Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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Gang, I'm having a few probs with my PC which I think comes down to the IDE cabling for my HDD's
I used to use the rounded IDE cabling with the 40 wires (I think it was 40) and when it worked it worked fine, programs ran as fast as to be expected etc etc
But the problem was that sometimes on bootup my PC wouldn't find my D drive, I found that switching to 20 wire flat IDE cables solved this and it found the D drive everytime, but whenever I do anything on the D drive now it takes twice aslong as it did before.
So I thinking that the difference between the 40 wire and 20 wire IDE cable is causing this but that also caused the problems with finding the D drive.
Looking at IDE cables avaliable there seem to be different specs (IDE100, IDE133 etc)
What is the differences? What is advisable to get?
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Corsa Sport Gav
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Registered: 12th Feb 03
Location: Durham, County Durham Drives: A6 Allroad
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i could possible be the hdd too, maybes a dodgy connection inside and when you swop cables over it could re connecting the circut then un doin its self?
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MikeD
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Registered: 18th Aug 02
Location: Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire
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What setup do you currently have on primary and secondary? master/slave??
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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Primary channel:
C drive master, D drive slave
Secondary Channel:
DVD RW master, CDRW slave
Tried changing cables back to the round ones, found the D drive first time no problem, but it still runs slow when running app's on the D drive, so I guess it's not the cables that is the issue.
D drive is fairly new (approx 8 months), and is a Samsung so not a cheapy one, only started doing it recently.
Will try a defrag of C and D later and see if that helps (D drive does have a lot of files coming and going as that's where I DL stuff to so it could well be pretty fragmented)
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
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i would suggest buying a new 40pin IDE cable first, if it still playing up, its either BIOS or something wrong with the logic board on the drive
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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Clive, tried a few different IDE 40 pin cables now, they all seem to do the same.
I'll explain further in detail the problems:
On my D drive I have all my downloads etc, when I run a program like WinRar (Installed on my C drive) and ask it to extract files from D it takles much longer than usual, another example is burning files from D drive onto DVD/CD - Nero is installed on C drive and the average burn time for a full DVD is currently 30 minutes where as it used to be around 15 minutes.
It just seems that everything is taking twice aslong as it used to!
I left D drive de-fragging last night when I went to bed, when I looked at it this morning it was only 30% through the defrag! The D drive is a 200GB Samsung and while I appriciate a 200GB drive (about 160GB used) will take a while to defrag it should manage it in the 6 hours I was asleep I would of thought rather than only getting to 30% of it!
I ran SandraSoft this morning and ran a system scan, the only thing I can see is a report on my physical drives where it says:
Physical Disks:
Warning W3104 - Current transfer mode not optimal, i.e. not highest supported. This affects drive performance. If the controller is also capable of the highest supported transfer mode, there is no reason not to use it.
Fix: First check controller supported transfer modes. Then check the mode the driver for the controller/BIOS is set to use and modify; some default to a lower mode for compatibility. You may need to install newer drivers if the current drivers do not natively support the controller (especially for RAID). You may need to update the controller BIOS or drive firmware, if the mode does not stick. If data corruption occurs verify the cable and consider switching (if any) drives on the same channel onto other channels.
If the built-in controller does not support the mode, consider using the on-board/RAID controller or even disable the built-in controller and install a new controller.
Any ideas? Could this be anything to do with it?
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Reedy
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Registered: 11th Apr 04
Location: Hammersmith
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DOwnload the samsung dianosis software / fitness testing software and run a full scan on your hard drive. This shall answer a few questions, also you should be using 133 cables and not the slow 100 rate ones.
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Jules, which IDE is the D: using? secondary? and is it set as master or slave?
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Reedy
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Registered: 11th Apr 04
Location: Hammersmith
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quote:
Originally posted by Cybermonkey
Jules, which IDE is the D: using? secondary? and is it set as master or slave?
it willl probably be set to cable select.
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
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how do u know that??
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Reedy
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Registered: 11th Apr 04
Location: Hammersmith
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quote:
Originally posted by Cybermonkey
how do u know that??
nowadays most manufacturers set the interface to Cable select as standard now. It used to be Master but they have changed it.
Also i said it will probably so it may not if he has changed the jumpers.
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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I have set the jumpers, C druve is master, D drive is slave.
Another thing that is really hacking me off about my PC atm (not sure if it's related or not) is my mouse, I bought a MS Laser 6000 mouse a few months back, not had any problems with it, but this past week the cursor will freeze on screen but you can still move an invisible cursor round the screen, so obviously doing anything on a pc without being able to see your cursor is pretty tricky - only way to solve it is to reboot.
At first I thought it'd be the mouse, so I plugged in my old one (which uses PS2 port, new MS one is USB) and that also done it so that kind of rules out the mouse being the fault.
But why I think it's related to my D drive problem is that it'll only do this when I'm transfering data to/from the D drive.
I defragged D last night and it seems to be running better, but it's still doing this damn mouse freeze thing!
I've downloaded the latest Intellimouse driver from MS for the mouse and that hasn't helped.
I'm either going to defrag C and see if that helps, failing that backup the rest of the D drive, format it and start again with it (or throw it in a skip and buy a new one) 
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Jules,  you are running both HDD off the same IDE cable???
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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Yep, and I know that's the wrong way of doing it, but since I bought a new case (Thermaltake Sviking) youy would need some long arse IDE cables to be able to run HDD/Optical drive off the same channel due to where they are located in the case.
I still think the cables I'm using aren't IDE133 so will get some 133 ones later today hopefully, but will also try and get long ones so I can run a HDD per channel.
Should I run the DVD/RW drive on the primary or secondary channel? It's the drive that gets used the most.
I was thinking:
Primary Channel: Master - C Drive; Slave - DVD/RW
Secondary Channel: Master - D Drive; Slave - DC/RW.
Sound about right?
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Reedy
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Registered: 11th Apr 04
Location: Hammersmith
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erm its bad to have an optical drive on the same cable as an ide as you can get buffer underuns from it.
If i was you, i would just connect the hard drives up on seperate cables and leave the optical drives for a moment and see if the problem persisits.
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jamesw
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Registered: 28th Jun 02
Location: Station Town, County Durham
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agreed, swap that so both hard disks are on same controller, also if you swap to 133 cables the way you are the optical drives will nock the controller to whatever they are, and i assure you it wont be 133. Also when it dont pick up D: , does the BIOS detect even detect it when windows doest? Another thing would be, make sure you have SMART enabled to check the hard disks.
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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When it doesn't detect the D rive using the round cables it doesn't detect it in BIOS neither.
I can't get cables long enough (at the moment) to be able to put a HDD and a optical drive in the same channel, will order some online, the problem is the way that the case has been designed, the optical drives slot in like normal at the top and run parrallel with the sides of the case, the HDD's however have slots at the bottom of the case and run parrallel with the front/back of the case (at 90deg's to the opticals).
So to get an optical and a hdd on the same channel you need a IDE cable long enough to go from the mobo, to the top of the case and then to the bottom, looks like I might have to invest in some 90cm rounded (would prefer flat though) IDE133 cables.
Anyone got any recomendations?
On a related note, it seems that the latest nVIDIA drivers are what causes the mouse cursor to freeze but still allows you to use the mouse (with an invisible cursor), rolled back and it's been fine since, it's almost like they gfx cards can't keep up with the mouse cursor icon sometimes using those drivers (duel 6600GT's in SLi btw).
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Cybermonkey
Jules, you are running both HDD off the same IDE cable???
its the right way of doing it, like james/reedy has stated adding an optical drive on to the same channel as a HD will drop transfer rates to ATA 66/80 which you dont want to do.
In an ideal world you would have all of the drives on a seperate channel, but would be the purchase of an ATA card
however, i would got get a set of ATA133 cables, microdirect do some nice rounded 40 pins ones for around £1.50 (i have the copper ones, seem pretty good), then set it up as HDs on one channel, opticals on the other - with cable select on the jumpers!
Then see what happens 
Have you tried a bios update? might help with detecting your drive.
Also have you tried any other drive acting as a slave (in place of the samsung) and tested your samsung in another system? - would be worth doing just incase there is a problem with the IDE channel as faults arn't uncommon.
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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Just ordered a set of 2x90cm black round IDE 133 cables with a matching 60cm floppy drive cable, all for about £8 delivered.
Will set it up the same way as it is now if the general concensous is that it's the correct way of doing it, I was told in the past that putting a HDD and a optical drive on the same channel is the way to go but I'll ignore that I think!
Does cable select make that much difference? I always prefer to set the jumpers myself so I know what it is set to and how it should be, I just don't trust cable select to 'select' the settings I wnt - don't know why!
I have updated my BIOS when I got my dual core CPU (as it didn't recognize it as dual core at first) so it shoudn't be that causing the problems, I just think it's the round cables I was using, they are quite old now and probably a bit shitty so some nice new ones will hopefully do the trick.
I have put the Samsung in another PC and it was fine, which leads to me suspect the leads again - we'll find out soon with any luck!
Cheers for the help.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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well let us know what happens!
but it IS correct to set up optical drives on one channel and HDs on the other due to the controller automatically setting the DMA modes to the lowest!
might still be worth testing another drive in place of the samsung though to see if the controller is dodge...
eitherway, have fun
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Jules
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Registered: 26th Nov 04
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Status: Happy
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Not got any other drives to try in place od the Samsung, so will have to see how I get one when the new cables arrive.
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Reedy
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Registered: 11th Apr 04
Location: Hammersmith
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quote:
Originally posted by Jules
Not got any other drives to try in place od the Samsung, so will have to see how I get one when the new cables arrive.
Do you not have any mates willing to help you and lend one of their drives? or even try your drive in another machine.
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