Epox 9NPA+ Ultra and SATAII

[Leaskovski]

Hi guys,

I have finally just got a new SATA-II disk (my first one) to plug into my Epox 9NPA+ Ultra motherboard.

One thing i don't understand though as i am a noobie at this SATA stuff... Why the device manager is only reporting transfer mode as 1.5 and not 3?

I am pretty sure the motherboard is SATA-II. The drive i am using is a seagate 7200.10 250GB disk. Oh and i didn't put any jumpers on the operation mode.

Any ideas? Thanks all!

[inthecheeks]

Sometimes you have to enable sata 2 on your drive in order to take advantage of it there is a program from hitatchi that will let you do it on almost any drive i forget the name of the program but you will have to burn it to a cd and boot off of it

[Leaskovski]

Well ive been told on another forum that the 9NPA+ Ultra does not support 3gbps data rate.

[YadaMaker]

Leaskovski.. just curious,

what's the model number of your new drive?

EDIT: On second thot.. and what's your bios version right now?

[Leaskovski]

I don't have the bios version at the moment but Magic Bios is saying i have the last version. The mother board is the Ultra as it says that on the pcb.

Edit, the HD model number is a Seagate 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS

[ansible]

On my 9NPA+ Ultra system, device manager shows 3.0G against the SATA channel which my SATAII WD2500KS is connected to, and 1.5G for the SATA channel corresponding to my SATAI WD2500JD.

[Leaskovski]

Have you modified your board at all??

I can't understand why 3gbps is not being displayed???

Edit: Hmm, just ran Magic Bios again and it seems as though there is a new version! So much for the'last version' that it was saying the other week!

[YadaMaker]

Might want to dl and run the SeaTools disk ~ nothing's really changed about the fact that if windows, dos, or smart detects even a small problem with a drive, they can in effect derate the transfer speed of that drive inside windows.

had it happen, just prior to a drive failure.. less a coupla weeks.
damaged(?)

EDIT: is this [9npa6811.zip] the new version you were just refrring to?

says "** Fixed Maxtor diamonMax 10 HD can't detect issue." ... wonder what other drives aren't detecting properly.

[Leaskovski]

Originally Posted by YadaMaker

Might want to dl and run the SeaTools disk ~ nothing's really changed about the fact that if windows, dos, or smart detects even a small problem with a drive, they can in effect derate the transfer speed of that drive inside windows.

had it happen, just prior to a drive failure.. less a coupla weeks.
damaged(?)

EDIT: is this [9npa6811.zip] the new version you were just refrring to?

says "** Fixed Maxtor diamonMax 10 HD can't detect issue." ... wonder what other drives aren't detecting properly.

Yep, thats the one that i have just updated to. It hasn't changed anything though, apart from the PATA driver has now changed! I think that is now using the correct nVidia one now!

Oh and the SATA driver version is 5.10.2600.666

[YadaMaker]

Sorry bout that.. but the whole situation still kinda bugs me.

If the bios recognizes the drive 4 what it is in reality (and unjumpered), but into windows the speed rating steps down...

either the os is faulty, the drive is faulty, or...

hold on, be right back (checking something).

[YadaMaker]

Try this on for size, because your board comes with a lot of cool, but not necessarily useful-to-you, features --

what would happen if you disabled the following (in bios):

1) parallel port
2) serial ports
3) game port
4) midi port
5) any unused SATA channel
6) any unused IDE channels, in Standard CMOS Features, but then again in Windows Device Manager once you're in. And finally,
7) system bios caching.

Then, before exiting BIOS,

a) turn hdd smart on and
b) enable a reset of configuration data.

If your system balks at too much (change) all at once, go back in and sequentially tie the knots on all these things, no more than two at a time.
If it all out freaks, naturally you may have to Insert in, just to make it back, after a reset key restart.

Now for the..

Why(?)

The point is sometimes well taken that an accidental misconfiguration of system resources can occur when the bios is asked to load too many devices to memory, at start up.
I've had it happen before; yes, on a board with a plethora of options (that overwhelmed the region set aside for config data, in memory).
Even to the point that devices did not show up for use in windows, if that drives the point home a bit moreso.

If you're not likely to actually use any of the above items, having them powered up and occupying PCI space just complicates and confounds the OS' identification process, plus drains the board electrically in an unnecessary fashion... but to what end.

It's a quick enough tool to isolate if any trouble's afoot in the boards' abilty to work in concert with the PCI peripherals, memory, or else the OS peculiarities are weighing in.

Said enough at the moment I think. Still think you ought to test the drive, because it sounds like you may end up RMAing it for its' own software fault.
of course that's a bit premature of me, and a little bold, to no real end, without proving.

Post back about your results, good or bad. Thanks.

[Leaskovski]

Okay, i will give that a going over. I ran a quick seagate tools test on the drive last night and it seems to think its okay.

I may have to contact seagate support on this one, even though i won't really see a difference in speed.

Many Thanks

Edit: Oh and also noted on booting just before windows loads, i saw a line of text where the bios is saying the drive is running at 1.5gbps. I would say its got to be either an issue with the drive or with the motherboard. Certainly not windows.

[Leaskovski]

Ok i have gone through and turned off all those bits in the bios, but i cant for the life of me understand the reset configuration data bit? Is that a reset to factory defaults??

So far it is still reporting 1.5 on bootup. I am just about to do a proper test with smarts enabled now as well.

[Leaskovski]

Ok, finished doing a full test and it says there are no problems with the drive. I think i am going to contact Epox Tech Support to see if they can shed some light on it.

[YadaMaker]

Oh and also noted on booting just before windows loads, i saw a line of text where the bios is saying the drive is running at 1.5gbps

cool. well, sorta... then again, I'm easily amused

but i cant for the life of me understand the reset configuration data bit

"reset configuration data" is on the same page as "resources controlled by" and irq adjustments.
Basically what you'd be calling the board to do is reassign all the irqs for the board hardware, based upon heirarchy of importance.
When you remove items from the boards enabled list, then reset config data, the irqs usually get a good shuffle that results in better distribution and less conflicts to system resources.
Simple enough, right? Just good practice -- means everything's changed somehow, so reassign heirarchy, thanks.

I may have to contact seagate support on this one, even though i won't really see a difference in speed

The whole idea of going to large buffers and fast channels (even though the buffer to media rate is still only 786Mb or 98.25MB/sec... even for SATA and SATAII drives and you can verify this with every manufacturer) was to unload the pci bus as rapidly as possible...

limbers up the system considerably, for other interrupt requests, and enhances the ability to carry out successful multitasking of the pc in general.

gotta get them bas+@^ds at corporate to figure out a way to bump media speed I guess, huh

this..

Oh and also noted on booting just before windows loads, i saw a line of text where the bios is saying the drive is running at 1.5gbps

.. kinda speaks volumes of the direction yur really headed in... so I couldn't help quoting it twice, ya know?
Good luck, and post back in case a solution.

[Leaskovski]

Well i fired off an email to epox tech support so we shall see what they say. Now to send one off to seagate.

[Leaskovski]

Well! Im a class a dickhead! I have just pulled the drive out again to have a look to double check there isn't a jumper on the back to limit it to 1st generation. And guess what. There was a small 2mm depth jumper that is dark grey. I guess thats why i missed it the first time round!

[YadaMaker]

wait a minute -- yur saying you had the 150 drive setting jumpered !!!!!

u bastard!! [HA!]

but hey, I kinda feel damn good u don't have a hardware prblm. woo-hoo !!!

rock n roll.

[Leaskovski]

lol! Stoopid seagate and their stoopid sized jumpers!

[wild_andy_c]

Stupid who ?