RAID problems?

[Mogglewump]

I've just had my motherboard, a GA-7DXR repaired by my supplier as the onboard Promise chip seemed to have gone funky and would no longer let me write. Now I've got it back and I am trying to set up W98 on a 2+0 RAID array but after I install an amount of drivers into the fresh install I get a blue screen 'Windows cannot write to drive C:' error. Then I get my registry backup and I keep droping back to the just installed stage. Any ideas what the problem could be? I think that my computer is running a little hot in the heat wave we are having at the moment in the UK but my processor seems to be running at a steady 62C. Could this be a power supply problem as I only have a Enlight 250W power supply for a 1.4 Athlon Tbird, GeForce3, SB Live, CD-ROM, DVD, LS120, and 2HDDs? Also since I got my board back the chip has only been detected as a 1050Mhz and I have to manually set the speed to 1369Mhz to get anything like proper performance. Ta muchly for any help.

 

[o1die]

Your power supply could be the problem. Only way to know is try another. 350 watt will do. I have a 300 watt enlight, and still get random reboots when overclocking on the edge of my cpus limit.

 

[Mogglewump]

I've now upgraded the power supply to a 430W and I still can't run RAID in a stable state. UDMA mode seems to have data transfer errors as well. Any ideas?

 

[jlanka]

Believe it or not I would check the RAM. Try switching in a different stick, and/or underclocking it.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Mogglewump]

I don't overclock it at the moment, infact after gettting it back from being 'repaired' if I let BIOS autoselect the FSB it selects 100 instead of 133 therefore seriously underclocking both memory and processor and it even seems to be less stable.

 

[svol]

Check your IDE cables... they me be bad.
And be sure you have the latest Promise drivers.
This also could be a heat issue... try to run your case open and see if the temps stay lower and if the problem continues to be there.

My watercooler contains so much water that the moon has influence upon it .

 

[Mogglewump]

I'm running my computer with no case at the moment since I have a good idea that I'm going to have to take it apart again. Since its an manufacturer integrated chipset Promise do not support it directly (I have to get Gigabyte's ones)and XP doesn't detect the array at all. IDE cables are fine since I've tried two different cables both of which have problems on the RAID controller and no problems on the BIOS channels.

 

[svol]

According to the Gigabyte website the newest drivers from Gigabyte work with WinXP. Have you also tried to download the latest BIOS... maybe there are some RAID BIOS fixes in it.

My watercooler contains so much water that the moon has influence upon it .

 

[Mogglewump]

I'll look into it. Although it would appear that the XP drivers have just mysteriously materialised on the Giga-byte site. Unfortunately my brand new power supply gave up the ghost last night. GRR

Someday I'll get this computer working!