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SATA Problems

J

jamierterrell

Junior Member
I have just started using SATA drives and I stuck with an ASUS motherboard. But both times I have had problems with both. I am hoping that it is not something I am doing. first time I had a problem I was trying to setup a ASUS A7N8X Deluxe with 2 western Digital 73 Gb HD setup in a RAID 1 config. I got everything installed correctly and the system ran fine for awhile but then when I restarted it one time it couldn't find the HDs. The SATA setup wouldn't even run saying no devices available. But if I put the drives in another system I can run the SATA setup and reconfigure the RAID and then I could put them back in the orginal systems. It is like the hard drive are being corrupt by the SATA controller. Then I had a very simailar problem with just a single SATA drive in a another system but I was using the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe.

I guess I am trying to find out if anyone else has had issues with the SATA controllers in the ASUS motherboards.

P.S. I have tried different firmwares and even different ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboards that had the same problems.
 
I've run dual WD 36.7 Raptors on RAID 1 of both the A7V8X and the A7N8X-E Deluxe with no problems in either system. Also installed a WD 120GB SATA on an A7N8X without problem. I am not aware of reported SATA controller problems on ASUS boards. The controllers are common (not ASUS or some proprietary thing), so I suspect that any trend of problems with them would be known.

Assuming it is not the SATA controllers, is it possible this could be a power supply issue? How about cables? Seems like it is something independent of the motherboard, since it occurred on different ones.

I have seen RAID1 corruption due to bad system shutdowns (power going out, for instance), but that is usually limited to a corrupt RAID which is easily fixed. The drives don't "disappear" from the system.
 
I did try different cables and all that good stuff. The last SATA/WD problem did occur when they PC lost power from an outage but it was a single drive and I hope that SATA setup is more durable than that. What would be the least wattage PS you would use. This one has a 300W PS and is running an AMD2700XP, 512 RAM and a 128 meg AGP video card.
 
Most of the power supply problems out here are not related directly to wattage, but quality of power output. What brand is the power supply?

Just at a first glance, with two hard drives 300 watts seems on the low side. Even though SATAs are supposed to be easier on power draw, these things still spin at 10,000 rpm. And Raptors do generate some heat. Does the video card get a power feed from the PSU, or does it just plug into the motherboard and draw power from there? In a similar setup, I have used 380 or 430 watt Antec True Power PSUs. The 430 is overkill, but I got it for a few bucks more than a 380, so what the hey?

My logic on this is simply that the system is not detecting the drives when things get gummed up. It would be a major set of strange circumstances for you to get random SATA controller failures. With that assumption, the problem is on the cable or drive end. If you eliminated the cables, there are only a few things that will cause a drive to not be detected. Not powering up right due to a power issue is one of them. If it were detecting the drives but not able to boot off of them, that would point us in a different direction (maybe, the power supply would still be on the list).

On my wife's system (with two 36GB RAID 1 Raptors), I have the drives installed in an Antec case, with one open drive mounting slot between them and behind a fan that blows air in. I did that when I felt the temperature of the drives after a few minutes of operation. Ventilation could be an issue, I guess.

Of course, I could be all wet on all of this. I may be overlooking something more obvious. But it sounds like the power supply is a common component in these problems and they are a know source of strange headaches.
 
Thanks. I will go back to the drawing board and test out out some more components. FYI the Power supply is just one that came with the case that I ordered. Just a little cheapy one. It was just odd that the hard drives could get "corrupt" so easily what ever the problem is.
 
I'd definitely consider that sort of power supply "high risk" in this chain of events.

RAID1 writes a information to the drives that tell them which one is the primary and which the mirror. Maybe that is getting messed up in the process. If so, that is a function of the RAID and not SATA. Just a guess as to what might be getting bitten by this.

In any event, if it is not the power suppy, it becomes a real head scratcher.
 
No answer for you, but two questions;

Are you overclocking?

Have you changed any jumper settings on the drives from the default?
 
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