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WD 74GB Raptor Lockups

W

wexsmith

Member
After installing my 74gb raptor drive in my computer I get complete system lockups. It's exactly like a memory timing lockup, only without the common accompanying BSOD in WinXP. The lockups happen at completely random times. If I boot my computer and let it sit on the login screen it will lockup after some time. In WinXP I can run things perfectly fine for generally 5-20 minutes before a lockup occurs. This doesn't happen when I run specific things or do specific actions. It occurs with my system idle, during a full load or anything in between.

System Specs:
MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR Motherboard
Athlon XP 2400+ 333Mhz FSB
1GB PC2700 DDR (2x 512MB Kingston Modules)
GeForceFX 5700 256MB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
NEC 16X DVD±RW Dual Layer
Maxtor 160GB 8MB Cache SATA HD
WD 74GB 8MB Cache 10K RPM HD


I installed the 74GB along side the 160GB drive, both SATA. The 74GB is set to bootable. After I get a lockup, if I hit the reset button, my Raptor drive drops off the drives listed under my RAID controller. Both drives are running Stripe 1+0, so they're operating as seperate drives.

The Raptor drive has a jumper setting on the back to either do Power Management mode or Spread Spectrum Clocking. The default is SSC, which after a little research has shown that it protects against EMI. I'm not too worried about any damaging EMI transmissions in my neighborhood, so it may be better to go with the power management configuration. Spread Spectrum Clocking is also supposed to do something about timing your drive to your system to only allow a certain amount of power to be used with it or something. If that's the case could the raptor drive be throwing off my memory/system timing?

I'm going crazy here. Oh ya, Windows XP Professional installed in 16 minutes on my system. Not too shabby. Now only if it would work!!
 
It sounds like it's probably a power supply issue. What are you using for a PSU?

If you're not using a quality PSU, that would be the first thing I look at.
 
TruePower 380Watt ATX12V power supply

That's what I'm using. It's the power supply that came with my Antec Sonata case. If people can run a more powerful setup in a Shuttle case using a 240Watt power supply, shouldn't mine be sufficient?
 
Originally posted by: wexsmith
TruePower 380Watt ATX12V power supply

That's what I'm using. It's the power supply that came with my Antec Sonata case. If people can run a more powerful setup in a Shuttle case using a 240Watt power supply, shouldn't mine be sufficient?
Click to expand...

That should be more than sufficient.

Do get crashes running with just the Raptor (and not the other SATA drive)?

Did you try updating your BIOS and/or chipset drivers?

Did you run stability testing with memtest86 and/or prime95?
 
The other SATA drive was the one I was running before. Everything worked great. Last night when I put the Raptor in was when the problems began.

There are no BIOS updates that deal with SATA available for my board. Same with Chipset...

I have not done any stability testing. If I could get my computer running for long enough I'll try it, when I get home.
 
Originally posted by: wexsmith
The other SATA drive was the one I was running before. Everything worked great. Last night when I put the Raptor in was when the problems began.
Click to expand...

Right. But I asked if you had tried to run with only the Raptor drive installed (rather than both SATA drives); it's possible the second SATA port (or the SATA cable for the Raptor) is bad, or that your SATA controller is having issues running with two drives rather than just one.

There are no BIOS updates that deal with SATA available for my board. Same with Chipset...
Click to expand...

Are you already running the latest versions, though? I'd try to get the latest BIOS on there if you can.

I have not done any stability testing. If I could get my computer running for long enough I'll try it, when I get home.
Click to expand...

Memtest86 runs without even loading the OS (you use a bootable floppy or CD to run it), and should not touch the disk at all; if *that* is crashing, you're definitely having low-level hardware problems.
 
I'll test running the Raptor by itself when I get home. When I first started getting lockups I switched the raptor to the first SATA port. This was still giving me lockups. I then switched the SATA cables between the two drives, with no change. There is the possibility of my controller having trouble running two drives still.

I have all the BIOS updates available for my board. Also, I have the latest chipset version available.

Should I run Memtest86 first before changing anything?
 
wow, i have almost this exact same problem, has been driving me nuts. i have an 80 WD sata that was running fine until i put in a raptor 36 and all of a sudden i get these lock ups. i was just looking at the bios and "spread spectrum" caught my eye, so did a search and found this.

anyway, did you have any luck with running the raptor seperately?

also, my memory timings changed unexpectedly in my bios, went from 2.5-3-3-7 to 2.5-4-4-8 out of no where, and i had SDP enabled. haven't changed it yet, but i only noticed this after installing the raptor. i KNOW it was originally factory spec 2.5-3-3-7 before, just not sure when exactly they changed.

i have an asus p4p800-vm, p4 2.4c 1 gig ocz perf. series.
 
My computer wont boot if I move the jumper to pins 3-4 on my hard drive. This disables spread spectrum and enables power management mode. I'm not sure that is the culprit after all.

When I boot my Promise controller says 1.00.0.21 as the version. However, my WinXP driver for the promise controller is 1.0.1.29. If I could somehow flash the controller to update the firmware I believe it would work fine. After my computer locks up and I hit reset, the drive is not found by my controller at all. That leads me to believe it's the controller.

I've tried the Raptor by itself now, no luck. Chkdsk found nothing. Scandisk found nothing. I've done low levels tests on the hard drive and it found no errors with the drive itself. Memtest86 went completely through with a 100% pass rate and no lockups.
 
i have just 1 power connector to each, the raptor has the sata now, the 80gig a regular 4 pin.

i haven't tried the raptor solo yet, i will later today i guess. i too can run memtest for hours all passes and prime will run until i stop it. no problems found by chkdisk or WD utility either and checked the spread spectruym settings, and both are set to default disabled in their own way, 1 with jumpers one without which is confusing because both are WD.

i guess my problem might be software or graphic related because when i run prime it will stay running even though the screen freezes. ie, i can see the temps changing and the individual tests run but i can't click on any window or bring up the task bar or anything. i have to hit ctrl/alt/del and then cancel it and everything goes back to normal.

i'm so confused!!!
 
I only have the molex cable plugged into the Raptor.

When my comp locks up it's complete. The mouse freezes and Windows freezes. Like I said before, if I hit the reset button the Promise controller will "scan for IDE drives" which it normally dosen't do and it wont find the Raptor drive at all. If I completely power down then back up the controller will pick up the Raptor just fine, until it locks up again.
 
did you look thru all the stuff on WD's site? i don't know how to flash driver on the HDD but perhaps they have some info there? when i installed the raptor i didn't have to do much more than plug it in, it was instantly recognized. i do remember seeing something about using particular sata controllers on certain mobos, like 3/4 as opposed to 1/2 if thats applicable to your situation.
 
I'll read up on the WD site for information. Maybe it's just not compatible with my controller.

When I plug the Raptor in it's instantly recognized and boots up just fine. Like I said I installed Windows XP Professional, all my programs and got everything to my liking while working through the lockups. After I got everything configured and installed I decided to figure out how to stop the lockups.
 
KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR

That's what happened when I tried to run this drive again last night. Microsoft says that the second parameter of this error can show the cause. My second parameter was this:

0xC0000185, or STATUS_IO_DEVICE_ERROR, indicates improper termination, defective storage controller hardware, or defective disk cabling, or two devices attempting to use the same resources.

I know it's not improper termination, since I'm using SATA. Defective storage controller hardware does not make too much sense because the 160GB SATA Maxtor drive I have works great by itself. Defective disk cabling I'll get to in a minute. Two devices attempting to use the same resources also wouldn't make sense since I've tried the same cable and port that the Maxtor was using.

Alright, that leaves defective disk cabling. Right now I'm using the SATA cables that came standard with my MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR motherboard. Last night I ordered a WD Secure Connect cable, which I should recieve Friday or Monday. Hopefully this new cable will fix any errors I've been having with the drive. Why would the cable work with my 160GB SATA Maxtor 7200RPM 8MB Cache drive just fine and then error out with a 74GB SATA WD 10000RPM 8MB Cache drive. Is there a limit that some of the older SATA cables have?
 
Hey, i have been getting the exact same problem!!! I have a MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR, WD Raptor 74gb and a WD Caviar 120gb.
I thought the RAID had something to do with it but i couldnt get the drives to boot without RAID.
Hope soemone manages to find out the problem...
 
Yeah bad SATA cables can sometimes cause problems, so see how it goes with the new one. How hot is the drive getting? Have a hunt round for some updated SATA drivers for your controller/motherboard.
 
I ordered one of those WD Secure Connect cables and I'll be getting it tonight. When I test it out I'll post here on how it went. If that doesn't work I'm going to just RMA the drive and get a new one.
 
The new SATA cable made no difference at all. I'll be RMA'ing the drive to get a new one. That definitely should fix the problem. 😛
 
Thankfully I got mine from NewEgg. All RMA requests are handled online and shipped through FedEx. Return shipping is "super saver" so you save a bunch if you do have to return product.

All weekend I procrastinated so I'll be returning the drive tonight. Sometime late this week or early next week I'll post an update in this thread on how the new drive worked out.
 
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