Bug Report: Compatibility Problem with SP4 and Promise RAID

From: Mark & Mary Ann Weiss (mweissX294_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 03/21/04 

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 05:49:19 GMT

Ever since installing SP4 on Win 2K to supposedly help a
suspend/standby/resume problem with losing my USB Wacom tablet shortly after
resume, my Promise RAID controller has been acting like one of the drives is
dying. But SMART testing shows the array is in good health.

I tested the RAID drive with nBench and got:

40MB WRITE
5.98MB READ

The writing part of the test went without pause, however the system froze up
twice for 10 seconds during the read process, which caused the low score.

I used a Promise utility to check SMART on the array and it's FUNCTIONAL and
no sign of any problem.

I also used HDTune and found the array to be scoring in the 60MB/S range,
which must be bypassing the OS.

I also just did a full backup to the RAID, in DOS (Norton Ghost) and backed
up 4 gigs in 5 minutes. No problem with speed in DOS!

So the problem seems to be directly related to Windows 2000 WITH SP4
installed. Prior to SP4, this array performed very well.

I have the latest Promise driver installed, and I even refreshed the driver
by reinstalling a new copy. That did not help or change anything. The
condition persists.

At least at this point I am pretty sure the problem relates to *READ* not
WRITE functions. I can write huge files TO the drive without the freezeup.
Reading from the drive is the problem. I can't even play a short AVI clip
without the whole system freezing up alternately with playing the clip.

Is there a known bug with SP4 and RAID controllers performing very badly on
disk reads? 

--
Take care,
Mark & Mary Ann Weiss
VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
-

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