KT7-Raid 2x60Gb array = 120Gb - problems

[chris thomas]

Hello!

I've not long raided two 60Gb Maxtor hard disks together (one is ATA mode 4, one mode 5), and it seemed to work great!

The only immediate problem was that RapTest kept hanging Windows 2000 when I checked the new array (no mouse movement, no Ctrl-Alt-Del), necesitating a hard reboot. After about four attempts I finally got a read speed of 50Mb/s, and write of 25Mb/s.

The problems continued, as I tested the array with a 9 minute 2Gb video file. It played flawlessly up until 8m06s, when again, w2k hung as before.

I've updated to the latest UL bios, the latest Via 4in1 drivers (which contains the beta Highpoint 370 Raid drivers), and I always finish with a quick W2K SP1.

I'm obviously concerned that since the KT7-Raid is still fairly new, that the manufacturer hasn't ironed out all the bugs yet, but does anyone have any idea if I'm missing anything?

Chris.

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Chris Thomas. chris@cptv.co.uk
http://cptv.co.uk - over 16 minutes of streaming video to bore yourself with!

[wilda]

This is a little worrying - I have been looking at a new motherboard for a a few weeks now, linked with a new 1Ghz Athlon. I had decided 100% to buy a KT7-Raid based on spec and the number (5 ish) reviews that said how good and stable it was.

I haven't yet made the purchase so I will watch the outcome of this thread very closely.

Alastair

[cresby]

If KT7 is an Abit mobo then trawl the pinnacle Studio DV webboard for horror stories in Athlons, Via chipsets and search for KT7 specifically.
As my mobo is different I haven't noted much other than one poor guy spent 150 hours and changed mobo to a different make to get success. Pinnacle posted a seriously "DONT" warning on the subject recently. OHCI firewire cards seem to need a lot of effort to get them to work - update everything and trawl webboards like this.

[wilda]

Chris

Have you had any success in solving your problem? BTW what capture card are you using?

Alastair

[drsolly]

I use an ABIT KT7-Raid under Linux as my main
file server, running a 1000 MHz athlon,
and 1gb memory, with four 80 gb Maxtors.
The whole thing was about £2500, and it's worked perfectly for 2 months now. I use the Linux raiding software for doing the raid.

I don't run my video card on that system, though. I use the principle of "separation of function", and the video card is running on a different machine. So I can't comment on that end of it.

I'm in the middle of buying another one just like it, only cheaper (about £1500, prices have fallen).



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[cresby]

Wilda
Watch out for the memory leakage bug in Win ME on 1gig CPU's (any), there is a fix but not easy to obtain, stick to Win 98 SE and upgrade to DirectX 7 until you can be sure.

[chris thomas]

Ok, here we go, sorry for the late reply...

I've just spent a stressful weekend trying to pin down the problem. I installed every single new driver I could find, and flashed the bios with the latest beta bios (ul103).

After apparently sucessfully completing the flashing process, I received a nasty 'bios rom checksum error'. I couldn't even press 'del' to get into the bios! However, I was able to boot from a floppy, where I was able to reflash, and set the 'reset checksum' option in awdflash. I'd also forgotten to write down my overclocking settings (duh!), so I picked a core voltage which looked familiar, and was plesantly surprised to have got it spot on.

<bombshell>
Everything seemed fine, except that when I tried to access files on the raid array, my usb mouse would stop responding within two seconds. This is obviously rather a problem, since editing video in MSP5.2 is a rather mouse intensive task!
</bombshell>

The keyboard was still fine, and the raid array kept functioning flawlessly quickly. Numerous reboots, and uninstalling and reinstalling things didn't seem to make the 'mouse and raid' problem go away.

Various courses of action are suggested at this wonderful website http://go.to/kt7faq and most were attempted, yet resulted in failure (and BSODs, and endless rebooting into safe mode, and much swearing, and threats to throw the blasted computer out of the window).

The only fix that seems to have done any good is this: moving all IDE devices off the Highpoint (raid) controller's secondary channel (IDE4 on the motherboard).

When raiding on this motherboard, you're instructed that to get the best performance, plug one hard disk into the primary's master slot, and the other into the secondary's master slot. This allows both hard disks to be run concurrently, therefore increasing throughput to the array.

However, I suspect that the Highpoint's secondary controller is conflicting with the USB ports somehow. I moved the secondary master over to the primary slave (forgetting to change the jumpers, but hey! nobody's perfect!), and rebuilt the raid array from the highpoint bios. Using RapTest, the array was functioning at read of 50Mb/s and write of 25Mb/s, but in the new configuration, the read is about 20Mb/s and the write at 36Mb/s!(yes these figures are correct!)

The mouse now doesn't hang, and the array still wonderfully outperforms the spec for DV, so I'm far happier!

However, the computer will still not powerdown in W2k properly (it does in WinME), but I can live with that.

Chris.

[wilda]

Chris

Thanks for the detailed info - I haven't bought anything yet (the price just keeps falling!) but I still like the sound of this motherboard (am I mad I hear you ask!!) A couple of questions; what capture card are you using? and does the RAID support more than 2 disks per channel?

Thanks
Alastair

PS Cresby - tried ME and could not get my mouse or monitor working so went back to 98SE. Must checkmthe DirectX version though.

[chris thomas]

No problem, Alastair.

I've got a DV Raptor. The KT7-Raid motherboard supports four ide channels, two standard ata66 channels, and two ata100 channels, attached to the Highpoint controller. The highpoint controller supports only 2 ide devices per channel. This makes a theoretical maximum of 8 devices in your case! The heat generated is considerable, though (I've got 5 hard disks plugged into my machine, and a cdrom!), and my cpu temperature went up 12 degrees C when I screwed the case closed - I may have to leave one of the sides off to keep everything under control!

The highpoint controller supports:
Raid 0: Striping
Raid 1: Mirroring
Raid 0+1: Striping and Mirroring
and disk spanning

Chris.
Oh, and my mate Mike http://mikeshardware.co.uk , tells me that reinstalling Windows 2000 over the current installation, may fix the shutdown problem. I'll have a crack at that tonight.

[This message has been edited by chris thomas (edited 07 November 2000).]

[wilda]

Chris

Thanks, and thanks for the email.

I have a DV500 which is probably the cause of most concern, but I think I will have a go!

I have a shutdown problem with 98SE that I have put up with for some time now.

Alastair

PS Your mate Mike's website is 'the business' loads of good info http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubb/smile.gif

[chris thomas]

http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubb/smile.gif Heh! He'll be chuffed to hear that!

[chris thomas]

Installing W2k again, didn't seem to fix the shutdown problem. As a little aside, I was rather alarmed when I re-installed it. From the initial install screen, I selected 'upgrade' installation, instead of the 'clean install' option. I then sat infront of the computer for a good 25 minutes, while it chugged away copying files, and occasionally rebooting automatically. I don't remember being given any 'choices'. Normally, you get bombarded with 'select this drive' 'select this option' 'tick this' 'check that' questions, but I didn't even get to specify which drive to install on!!! It was quite unnerving, watching the little blue progress bar slowly ooze across the screen, and I spent most of the time biting my nails up to my elbow, and rocking backwards and forwards muttering 'please work' repeatedly.

I shall fire Mike out of a cannon for putting me through all that stress!

[chris thomas]

Oh, and other good news, the new KT7-Raid BIOS UL, with Highpoint BIOS 1.0.3b1 has solved my 'hard disks reverting to PIO mode' problem. All hds are now operating at Ultra DMA speeds. Whoopee!