LANParty nForce 4 SLI-DR & DiamondMax 10 Any compatibility issues?

[Aaron]

I've strange problems with my Dmax10. I installed it on sata1, was recognized by bios, installed winxp sp2, no problems, BUT

 

sometimes in the xp's booting process, the system hang, make another boot and chekdisk resolve some issues found, then boot OK. Yesterday when I tried to defrag the system hanged at 91%.

 

I´ve downloaded maxblast 4 utility and tonight i will chek this problem.

 

Anyone with the same prob?

 

thanks

 

I've read that the MAXBLAST utility is not supported OR does not work properly with any nforce chipsets. Maybe Maxtor just doesn't support the chipset, although this doesn't mean MAXBLAST won't work. Sorry to hear about your luck. Let me know what you find out.

[Bampson]

I have a 250GB Diamond Max 10 installed as a single drive with no problems so far.

 

However, I didn't load the SATA drivers when windows was installed and it is detected as an IDE drive.

 

Does this mean the performace will take a hit? Also I don't see the option to check the NCQ setting, so that may need the SATA driver as well.

[Aaron]

I have a 250GB Diamond Max 10 installed as a single drive with no problems so far.

 

However, I didn't load the SATA drivers when windows was installed and it is detected as an IDE drive.

 

Does this mean the performace will take a hit? Also I don't see the option to check the NCQ setting, so that may need the SATA driver as well.

 

It needs to be hooked up to the nforce SATA controller because it supports NCQ and Silicon Image controller does not. I'm not sure how to get NCQ enabled, since I don't actually have the hardware yet, but installing the drivers from nvidia might be a good start. I am not sure of the exact steps.

 

NCQ does provide a small increase in performance on a desktop system, but since most reads and writes for desktop systems are linear, the performance increase is marginal. NCQ for a server sytem makes more sense, which is why SCSI drives have had it for quite a while. But, never hurts to have it. Its more of a marketing thing I guess.

 

Wish I could be more help on the driver issue.

[dillingerdan]

It needs to be hooked up to the nforce SATA controller because it supports NCQ and Silicon Image controller does not. I'm not sure how to get NCQ enabled, since I don't actually have the hardware yet, but installing the drivers from nvidia might be a good start. I am not sure of the exact steps.

 

NCQ does provide a small increase in performance on a desktop system, but since most reads and writes for desktop systems are linear, the performance increase is marginal. NCQ for a server sytem makes more sense, which is why SCSI drives have had it for quite a while. But, never hurts to have it. Its more of a marketing thing I guess.

 

Wish I could be more help on the driver issue.

 

You do need the drivers for the nForce installed first and then you need to enter Device Manager and under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers right click on one of the nForce4 ADMA Controller and choose Properties. Under one of the 2 controllers is a primary and secondary channel, and your drive will be on one of these depending on which SATA port you are using, each with a few options for your drives including NCQ Enable, tick it and there you have it.

 

I found this to be enabled already on all 3 of my drives, so it was already enabled.

 

You are right though it isn't such a big deal unless you have a REALLY big RAID array of 4 disks plus, where it can have nice benefits, but then you only have 4 ports that are NCQ enabled to use anyway.

[Bampson]

You do need the drivers for the nForce installed first and then you need to enter Device Manager and under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers right click on one of the nForce4 ADMA Controller and choose Properties. Under one of the 2 controllers is a primary and secondary channel, and your drive will be on one of these depending on which SATA port you are using, each with a few options for your drives including NCQ Enable, tick it and there you have it.

 

I found this to be enabled already on all 3 of my drives, so it was already enabled.

 

You are right though it isn't such a big deal unless you have a REALLY big RAID array of 4 disks plus, where it can have nice benefits, but then you only have 4 ports that are NCQ enabled to use anyway.

 

I wonder if I can install the Nforce RAID drivers in windows since my SATA drive has aleady been detected, albeit on the IDE channel. I just want to squeeze as much performance out of this thing as I can.

[FutureDFI]

I've strange problems with my Dmax10. I installed it on sata1, was recognized by bios, installed winxp sp2, no problems, BUT

 

sometimes in the xp's booting process, the system hang, make another boot and chekdisk resolve some issues found, then boot OK. Yesterday when I tried to defrag the system hanged at 91%.

 

I´ve downloaded maxblast 4 utility and tonight i will chek this problem.

 

Anyone with the same prob?

 

thanks

 

 

 

Maxblast does not run on NF3/NF4.....see Maxtors site..

I tried to run it was unable.

Check for bad sectors with WinXP

[Aaron]

I wonder if I can install the Nforce RAID drivers in windows since my SATA drive has aleady been detected, albeit on the IDE channel. I just want to squeeze as much performance out of this thing as I can.

 

That's odd that it was detected as IDE. I've seen on another forum that the ASUS A8N has that happen too sometimes. Might be the nforce chipset driver problem or BIOS issue but something that should be able to get fixed sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

 

ASUS Problems. . .

 

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.as...2&enterthread=y

 

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cf...hreadid=1498566

 

What SATA port is it hooked up to? I wonder if you could go into device manager and use the update driver button? Not sure if that would work and I don't want to give bad advice to mess up your system. It might be worth a shot.

 

Do you have to have NCQ enabled when you install Windows XP or can you change the option later?

 

All these motherboards are pretty new and there really is no way for manufacturers to forsee every hardware compatibility problem. That is why I asked my original question. So I can learn from other people and keep from pulling my hair out.

[sesiom]

I've read that the MAXBLAST utility is not supported OR does not work properly with any nforce chipsets. Maybe Maxtor just doesn't support the chipset, although this doesn't mean MAXBLAST won't work. Sorry to hear about your luck. Let me know what you find out.

 

 

Hi. Maxblast 4 worked fine with me. The HDD seems fine. I think I discovered what should be responsible for the sudden reboots on winXP:

 

last night, when i tried to open a folder with a divx film on it, the sytem crashed, maked a sudden reboot and showed a message: "windows recovered from a serious error"

 

tried one more time and the same happened.

 

Then I tried one thing: disabling SLI on Windows.

 

when i tried to open the same folder, windows didn´t crashed and I ran the film on mediaplayer!!

 

Now I think that my the real problem is with nvidia detonator drivers, or perhaps, harwdare conflicts with SLI configuration :confused:

 

thanks

[Aaron]

Hi. Maxblast 4 worked fine with me. The HDD seems fine. I think I discovered what should be responsible for the sudden reboots on winXP:

 

Good to hear that it works. Is that on the nvidia controller? Good to hear that you solved the rebooting problem.