Got my XPS 1730 today and as soon as windows booted, the first message I got was that a RAID 0 drive was failing and I needed to back it up immediately. Does this mean anything? Do I have a defective part?
View 15 RepliesHere's my story and, let's say, my analysis:
I bought a generic 2 HD sata2 RAID1 enclosure based on the chipset Silicon Image SteelVine 5744. It can be used in USB or eSATA2. This embedded chipset (named SiL5744) is known (understand "claimed") to auto-handle Sata I/II and host sata2 controllers that not support the port multiplier feature. The HD are two Samsung F1 1To. There's no jumper to rollback to SATA 1.5Go on them, you can only do it by flashing the HD's bios, however we don't need to do it as I wrote just before, the SiL5744 supports SATA 3Go natively.
The enclosure works pretty well with USB, but *not* in eSATA : the E6500 freezes/hangs just after the POST step (a potential driver issue with the installed vista 64bits is not the reason then). As soon has I disconnect the eSATA cable, the system recovers and continues as normal.
What I've tried/done so far :
Both E6500's BIOS SATA mode AHCI and IRRT mode were tested,
Intel Matrix driver and software was updated to the latest 8.7.0.1007 version (AHCI and IRRT),
The SiL5744 chip was upgraded to its latest firmware as well (in case of...)
In order to verify the esata cable, the HDs and the enclosure itself, I succeed to :
- Use the enclosure's RAID1 feature when using the USB connection, I could partition,format, and read/write on the logical volume
- directly connect *one* HD (Samsung F1 1To) to the E6500's esata port -(I have a sata2esata cable), Vista installed it and I was able to use it as normal, even the hotswap feature seemed to work fine (I unkindly removed it). I could so test both HD individually this way... On the enclosure hardware side, everything looks fine then.
An IMPORTANT thing : The E6500's ICH8/9-M sata host controller seems to support the Port Multiplier feature *ONLY* on sata port 0 -as a bubble message from the Intel Matrix soft sometimes shows up-, but this is exactly where the internal HD is plugged on the motherboard I found nowhere you can change the internal sata port ID (switch,bios,ect...). I think this is the key of the problem that seems to be a dumb port conflict, because the esata port is in fact the port sata 4 (the DVDRW drive is sata 1, dock's esata is 5 for instance). If somebody knows how to swap the sata port ID, I think I won't be toasted !
When i load a disk the drive tries to spin up three of times but then stops.
I've tried several discs and it's the same each time so it's not the disc, only started happening today.
I've tried reinstalling the driver but to no avail. Maybe some dirt got in there? I read of some utility to test the drive but i can't find it.
So a few days ago I tried to boot up my machine and it did nothing after the BIOS screen. I had to hold the power button to get it do shut off. After a few minutes I tried to reboot and Vista tried to fix the problem which it indicated it couldn't. So I tried to do a system restore and it failed. In fact it failed on every point I tried.
The next day the system seemed to be running normally so I just figured it was a fluke. Then the next day Vista booted but I had no desktop icons, all programs initialized with errors and nothing was responding. So I rebooted and backed up my data.
I then downloaded Active Hard Disk Monitor and was shocked to see my Raw read error rate was 57% and my seek error rate was 66%! So I contacted Dell tech support and was instructed to run their diagnostics. The initial test indicated an inverter cable issue but the HDD passed all tests.
So my question is shoudl I be concerend about the SMART feedback info or should I rely on Dells diagnostics? My concern is that their diagnostics may only flag a problem if the drive is really close to death not just on its way. I plan on reinstalling the OS but don't want to spend the effort if this drive is going to be on its way out.
Recently my laptop's desktop and icons have started to flash randomly,things like the sound icon has a x on it.A couple of days a ago avast warned me about a win32:trojan(other) in 2 places.
I looked at dell's instruction to replce the gpu but i think it would be to hard for me to do and my warranty is over.
i think my 8700 sli is failing, a lot of stuttering and screen tearing. im gonna try to get it replaced, anyone know if this card is still available ? or will i get the 8800
i was disappointed with the 8700..
my m1530's 8600m gt is now idling between 69-73 degrees celsius, as opposed to the 58-65 it did when it was new. also, in-game temps are now well into the 90's. will be calling dell support this afternoon to have them set up a tech to come out and replace it.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI believe my video card in XPS 1530 is failing, from time to time i get half inch by half inch colorful checkboard pattern on part of my screen, usually shows up in the same place.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI'm experiencing some strange problems with my XPS1340 and I think it might be related to a failing harddrive.
The computer hangs quite often during startup or if I am installing/running programs. However, it seems to handle file copying with no problems - at least for now.
When it hangs, the harddrive LED stays ON, but the computer doesn't freeze totally and no BSOD. I can still move the mouse, but I can't open any programs or browse through files. After a while I get a message that Windows is not responding and I have the option to terminate the process or wait for it to respond. I can't click on any, though.
The only thing to do is a hard reset, and then normally the computer boots with no problems. If it hangs during startup I have to do the hard reset again.
As mentioned - the problem seems to occur only when the computer is installing a program / opening a program / starting up. I have just copied about 20GB to the harddrive to test, and it did that with no problems at about 32MB/s. Also - I can do "light work" like typing (I'm typing this on the computer)
I have tried to format and do a complete reinstall AND - Windows installs just fine - the problems begin when I start to install all the programs.
So.. Is this harddrive related, or could it be something else??.. I really think it's weird...
I got the computer about six months ago and until now I haven't really had any problems. I'm running windows 7 64 bit and the harddrive is a Western Digital (WDC WD32 00BJKT-75F4T).
my daughters Inspiron 1501 (just out of guarantee) when switched on the keyboard lock lights come on briefly as normal, the hard disc runs up, the screen
illuminate after a few seconds then the following characters momentarily appear top left of the screen- RS485/M BR#23931 -the screen blacks out momentarily then illuminates again.
Does anyone know what the message tells us . It took lots of restarts to get the full message and there may be mistakes in it .....
My company recently bought 10 M4400 and they work good so far...not laptop freezing etc....but both myself and another guy have had our power adapter die on us.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI feel that my 9400M G card is about to die, heres why:
When I upgraded to win7 I noticed a more blurry playback on same videos, and my card would always get stuck in a certain part of the video playing a sound "grrr wwaaa'' like microter, and then regain itself and very soon do the same again, and there isnt anything bad with the video because it would do it in different parts all the time.. Same even on dvd playback too...
So I tried all options, all drivers that are out, all codecs, then I came to conclusion that its win7 and the drivers arent perfectly made for it yet, So then I installed back Vista to resolve this issue once and for all.. Only today I find that the issue is back again... I cant watch any music video without it chopping the audio for like 2 seconds and playing a broken disk sound and freezing for those 2 seconds then playing again and about in another 30 seconds doing the same again.
So can some one tell me is this NVIDIA 9400M G that is gona die soon?
The video quality of dvd's is perfect other formats gotten a lil worse! but the audio making a horrible broken records disk and video freezing for 2 secons happens in all videos even dvd's, youtube, avi, mp4, mpg, etc....
I selected my language and the hard-drive then I click install then an eternity later right at the end of the uncompressing file it says
:Installation has been canceled>Windows could not instal in the selected language.
Where did I go wrong ? Do i need some kind of driver for the x25-m or could it really be the language or ..
Can anyone please tell me if it's possible to setup a RAID 1 from an existing HD and a new HD (same size)?
I don't want to reformat just to get the RAID setup. I want to keep what I have, but have redundancy..
My friend has Inspiron 9400 that's on its last legs, it keeps turning off at random times, graphics on screen sometimes become corrupted. The laptop does not seem to be overheating and the fans are clean.
We've contacted Dell as he has a 3yr Complete care package, he's had the HDD replaced multiple times. The last time he sent in the laptop for serving they returned it with nothing fixed, they said they replaced the fans but the fans are still the original ones as I accidentally scratched the bottom side of the fans and they're the exact same one .....
ok so the title says it all im getting all the vertical lines, this ty 200 dollar ddr2 card was the worst purchase for this laptop.
Read all threads about dells extended warranty for this issue.
everyone talks but is there a way to get it replaced by dell
I called customer service, the well known joke of dell, and i hung up on them about 5 min into convo.
I tried to backup my M6400 with Acronis. The backup works fine, but I'm not able to restore ....
View 8 Replies View RelatedCan you do RAID Stripping with e 256 SSD and a 160GB 7200RPM Drive???
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a Dell Studio 17, with vista.
I want to be able to dual boot with XP, but am needing a raid driver.
I have installed XP on a partition on the hard drive but if I want to boot up XP I have to change the option in the bios, which does get a bit of a pain.
I got my HP DV5t about 4-5 mos. ago. The graphics card which is a 9600m GT is definitely starting to fail. When ever I start to play graphically intensive games like COD4 or CS 1.6 the screen begins to freeze and the computer says the display driver failed while other times it causes a BSOD. This used to happen occasionally about 1-2 mos. ago but now it happens very often. I updated my drivers as soon as I got the laptop and always lifted the back for better airflow while gaming but apparently it didnt help.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI am pretty sure the optical drive on my MBP is failing as I am having trouble installing software like windows, office for mac, and just burning stuff. So, I did a search here and look it up at ifix it, but I am not sure what is the right model I should be looking at. I have the first gen MBP with the Core Duo CPU. iFix it lists two models UJ-857-C and UJ-867. So, will both work or is one of them only going to work? I know my original optical drive could not burn DL dvds, but it seems like both of these can though?
View 6 Replies View RelatedI've seen a number of rescent posts where folks are still setting up RAID platforms even though dual core and now quad core processors are becoming mainstream.Is it the additional chipset that you demand or what is it that requires the additional hp you seek? there is no game out there I cannot play without it and short of CAD I see little use other than proffesional requirements (NIMBUS 2.1 or Zach, perhaps).
View 14 Replies View RelatedNot sure how exactly to get RAID setup - I've never set it up myself. Could anyone explain how to set up your computer in RAID in Vista/
View 5 Replies View RelatedPicked up a great deal on a 1730 with a 128SSD and 320 2nd drive - Does anyone know if the 120 will be faster than if I were to go with 2 7200 rpm drives? The price difference for the SSD is "UP THERE" so I at least want to know if its as fast as a conventional 2 hard drive raid zero approach.
Also does anyone have any links to spec's for the Dell 128SSD? Is it the Memoright 128GB.
This is a weird one, my new M1730 has RAID 0 2x160GB but they are different makes of hard drive:
Hard Drive Member 1: Hitachi HTS722016K9A300
Hard Drive Member 2: FUJITSU MHW2160BJ G2
If you are an M1730 owner I would be interested in what drives you have. Dell have tried to fob me off and told me all M1730 have this config.
Although it works OK I can't see that this is good practice - I would have expected matched drives.
I've noticed the improvements are relevant but not as big as I expected, I think with normal HD the RAID0 performance will be much better than a single HD drive, any experience using SSD in RAID0 configuration
View 7 Replies View RelatedPossibly off topic, but it is related to a Dell Precision (workstation..)
A message that you don't want to see on your main file server..."TERMINAL DISK FAILURE"...
Happily, I just pull the borked disk out and stick in a spare (of the wrong capacity, but hey...) whilst awaiting the arrival of a replacement...and all is well
I have a Dell 1749 into which I have installed two OCZ Vertex 3 MaxIOPS SSD drives. Boot times are pretty fast using a single, non-raid, drive but I was thinking of configuring the two drives in a RAID 0 configuration to boost speed a bit further. I could not find anything in the bios settings that would allow the SATA controller to go to a RAID configuration. I guess, therefore, that at least the laptop that I have does not have RAID capabilities. Were there any Studio 1749 system boards that did indeed support RAID?
View 4 Replies View RelatedInspiron Ultrabook 15z 5523...A few of my keyboard keys, including the spacebar, stopped working for 48 hours (estimate). I tried everything I could think of and everything support told me to do. restarted. nope. support program that checks keyboard: nothing. Suddenly keys work again, but in the process Dell sent out a guy to replace the keyboard. He replaced it. The new keyboard just did the same thing. Must be a hardware, motherboard issue or something. I need this <ADMIN NOTE: Substitute character removed as per TOU> computer for design/developing/school/projects.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm going RAID 0 with my new 1730, and will be going 2 X 160GB in RAID 0.
The question is will windows defrag tool, know how to properly handle the 1/2 and 1/2 file fragments on both drives?
I would assume that it would, by simply moving a fragment and it's assosiated 1/2 on the other drive to the same spot on both disks? Or would it not?
If it's not, what defrag tools are RAID 0 compatible?
A serious question when you consider VISTA's "advanced" or more correctly "complicated" page/swap file use and RAID 0. The way I see it, is under defragmentation a raid configuration could be realy hurt by fragmentation as you effectively double the normal rate of fragmentation in a RAID configuration.