Re: SIL 3112a Controller Issues....

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Dave Onex wrote:
Hi guys - thanks for the replies!

The mainboard BIOS is the latest and the SIL BIOS (that's integrated into the mainboard BIOS) is the latest release from SIL - so, both BIOS's are the latest. I did have to use a special system BIOS that included the latest SIL one 4.2.x I believe (it's the latest on their site).

I also installed the latest driver from SIL for that specific BIOS. The mainboard is an Asus A7N8X-E and I'm running (2) 500 gig drives in a RAID 0 Array (for 1 TB total).

These are SATA II drives with the jumpers set to SATA I mode. The problem I'm seeing is that under heavy disk I/O errors appear and, at times, the controller does not respond within the timeout period. This only happens under heavy disk I/O.

The cables never gave an issue under the old O/S and they haven't been disturbed since. Again, it only happens under heavy disk I/O - I know others posted about similar issues on the 'net but I was hoping someone would have a magic bullet. I've even ensured that the onboard SIL controller is using it's own dedicated IRQ (hoping that would fix it).

Any more ideas? They're all appreciated :-)

Best;
Dave

I tried a search of the nforcershq site, and don't see anything solid to go on.
Plenty of people substituting newer SIL BIOS modules in their BIOS, but
nobody able to say whether it is fixing anything or not.

I'm kinda curious as to whether you're using the Microsoft driver for your IDE
ports, or the Nvidia driver. "Chipset maker" drivers, tend to include their
idea of caching, which is good most of the time, but occasionally has compatibility
issues. As a consequence, I try to use the Microsoft Windows driver if I can
get it installed instead. Then, when using the Nvidia chipset package, I
untick the IDE driver so it won't be installed. (It's been quite a few years
since I've done that, so the details are foggy.) I still use stuff like the
AGP driver, because the rest of it is OK. But for Southbridge IDE, I prefer
the default Windows driver, even if the performance level isn't quite the
same.

On my A7N8X-E Deluxe, I never had any issues with disks, but I also wasn't using
the SIL3112. I got my first two SATA drives just this year, and never had any SATA
around while I was using the A7N8X-E Deluxe.

You can also take a look through the threads here.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=1&model=A7N8X-E+Deluxe&SLanguage=en-us

This one isn't quite the same as yours.

"Drive timouts and errors with SATA RAID 0 and Seagate Drives"

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070505122807749&board_id=1&model=A7N8X-E+Deluxe&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Paul
.

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