hard drive skips!

[vizo]

i recently had an 80g maxtor hdd rma'd due to ... well it basically died on me. i since got a new one and i just put it in to my system (2k.) every minute or so, my system locks for 1-3 seconds, eveything freezes; music, games, even the mouse. this never happened when i had the other 80g hdd in. its on a raid setup on ide3. ide4 does the same. anyone have any suggestions? thanks in advance.

the setup was the same as the other drive. the drives are itentical sizes and model#. i dont see how there could be a "driver" problem cause its exactly the same.. hmm..

i updated mostly every driver (raid, usb2, via, and bios) and it seemed to stop the skipping for a day or two. now the poroblem is back. specs:

win2k
xp 1600
msi kt3ultra (raid)
512 pc2700
gf3 ti 200
onboard realtek ac'97
40g+40g=ide1
cdrom+cdrom=ide2
80g=ide3(raid)
300w psu

 

[RICHINMINN]

This may not be the solution to your problem, but one thing that I noticed in your hardware configuration is the (relatively) low-powered power supply. I won't use anything less than a 350-watt power supply in any of the systems that I build. I've built 300-watt systems loaded with a ton of hardware (100 GB HD, CD-R/RW, DVD, ZIP, etc.) which were just "flaky" while running. I upgraded them to 350-watt power supplies, and all the flakiness went away. Depending on the hardware, I've used hard drives of up to 550 watts. (Commercially-built PCs are notoriously under-powered, with the power supply sized to handle the standard hardware configuration, but nothing more.)

Another thing that I do is to install ONLY the hard drive on IDE1 as the Master device. Adding another Slave device slows the hard drive to the speed of that Slave device. If, for example, you've got an ATA100 or ATA133 hard drive as IDE1/Master, and install an ATA33 CD-ROM as IDE1/Slave, your hard drive is now limited to running at ATA33 speeds, a reduction of 67-75%. Even if I'm installing another hard drive of equal speed, I'll put it on IDE2, since the data transfer rates between IDE1 and IDE2 run at full speed simultaneously, while two hard drives on the same IDE channel have to "take turns". This is another area in which many commercially-built PCs skimp, by installing both the hard drive and CD-ROM drive on IDE1.

Rich (in Minn.)

 

[vizo]

i dont own a commercially built pc. its a custom system that has lasted me for a year, on the _same_ setup. how can it be that it fails all of a sudden? ive had the same setup for a year on a 300watt psu.

so you say to put prim. master (C on ide 1 alone? then what could i do for ide2? 3? ide2 both hdds? ide2 one hdd one cdrom? let me know the best setup i can take to get the best stability and performance. ill go get a larger wattage psu and see if that fixes it. if not, you owe me a hundred bucks

thanks, later.

 

[vizo]

ok i bought an extra stick of 512 pc2700, up to 1 gig now. ive also gotten a 400watt psu. still no luck, still freezes periodically... any know whats going on?

 

[vizo]

oh well, thanks anyways.

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

I dont know about anyone else but i have sure been seeing alot of faulty MAXTOR drives lately

 

[vizo]

i just formatted c:, and im updating windows2k now, hopefully my hdd wont skip anymore. heh!

 

[vizo]

guess what? im still getting the skips and pauses even after i reformatted c:. what the hell is going on? now i have to buy a new mobo or something. im thinking its the raid somehow, because thats whats messed up, the drive on ide3 (raid). im desperate guys, please let me know if you have any suggestions!

 

[Grenage]

Okay, if your believe it is the RAID, have you tried installing using the standard IDE controller instead ?