Abit NF7-S SATA (non raid) freeze
Hi Guys,
I've been running my computer fine for a while now using an old IDE hard drive on an abit NF7-s V2.0. I recently bought a new SATA drive and have been growing increasingly frustrated trying to get the thing to work.
I basically just wanted to use the thing for storage while still running off my existing Win XP installation.
Basically the problem is that whenever i try and format the drive (using windows disk manager) my computer freezes. The format will normally get to 100% and then everything will stop responding. If i move my mouse the cursor will eventually move around about ten minutes later. If I leave it for long enough I will eventually get some message about a buffered write failing (can't remember exactly), however the computer stays in it's essentially frozen state. From what I've gathered CPU use is at 100% during these times. After this I generally have to reboot my computer.
If I do a soft(warm) reboot then after the crash the SATA Raid thing at startup will not detect any devices. If i do a hard(cold) reboot then the device will be detected again.
For some reason a format did once work but afterwards whenever i tried using the hard drive I would experience the same freezing (anytime from instantly to about 10minutes during use). If i didn't use the hard drive everything would be ok.
If I check the event viewer after such a freeze there are generally system errors like the SI3112 controller did not respond in the timeout period, or the hard drive was removed from the system without first being prepared for removal..
Currently the hard drive is detected fine by Controller/windows, but unformatted. As long as i don't do anything with it everything works fine running off my other drive.
I've read many posts from people with SATA problems and have tried a lot of things to resolve this including
-Various sets of drivers for the sata driver, including most recent drivers issued from abit, and from silicon image.
-setting p2p discard time to 1ms
-turning up vcore
-setting drive to use UDMA1
-disk diagnositcs using HUTIL
-memtesting
-doing a fresh install of Win XP on the SATA drive (installer says cannot format the drive after getting 100% through format)
-changing SATA cables.
-low level format
-Disabling onboard sound etc, to make sure SATA controller had it's own IRQ
-Tryingn different onboard SATA connector.
-kicking PC
-etc. etc..
And nothing has changed the problem. I've read a lot of posts about SATA issues but this doesn't seem that common. I'd appreciate any help from you guys (also i honestly don't believe the problem is heat, and my PSU should be able to handle this thing).
Failing getting this thing to work I'll have to buy a PCI SATA controller, any suggestions?
One thing I haven't worked out is whether i should be using RAID or non RAID drivers for the controller since I'm not running a RAID setup. The non raid drivers i got from silicon image don't seem to work for me.
Cheers
Steve
Specs:
Win XP SP2
AMD 2500+ Barton (no overclocking)
Abit N7-S v2.0 (bios 27)
256Mb GeIl RAM
Antec TruePower 380W PSU
Samsung 160G SP1614C SATA HDD
Western Digital 40G IDE HDD
ATI Radeon 9600XT
PCI Modem
I've been running my computer fine for a while now using an old IDE hard drive on an abit NF7-s V2.0. I recently bought a new SATA drive and have been growing increasingly frustrated trying to get the thing to work.
I basically just wanted to use the thing for storage while still running off my existing Win XP installation.
Basically the problem is that whenever i try and format the drive (using windows disk manager) my computer freezes. The format will normally get to 100% and then everything will stop responding. If i move my mouse the cursor will eventually move around about ten minutes later. If I leave it for long enough I will eventually get some message about a buffered write failing (can't remember exactly), however the computer stays in it's essentially frozen state. From what I've gathered CPU use is at 100% during these times. After this I generally have to reboot my computer.
If I do a soft(warm) reboot then after the crash the SATA Raid thing at startup will not detect any devices. If i do a hard(cold) reboot then the device will be detected again.
For some reason a format did once work but afterwards whenever i tried using the hard drive I would experience the same freezing (anytime from instantly to about 10minutes during use). If i didn't use the hard drive everything would be ok.
If I check the event viewer after such a freeze there are generally system errors like the SI3112 controller did not respond in the timeout period, or the hard drive was removed from the system without first being prepared for removal..
Currently the hard drive is detected fine by Controller/windows, but unformatted. As long as i don't do anything with it everything works fine running off my other drive.
I've read many posts from people with SATA problems and have tried a lot of things to resolve this including
-Various sets of drivers for the sata driver, including most recent drivers issued from abit, and from silicon image.
-setting p2p discard time to 1ms
-turning up vcore
-setting drive to use UDMA1
-disk diagnositcs using HUTIL
-memtesting
-doing a fresh install of Win XP on the SATA drive (installer says cannot format the drive after getting 100% through format)
-changing SATA cables.
-low level format
-Disabling onboard sound etc, to make sure SATA controller had it's own IRQ
-Tryingn different onboard SATA connector.
-kicking PC
-etc. etc..
And nothing has changed the problem. I've read a lot of posts about SATA issues but this doesn't seem that common. I'd appreciate any help from you guys (also i honestly don't believe the problem is heat, and my PSU should be able to handle this thing).
Failing getting this thing to work I'll have to buy a PCI SATA controller, any suggestions?
One thing I haven't worked out is whether i should be using RAID or non RAID drivers for the controller since I'm not running a RAID setup. The non raid drivers i got from silicon image don't seem to work for me.
Cheers
Steve
Specs:
Win XP SP2
AMD 2500+ Barton (no overclocking)
Abit N7-S v2.0 (bios 27)
256Mb GeIl RAM
Antec TruePower 380W PSU
Samsung 160G SP1614C SATA HDD
Western Digital 40G IDE HDD
ATI Radeon 9600XT
PCI Modem
0
Comments
Two questions abou this:
Firstly, is it still necessary to use a floppy drive in this day and age? Is there any way around this? Otherwise I'll have to go and buy one.
Secondly, which drivers would you recommend, and where can I find them?
Thanks.
I simply took the driver CD which came with my motherboard, and from it I installed the Silicon Image drivers. Now everthing looks fine, and I can use the drive.
Strangely, however, my entire system hung when I tried to bench it using HD Tach.
This is my Device Panel:
This is my IDE driver:
This is my RAID driver:
I am wondering if I need to update any of these drivers. I have already updated the BIOS on my motherboard.
Is there a BIOS for the SATA controller on the motherboard which I need to update?
ABIT 1
ABIT 2
It would seem that the line between RAID and non-RAID becomes blurred with an SIS Controller, at least concerning drivers.
I've just solved a boot problem on my NF7-S 2.0 while trying to install W2K on a SATA drive. First off, to eliminate other reasons, I had only the SATA drive (SATA channel 0) and the CD-ROM (Secondary IDE Master) hooked up.
W2K install from CD went well, hit F6 to install SATA driver etc., copied files to SATA HDD. Then, the HDD wouldn't be recognized during the next boot, despite the fact that I had set "First boot device: SATA" and enabled the SATA contoller etc.
The trick was to not only enable the SATA controller, but also to enable the BOOT SATA RAID ROM option in the bios. My incorrect assumption was that you only activate the SATA RAID ROM option if you want to do maintenance on your RAID array, and since I only had a single HDD, I wasn't needing it. However, enabling the SATA RAID ROM option is what makes the SATA drives available for booting, too! You don't need to enter the RAID config (it says to hit Ctrl-S if you want it). Just enable SATA RAID ROM, and now windows boots just fine from the SATA HDD. No driver updates or bios updates were necessary.
Hope this helps a few frustrated NF7-S folks...
Sebastian O.