SB75G2 raid failure - help!

[rbpett]

Folks, I'm stumped.

Here's my system:
SB75G2v2
P4 Northwood - 3GHz
Corsair TwinX1024 3200c2 DDR400 (1GB) - manually set to 2-3-3-6 in BIOS
Plextor PX-708A
Radeon 9600 Pro
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3160023AS 160GB Serial ATA 7200RPM
Drives set to SATA RAID0 (striped) in bios.

My first concern with this whole thing before I even purchased it was heat - a CDrom, and 2 drives jammed into this box - I wasn't sure if it was do-able, and I didn't want a lot of fan noise either. So as soon as it arrived, I did the same external fan mod that Kubiekdriehoekje did in the Sudhian forums:
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.cfm?catid=46&threadid=49214

Latest bios, drivers, patches for EVERYTHING. WinXP Pro loaded fine.
Installed Deus EX just to see how it played - fine, then after 10min it crashed and one of the drives in the array had failed, according to the RAID POST. Crud. After all that. Maybe it was the heat - I wasn't sure at this point. From there I checked on my memory settings - they were set to AUTO in the BIOS. After some research over at Corsair forums, I realized I needed to manually set the timings in the BIOS to 2-3-3-6, which I did. Then I ran MEMTEST86 and all was fine. I read that if the memory was spitting out some errors in the previous settings, it could corrupt data on the drive, so my hopes were high that this would solve it.
I re-installed everything again, and put RTCW on there - I played that all night with no problems.
Today I boot up and decide to load another game on - halfway through the install the same freeze issue that happened the first time - only the drives had only been up a short time and were just warm to the touch. Again it said one of the drives had failed on the SATA RAID POST. (Which by the way, took 5 minutes to finally appear - same as the first time.) Hmm.
Now here's what I'm thinking:
It's not heat.
It's not ram.
It's not the drives (did an error check on them and they are ok)
It's either a RAID controller problem or a power problem.

I'm thinking it's RAID related because I was reading another problem I was having on this forum - sometimes the intel logo on POST just hangs and you have to reboot. Maybe 50% of the time. The guy who reported this said he had a SATA RAID, and when he went to just one drive (non-raid) that problem disappeared. I have been observing the same problem, but I've been SATA RAID this whole time.
Could be power related too though, with two hard drives in my system, the CD rom, and both slots draining power. I do have the v2 release of this shuttle though, with the 250w deluxe power supply.

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT MIGHT BE GOING ON HERE?
Any help is greatly appreciated. If I have to go to one drive I will, but it would be a shame if SATA RAID didn't work with this Shuttle for whatever reason. The 12 hours or so that this baby was up, it was screaming fast. I don't want to have to go to Large Form Factor for my entertainment PC.

Hay anyone had these symptoms?
Thanks
rbpett


-------------------------
SB75G2v2
P4 Northwood - 3GHz
Corsair TwinX1024 3200c2 DDR400 (1GB) - manually set to 2-3-3-6 in BIOS
Plextor PX-708A
Radeon 9600 Pro
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3160023AS 160GB Serial ATA 7200RPM

 

[idfubar]

Installed Deus EX just to see how it played - fine, then after 10min it crashed and one of the drives in the array had failed, according to the RAID POST. Crud. After all that. Maybe it was the heat - I wasn't sure at this point. From there I checked on my memory settings - they were set to AUTO in the BIOS. After some research over at Corsair forums, I realized I needed to manually set the timings in the BIOS to 2-3-3-6, which I did. Then I ran MEMTEST86 and all was fine. I read that if the memory was spitting out some errors in the previous settings, it could corrupt data on the drive, so my hopes were high that this would solve it.
I re-installed everything again, and put RTCW on there - I played that all night with no problems.

Did you try running something to max out the processor and gauge the heat, e.g. motherboard monitor plus Mersenne Prime Search, or something like that?

Today I boot up and decide to load another game on - halfway through the install the same freeze issue that happened the first time - only the drives had only been up a short time and were just warm to the touch. Again it said one of the drives had failed on the SATA RAID POST. (Which by the way, took 5 minutes to finally appear - same as the first time.) Hmm.

Do the drives always take so long to post? Any changes in setup between the night before and today? Same memory timings?

I'm thinking it's RAID related because I was reading another problem I was having on this forum - sometimes the intel logo on POST just hangs and you have to reboot. Maybe 50% of the time. The guy who reported this said he had a SATA RAID, and when he went to just one drive (non-raid) that problem disappeared. I have been observing the same problem, but I've been SATA RAID this whole time.
Could be power related too though, with two hard drives in my system, the CD rom, and both slots draining power. I do have the v2 release of this shuttle though, with the 250w deluxe power supply.

Most likely not power related (you have ample with 250W). Is the motherboard's RAID support nascent, or something that's been around for a while? Have you tried RAID1 to see if the RAID support (or lack thereof) is specific to the RAID level you've chosen? Have you checked to see if the TV Tuner is creating a conflict?

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT MIGHT BE GOING ON HERE?

Not a clue, sorry. But I can blindly stab at the problem, it might help direct your thinking.

Any help is greatly appreciated. If I have to go to one drive I will, but it would be a shame if SATA RAID didn't work with this Shuttle for whatever reason. The 12 hours or so that this baby was up, it was screaming fast. I don't want to have to go to Large Form Factor for my entertainment PC.

Have you come accross any sucess stories of people running the same setup?

 

[idfubar]

BTW, I wish I could be of more help, but I'll probably be banned by the time you read your PM, and your lack of disclosure doesn't allow for me to send you a private email (I'd offer to take a look in person).

My experience tells me that you're gonna continue running into problems until (1) the motherboard manufacturer revises the BIOS, (2) you decide not to look on BBS and simply hookup everything KNOWING that it will work or (3) realize that it doesn't matter and that having a computer is not worth the hassle.

 

[rbpett]

Well, after swapping parts, I isolated the problem - it was a bad SATA cable - (a cheap one I bought from Fry's). After replacing the cable everything works fine.
Sorry for the trouble idfubar.

 

[dealseaker]

wow, all that hassle for a cheap cable, well i guess everything goes bad sometimes, i had a bad cable one time, looked fine but it messed up sometimes, would have never thought you had that problem