# Possible sata controller problem.



## dj_dn (May 22, 2008)

Well for the last 6 weeks i have been troubleshooting my computer and i keep getting crashes in windows when ever the HDD are working hard.

Here is what i got so far:
-problem still there when all oc's are off
-Switched all HDD's
-Zero'd all my drives
-Formated all my drives
-Fresh installs of win xp

The computer freezes when i:
-Benchmark a drive
-Run two drives at the same time (Big file transfer)
-And at random

But the first one is all ways, pics are attached.

So in all, I'm at the point of blowing this comp in to thousands of pieces. I have primed both cores, video card was stressed with atitool for over 2 hours no problem. Then when i add any HDD benchmark tool it freezes up.


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## FR@NK (May 22, 2008)

Looks like the controller is going bad, you might have to RMA the board. Can you test your drives in another computer? Also you might test your ram since ram errors will cause problems like that aswell.


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## jbunch07 (May 22, 2008)

FR@NK said:


> Looks like the controller is going bad, you might have to RMA the board. Can you test your drives in another computer? Also you might test your ram since ram errors will cause problems like that aswell.



good advice
run memtest if its not the drives.


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## dj_dn (May 22, 2008)

Tried all drives in other computer and my ram is up to par in memtest(8 passes)

Oh and the board is older then a year, don't know how long there warranty is.


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## jbunch07 (May 22, 2008)

then i guess that singles it out try for an rma... its most likely the controller.
was your pcie bus locked when your where ocing...if not ocing it will def mess up your controller


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## Mussels (May 22, 2008)

sure its not a failing PSU? Its possible the rail to the CPU and video cards are fine, yet the one to the HDD's isnt (if its a multi rail PSU) and the drives are not liking it.

My culprits would be
#bad PSU
#bad controller (rare, but not unheard of)
#unstable PC (overclocking or not, its possible something is overheating or failing, such as ram)


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## jbunch07 (May 22, 2008)

good point mussels

im still thinking that if he was ocing and his pci-e bus was on auto then that might have screwed up his sata controller...not to hard to do.


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## Mussels (May 22, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> good point mussels
> 
> im still thinking that if he was ocing and his pci-e bus was on auto then that might have screwed up his sata controller...not to hard to do.



generally, lowering the clocks fixes that corruption immediately, and the problems go away. I've only ever seen that problem stick on a Via chipset that also overheated at the same time.

One common thing i see people do all the time, is setup their hard drives say, like this

PSU -------cable-----===--HDD

the === being a splitter, commonly for a fan, or a double adaptor to run two HDD's off the one cable. this is BAD. all it takes is one bump, and the cables often come loose - a fan can handle losing power for a second, your HDD's cant. Always keep your HDD's (especially power hungry raptors) on their own, independant power leads direct from the PSU - no adaptors or splitters.


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## jbunch07 (May 22, 2008)

Mussels said:


> generally, lowering the clocks fixes that corruption immediately, and the problems go away. I've only ever seen that problem stick on a Via chipset that also overheated at the same time.
> 
> One common thing i see people do all the time, is setup their hard drives say, like this
> 
> ...



very good point!
its best to give your hd its own cable if possible


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## mrhuggles (May 22, 2008)

im putting my money on a combination of new drives [why mass fluxuations] and bad cable [dead spot in the middle of test 2]

oh, could also be software, try makeing hdd benchmarks set to realtime priority


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## dj_dn (May 22, 2008)

I am running on a splitter for the HDD, but the cable is made this way. I own a pc power and cooling PSU, it only has one rail ( a big one a may add ). But once i get home ill try each hdd by them self. But they dont fail in my second rig.
Im not to certain if its the pcie clock cause i dont have the option, i only have the option to change the AGP clock, and that one is locked. 

Can it be my NB, cause that little guy gets really hot.

I think ill sell my cpu and ram to get a duo.


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## JrRacinFan (May 22, 2008)

Also, are you positive it is not a south bridge driver issue?


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## dj_dn (May 22, 2008)

JrRacinFan said:


> Also, are you positive it is not a south bridge driver issue?



That i dont know, you made think to check for updates for my south, they dont have them on there site but ill try to find where i got them last.


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## dj_dn (May 23, 2008)

Well it seams like i found the problem, its that darn dual core optimizer. Once i got it off my system it starting running true all tests like cutting true butter. 

Thx for the help, and ill be back if i find any thing new.


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## Mussels (May 23, 2008)

wow. well congradulations for finding out!

For reference, the southbridge driver will be a VIA one - They call it Via Hyperion, its a package that will have most of your motherboard drivers in the one download.


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## dj_dn (May 23, 2008)

Mussels said:


> wow. well congradulations for finding out!
> 
> For reference, the southbridge driver will be a VIA one - They call it Via Hyperion, its a package that will have most of your motherboard drivers in the one download.



Thx, But its a uli chipset


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## Mussels (May 23, 2008)

ULI comes off Nvidias website - if you go to where you get Video card drivers, scroll down and there's a button for it

I have no idea how i came up with via... its one of those days.


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## dj_dn (May 23, 2008)

Mussels said:


> ULI comes off Nvidias website - if you go to where you get Video card drivers, scroll down and there's a button for it
> 
> I have no idea how i came up with via... its one of those days.



Lol, no prob thx for the help, system has been stable for over 3hours, way better then 15 minutes i was getting.

And at the same time i got it to run at 1T command rate because off the bios update


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## Mussels (May 23, 2008)

nice. 1T is a HUGE boost, as you may be aware. I'm actually thinking of dropping this rig back to 2GB just go go 1T (the ram would move to my LAN system)


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