XP RAID: Kills MY CPU Dead? HELP!

[tmgkeith]

Hi, I've been having long time problems with my new system. I have a clone CPU with a Athlon 1700+ GHZ chip, 512 MB of RAM and an All-In-Wonder Raedeon 7500 video card.

The identical Maxtor 40GB drives are striped with I believe a RAID 0 config and running on XP. The striped drive is partitioned 15/56 GB, with XP on C (15 GB).

The motherboard is a KT3 Ultra 2 by MSI. The Promise FastTrack 133 Lite controller for the RAID is updated with an XP driver, although strangely, it has not been "logo" certified by Windows. I had went ahead with the install because it wouldn't recognize my hard drives without it.

Anyway, here are the problems...
1) I get hangs of 5 to 10 seconds every 2 to 5 minutes during the day-to-day operations of my PC. It seems to happen more often during the use of online applications (cable modem based) and got worse with the more drivers/software I installed.

The hangs or pauses (no crashes) interfere with my productivity. I've been told to try another OS to see if it is the actual RAID ports malfunctioning. I doubt this because the store replaced the motherboard because they thought it was the problem.

2) I also have difficulty installing software updates and Windows patches too. Some times they just refuse to install or work.

I don't know if the two are related, but I have to figure this out. Has anyone had similar problems out there? More importantly, does anyone know how to fix it? Is a driver issue? The OS? My USB 2 ports and a second older ATI PCI card don't work and are disabled.

Thanks a lot guys. Any, I mean any help is appreciated.

Keith

 

[Taurus]

where did you get the drivers for your raid controller? you have the latest 4in1 drivers, too?

also make sure you have the latest bios.

 

[tmgkeith]

Good ideas... but...

Thanks Taurus for your quick reply. I used the MSI Web site at www.msi.com.tw to download the latest drivers. I believe I didn't download anything but the RAID controller as I couldn't execute the 4 in 1 (which I did see) from the DOS-based XP set-up.

I didn't occur to me to install it after the OS was installed. I'm nervous about updating the BIOS myself for fear of cooking my board. Is it tricky to get right using the MSI appointed BIOS update?

Do you think this could be the reason for the multiple freezes in my system and the bad installs I get from time to time?

Thanks again!!!

Keith

 

[Taurus]

i would flash the bios. the only way you could mess it up is if the power just happened to go out during the 15 seconds that it takes to flash. while there is no guarantee that it will fix your problem, it's still a good habit and something you'll want to learn.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_list.php?kind=1&CHIP=Socket A&ID=3

i would also install the latest via 4in1 drivers.

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

also, try the latest raid drivers for your controller.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/driver/dvr/spt_dvr_list.php?part=1&kind=4&CHIP=4&ID=1

 

[joshuajme]

How did you install xp on the array?

 

[Taurus]

installing xp on an array is easy. once you go into the raid controler's bios and set up the array, it's only a matter of partitioning and formatting the new drive from dos.

 

[Doctor Who]

I found the promise controllers really poor for RAID, I have a RAID setup on an MSI KT3 Ultra board with 2 maxtor 40 gig drives, and it slow, my Abit RAID setup is faster.

Although I don't have that problem, on the MSI board, it could be your XP install CD, or your IDE cables, get some new cables and try them out.

Oh yeah, btw how are the drives confgiured, on a seperate IDE channel each on the RAID controller, or on one single 1 on a master and slave configuration? That is known to slow down a stripe RAID array (RAID 0).