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Installing this today. Need help with HDD's


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I'll be installing the DFI SLi-DR and XFX 7800GTX today with my 3200 winnie. Everything else in my sig is from a current build on a MSI K8N Neo2 Plat with an X800Pro modded to an XTPE.

 

I've read alot of FAQ's here and elsewhere and have seen info on not allowing certain HDD SW install with the mobo drivers. I'll use my 74G raptor as my Windows drive, and i have two other drives that are IDE, one's 80G and the other's 200G. These will not be in a RAID config.

 

My question is:

Is there a specific way to set these up in the BIOS (ie-turn off raid, etc) for best results? Also, what things should i not allow to be installed software-wise (nvidia IDE, raid, firewall)?

 

OT, I'm a bit worried about how the board will work with my ram. I've read some horror stories... more bad than good. Just have to see how that goes i guess.

 

on my current system, i have the winnie OC'd to 2.5GHz @ 250x10 (mem at 200) @2-2-2-10-1T. I've tried to raise my ram speed up, but it won't go past 218ish, even on laxed timings, but the MSI only goes up to 2.8VDIMM. I'm not possitive, but i believe these Dimms are rated for 3.5V. if so, do you think that would help to get over 218?

 

PS. OOT- i read a while back that the Raptors 36 and 74G had native support for NCQ, but SATA-1 did not support it. SATA-2 does support it right? so if i plug the raptor into one of the 4 SATA-2 ports can i get NCQ to work? also, how DO you get NCQ to work, is there some way you have to turn it on?

Thanks for your help guys.

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One part of your puzzle pieces...Raptor is TCQ...

TCQ isn't helpful in single user situations, perhaps because it invokes so much overhead. NCQ is said to be a lot more efficient, but it remains to be seen whether it really helps single user situations.

The Raptor won't get NCQ until it goes native SATA.

 

RGone...

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I have almost the same setup. When you install the OS, just have the raptor plugged in. Install windows (and updates) then add the other drives into the system. Like you said, turn off all RAID in BIOS. Do not install the IDE SW (or whatever it is) driver when installing Windows and you should be ok.

 

The only issue I had during the initial build, was that I had all drives connected and hooked up when I installed windows. For some reason, when you have the IDE drives and the SATA drive connected, it installs some files onto the IDE drives even if you chose the SATA during setup. Installing with just the raptor hooked up solved all my issue's. Other than that, I have had no major issue's at all (knock on wood).

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yeah, i installed xp on my current sys a while back with all hdd's on and it wrote sys vol info on all three, made my ide's c: and d: and my win drive e:, wtf. so i copied and deleted all info from drives so they were fresh again, then installed xp with just raptor and all was fine.

 

thanks for the heads up on the sw.

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ok, installing xp right now.

 

seems like every other or third boot, it locks up at a random part in the boot sequence... think it's becuase the psu i'm using at the moment only has 20 pin instead of 24 pin?

 

also, for a 7800gtx, it came with a plug that splices off to two molex females. do both of these need to be plugged in or just one?

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Yeah, the PSU could be the issue. Do you have all 4 power connected to the mb? There should be a molex connector power, a floppy power, the 4 pin and the 24 pin power. If you have all 4 power connected, you could try unhooking a couple of hdd's and see if that make a difference. As of right now, I would say PSU as your 7800gtx takes a lot of power and a 400 may not cut it for all the power this board needs.

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ok, installing xp right now.

 

seems like every other or third boot, it locks up at a random part in the boot sequence... think it's becuase the psu i'm using at the moment only has 20 pin instead of 24 pin?

 

also, for a 7800gtx, it came with a plug that splices off to two molex females. do both of these need to be plugged in or just one?

 

According to the powers that be your PSU does not meet min specs. But it appears you are getting a new PSU which I am sure you researched

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I'll be installing the DFI SLi-DR and XFX 7800GTX today with my 3200 winnie. Everything else in my sig is from a current build on a MSI K8N Neo2 Plat with an X800Pro modded to an XTPE.

 

I've read alot of FAQ's here and elsewhere and have seen info on not allowing certain HDD SW install with the mobo drivers. I'll use my 74G raptor as my Windows drive, and i have two other drives that are IDE, one's 80G and the other's 200G. These will not be in a RAID config.

 

My question is:

Is there a specific way to set these up in the BIOS (ie-turn off raid, etc) for best results? Also, what things should i not allow to be installed software-wise (nvidia IDE, raid, firewall)?

 

OT, I'm a bit worried about how the board will work with my ram. I've read some horror stories... more bad than good. Just have to see how that goes i guess.

 

on my current system, i have the winnie OC'd to 2.5GHz @ 250x10 (mem at 200) @2-2-2-10-1T. I've tried to raise my ram speed up, but it won't go past 218ish, even on laxed timings, but the MSI only goes up to 2.8VDIMM. I'm not possitive, but i believe these Dimms are rated for 3.5V. if so, do you think that would help to get over 218?

 

PS. OOT- i read a while back that the Raptors 36 and 74G had native support for NCQ, but SATA-1 did not support it. SATA-2 does support it right? so if i plug the raptor into one of the 4 SATA-2 ports can i get NCQ to work? also, how DO you get NCQ to work, is there some way you have to turn it on?

Thanks for your help guys.

 

 

I am very knowledgable about this, as I have spent quite a while researching and implementing it with actual results and benchmarks to back it up.

This is all my opinion and is factual :)

 

 

Yes hook up just the raptor, do a fresh install of XP with SP2.

Turn off ALL the Raid support in the bios for couple reasons

1) Your not running raid :)

2) You can actually get a slightly better overclock with RAID turned off because it does not have to support the RAID and costs a little bit of performance due to overhead. I have screenshots with benchmarks to back this all up. It is pretty marginal, but in every test the performance is better with RAID off

3) Your computer will boot quite a bit faster as it does not load support for the RAID at Boot

4) I actually did install the NVIDIA SATA drivers as I noticed a better performance because the HD is using NVIDIA drivers to talk to the MOBO as opposed to the generic Windows drivers that are generic IDE

5) Dont install the NVIDIA RAID or Firewall as it will be slower and that should be done with a hardware firewall either router or seperate firewall, upto you depends on how "safe" you want to feel.

 

*********

Your memory in my opinion is just average. You may be able to get it above 218, however with only 2.8 it will be hard!

Currently the JDEC standard is only 2.95V on DDR ram is what they support.

This really means nothins as noone cares about JDEC standards. What a lot of memory manufactuers are doing is making mem that can be supported upto 3.5V.

3.5V is quite a bit of Voltage, and often you dont even need that much to reach max speeds. Just make sure it is stable at whatever voltage you choose. I currently am putting 3.7V to my mushkin redline pc4000, however I do have active cooling with 2 80mm fans directly above the memory. Mushkin says that whatever voltage you use, they insist you use active cooling. IT DOES HELP A LOT! It sounds like you have a fairly decent overclock on air about 500MHZ, which is pretty good. Sure you could get more but why run it maxed out 24/7. Say you could get 2600 with new memory and cooling. I almost guarantee you wont notice the extra 100MHZ and your hardware life will shorten somewhat. Your call

**********

As stated your Raptor is TCQ. Currently there are VERY few real world situations in which the average user will notice a gain. Most of the times if there is, it is less than 10%. However about 80% of the time it is slower due to the overhead. In time it will be great. What I recommend if you can afford it is another raptor 74 and put those in raid 0. I guarantee you WILL notice a difference in almost everything. Although it isn't necessarly a 2x increase, it feels like it and will be about a 70%. Current computers bottleneck is the Hard Drive. Get another one of those harddrives on sale at Newegg now for like $141 after MIR and that will help TREMENDOUSLY!

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thanks for the input. yes my ram is just so-so. it's rev 1.1 also, which is the crappy rev of this xms. i knew i was destined for problems, though it's not so much with the setup, but with the xp install. giving me "run dll as an app" problems. so, backing up and reinstalling. this time i'll make an image of the hdd when i get the basics installed.

 

i've got it running at 2.5G @ 250x10 5/6 divider. ram is running at 208 (what cpuz says). i know it'll run 218-220 but there's no real good way of getting 2.5 (max for this cpu on air) and having 220 FSB. BIOS on this board is the 635 out of box.

 

yes, this psu only has the 20 pin atx connector. and the new one i'm getting supplies 19Ato the 12Vrail. Antec TruePower 2.0 550W. so that'll suffice when it comes in monday.

 

I'll think about getting a new raptor, though it's quite speedy for me already. i'd been using 7200 rpm drives for the longest time, then when i installed the raptor, it's like the speed and loading times for things almost doubled.

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RAM timings are:

CPC enabled (1T)

2-2-5-2-7-11-2-2-2-2

3072-1-enable-255-3-auto-8ns-5ns-64-disable-16x-7x-disable

 

my bios also shows a setting for DRAM Response (normal, fast, fastest). i have it on normal right now, when i get windows reinstalled and running, i'll try the other two settings.

 

ran memtest test 4 with no errors three times in a row.

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