? It has something to do with the HDs but I can't figure out what it is.

The symptom is that every now and then (I can't find a pattern) the system will statter for about a sec, CPU utilization will jump at very high levels and whatever it is I'm doing at the moment will experience a temporary slowdown. The weird thing is that it happens even when I watch a movie on my PC. I'm sitting 4 meters away from my PC with the movie playing and every so often the movie will experience a slowdown, as if I was using a CD and it skipped.

I hope I'm making sense ...

 

[WarCon]

Have you installed any software with a database that updates? Like Findfast (comes with Microsoft Office stuff, I remembered to turn it off when I installed Office, but forgot when I installed Frontpage and I ended up with findfast on this install. I turned it off but haven't uninstalled it as I haven't wanted to go registry hunting yet. Whee..........

 

[MrGrim]

Actually no, I haven't. :[

I was looking through the event viewer and I discovered that my RAID controller is having problems; here is what I've got.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: HPT3xxNT
Event Category: None
Event ID: 9
Date: 11/03/2001
Time: 10:48:42
User: N/A
Computer: MICROSOFT
Description:
The device, \Device\Scsi\HPT3xxNT1, did not respond within the timeout period.
Data:
0000: 0f 00 10 00 01 00 6a 00 ......j.
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 01 01 00 50 00 00 00 00 ...P....
0018: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 07 00 00 00 ........

Does anybody know what this could be? Do you think I should flash it with the latest BIOS from highpoint?

 

[CZroe]

If it's built into your motherboard, the BIOS is usually included as part of your motherboard's BIOS and can't be flashed seperately.

 

[MrGrim]

Hmmm that can't be good ... :[

 

[WarCon]

Have you tried the latest highpoint drivers for your SCSI? What IRQ is your highpoint on? Is it sharing an IRQ with any other device?

Just throwing out idea's. Hope you find the problem. (Also did you install your OS while it was overclocked?)

 

[MrGrim]

Well, I don't have any SCSI devices. I have 2 HDs on RAID0 and 1 HD on an ATA100 channel, I'm assuming that you just mixed the words up. I'm in Win2K and the IRQs are being managed by it, how would I got about finding out whether my Highpoint controller is sharing IRQs?

I've got the latest drivers that ABIT is offering, however Highpoint does have newer BIOS/Drive combo. My question is whether or not I should use them. On highpoint's webpage they discourage using different BIOS/Drivers combos than the ones supplied as well as using their BIOS/Drivers combos with controllers that are integrated.

Just so that you don't think I'm crazy here is a screenshot of my CPU util chart while listening to mp3s and minor HD usage ...

I appreciate your help

 

[WarCon]

Yeah I meant to say RAID controller, my bad............ The peaks are kind of strange. That big long flat one is what you would see if you were starting a program (medium large), but all those little peaks are kind of odd. You wouldn't think it would pulse to full load like that unless those represent chucks of music being read off the hard disk. If that flat part was during just music and nothing else, then I would start looking at your running processes. Start turning off stuff that you can (temp) and see if it isn't something like spyware or some other poorly written registration reminder software that still is loading. Other than that I might have to guess that some instability might of crept in. I am running now with IAA uninstalled just to see how each feels. I was having some real pausing during a game's movie and was wondering if it just is using too many resources or was doing some guess prefetch kind of thing (and failing). So I am just going to try the lastest normal ATA controller drivers for awhile. I will use the one that feels the smoothest.

 

[MrGrim]

In an act of bravery and stupidity last night I installed the latest drivers from highpoint without flashing my controller's BIOS. To my surprise I think it has worked, it seems like the problem has gone away!

Thank you for all the help

 

[WarCon]

You are oh so brave...................

I wasn't going to suggest that, but I honestly thought it really wouldn't matter. I am guessing that the cmos chip has a set address location for those drivers so it could flash the controller bios without even touching your motherboards bios. My only worry was if your mobo manufacturer had added something to the controller bios because of instabilities with their implementation of it.

Thats cool that its working though..............

 

[MrGrim]

Well I didn't touch the BIOS actually! All I did was update the Windows drivers, hehe. Seems to be ok now, so I'll let it be

Thank you for all the help! Much appreciated.

 

[WarCon]

Man, I need to read your posts better.....................

Glad its working man............