K9A Platinum Low Raid 0 Performance?

hi i just build this pc a few days ago and i did some tests on my raid using HD Tach (and on a website called pcpitstop.com)
both of these seem to be reporting my hard drives are doing no more than 80MB/s ... even though i have setup RAID 0 for 3 drives on the utility with the motherboard,
a friend of mine (who uses 4 drives in raid 0 of EXACTLY the same type of hard drive) gets more than 320MB/s on his drives ....
i fail to see how 3 of my drives = 80 MB/s, whilst 4 of his = 320MB/s
I installed the driver and took off the jumper at the back of the drive (to make them SATA II)
I checked the RAID config utility and all the settings seem to be perfect, however the drives seem to be failing to deliver the transfer speed i am looking for ...
My IDE drive is comparable to this setup, which kind of defies the point of me paying so much money for a RAID setup that's giving me the performance of only one of my drives
Windows recognises one drive, and says RAID 0 so i guess the RAID is working it's just not performing properly
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated,
thanks

Quote from: Hans on 14-June-07, 03:56:02
Hi!
Please read Moan Guide first.
In general: RAID-0 performance is often exaggerated, although your speed seems to be too low. RAID-0 speeds depend on many things: the way the RAID has been set up (block/chunk size, driver, disks, controller, etc). Furthermore, different bench tools will show you different speeds, so don't depend too much on what a tool tells you.
*Edit: don't confuse burst speed with average read/write speeds! The burst speed can exceed the read/write speeds by a factor more than 2!
Some tips you may want to try:
- enable/disable NCQ (Device Manager -> SCSI/RAID-devices);
- try a different block size;
- try a different/newer driver or try the driver that came with the board;
- use the manufacturer's disk tool to have all disks checked for any errors. You may need to connect them as if they are IDE's to make them being recognized properly.
Then this: As far as I'm aware, Windows will not show RAID-0, unless you set up the RAID through Windows disk manager (system tools). If you did setup through Windows disk manager, please setup RAID again using the RAID bios on you board.
hey thanks for the reply, i'll try and give you some more info on what's going on;
firstly some more computer specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 bit dual core 5000+
Graphics: ATI x1950XT-X Crossfire Edition (Single card at the moment)
Mobo: K9A Platinum (havent updated bios yet)
PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700W
RAM: Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator DHX PC2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)
HDD: 3xSeagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - (Took the jumpers off the back to make them SATA II)
The motherboard uses the ATI XPRESS 3200 chipset, which supports up to 4x SATA II Drives, this is what i have used to connect the hard drives to. The Motherboard also offers a RAID utility for 0,1, and 0+1 RAID - i have used raid 0 with block size 128KB (it offered 64 or 128), FastInit was ON, and the other 2 settings i couldnt change, i activated all drives to the array and setup (in the BIOS) for the SATA's to be seen as a RAID configuration.
The latest drivers i used was catalyst 7.5 available from ATI website, the drivers on the CD dont work because i use Vista 64, and the CD says it doesnt support my OS, so i downloaded them.
In response to windows seeing the RAID .... i meant it see's one normal hard drive but the disk comes up as a RAID SCSI device in Propeties -> Hardware, that is the name the RAID utility (straight after POST) gives to the array i think, and so windows recognises it as one.

Similar Messages

K9A Platinum SATA RAID issue

Hi! I'm new to the forums..I have built a new system with the K9a Plat mobo and its a great board. I can't seem to RAID my 2 WD2500YS hard drives to save my life.Though this is my first RAID attempt..(sigh) I tried changing the BIOS setting for my SATA from Native IDE to Raid, the Fast Build utility comes up showing both of my drives but I can't make any changes from there (should I be able to?) and then my system wont boot to XP. I put the SATA back to native IDE, reinstalled Windows XP using F6 to load the x86 RAID driver off of floppy, it proceeds to the XP install showing my 2 drives (C and F). I install XP on my C drive but it just installs as normal. I must be doing something wrong to run hardware RAID.
I tried to go with software RAID within XP Pro but I cant convert my C drive to dynamic, it says "one or more drives dont have enough room..etc". My F drive shows as dynamic... I'm really at a loss! I would like to run a hardware RAID 0.. Any help would be greatly appreciated..
Gerry

I got it going! Woohoo! I wasnt sure about some of the options such as stripe size, fast init, and cache something ..heh.. I left the stripe size as 64, went with fast init, and did writethru cache. Are these OK? I'm looking for performance...
Windows XP seems to be happy..it shows the 2 drive Raid 0 array when I look at the C drive properties. Do i need to do anything else in XP Pro?
Thanks again for all the help!
Gerry

K9A Platinum RAID - Be careful if you're considering this MB

Unbeknownst to me when I purchased this board to replace my ASUS P4S8X which had a Promise FastTrak 376 SATA RAID controller, when you create a mirrorset on the K9A Platinum you *cannot* preserve data. In my wildest dreams I didn't think that would be that way so I never thought to ask before I bought it. A RAID controller that can't preserve that data on one of its members?? Mind boggling to say the least.
Yes folks and it's true, confirmed by MSI support:
"ATI Raid Controller does not support this feature which is the chipset limitation which you will need to create the raid array and have a fresh install."
That's real nice eh? Completely re-install everything from scratch? <<Removed>> I just did that a week and an a half ago when I lost the MBR after a failed disk and Windoze fixmbr clobbered the partition table. That took 16 hours not including the Windoze install time. Don't want to do that again.
Plan B: Boot a knoppix CD and use dd_rescue to duplicate the disks then create the mirrorset, sync them and cross my fingers.
But that's only the half of it. In playing around with changing the IDE setting from Native IDE to raid, XP blue screens after the Logo with a 7b error. Haven't looked into that yet but I suspect it's because it doesn't have the drivers for the now raid controller. I'll worry about that once I have a sync'd mirrorset created.
When the IDE chipset is set to RAID in the BOIS I tried booting Windoze install disk and adding in the drivers for the now RAID chipset, it fails every time. I think I'm using the right drivers, need to confirm that, ahci8086, but every time it tries to load the driver it tells me that ahci8086.sys is corrupt. I've downloaded it numerous times with the same result. Same thing with the one off the included CD. The ahci8086.sys file is dated 5/18/2006 and I've got the latest which is dated 7/27/2006 which I don't think I tried yet but plan too. If I'm using the wrong driver for when the IDE BOIS is in RAID mode, please let me know but that's what is delivered in the ATI SB600 IDE RAID download so I assume that would be correct. Or maybe I'm supposed to be using one of the Silicon Image driver sets, I couldn't find any information anywhere on what is the correct driver.

I got censored?!?! I don't know where this Forum is headquartered or based, but here in the United States of America we have a thing called "Free Speech" that protects the citizens of our Country from exactly what has just occurred here.
What was censored wasn't really that bad, no profane language or anything, just a reference to the shortsightedness of some engineers. I hope this isn't a Forum where you're only Welcome if you post "MSI is GREAT!" and are not allowed to even whisper anything even slightly negative about them...
As a background I've been in IT support roles for around 25 years. Managed Digital Equipment Corp. VAX's and Alpha's (VMS, ULTIRX, and Tru64 UNIX, started using VAX's in 1978), Sun's Enterprise large servers and assortment of other SPARC boxes (Solaris), IBM 6x0's, and a host of smaller systems running both UNIX and Linux. I cut my teeth on DEC's ULTRIX.
That said, to come across a RAID controller in the year 2006 that will not allow you to preserve the data on one of its members when creating a mirrorset is just unconscionable. So I made reference to the shortsightedness of the engineers by referring that they might be something, and that got censored. I was hoping that might be a wakeup call to these engineers, sort of like a 2x4 upside the head, so they don't make a mistake like this again.
And I learned something else about the ATI SB600 South Bridge RAID controller which once again is just unconscionable. If you take a disk with a filesystem on it, with data, and have the SB600 present it to the OS as a JBOD, it clears the partition table. What!?!? Yes. There is no warning that this is going to occur. Promise's FastTrak controllers *do not* wipe out the partition table. They just present any disk that is not part of a mirrorset to the OS. That seems like a really good idea, ya think? But the SB600 don't do that, it doesn't present the disk to the OS unless it is part of and LD so you have to assign it to one as a JBOD. Poof! Partition table gone!
I just cannot fathom the mindset of the engineers that created the ATI SB600 South Bridge RAID functionality. They just do not seem to be aware of what is expected of a RAID controller in this day and age. They must live their life very sheltered and not have any idea of what other vendors are doing and what the users of their products expect.
Bottom line: The MSI K9A Platinum seems to be a decent MB, but better suited for an full install from scratch then as a replacement MB for an existing, running, seasoned system, if the objective is to use the SB600 RAID controller and preserve existing data on existing disks. I know there's multiple ways to get around this, but that's jumping through hoops that I never had to jump through before.
If anyone is interested I was able to use my existing disk's mirrorset and preserve the OS and data on them.
The steps:
1. Know which is the disk you want to use and duplicate the data from, like Port 1 Master (this is related to SATA drives connected to the MB).
2. Using the FastBuild BIOS Utility create a mirrorset using the two drives. Set Gigabyte Boundary to OFF, set Fast Init to OFF. DO NOT SET Fast Init TO ON, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR MBR!
NOTE! NOTE! NOTE! If you're so inclined to use the ATI SATA RAID Utility that you can get from MSI's website to initially create the mirrorset that comes along with WebPAM which you put and use on a bootable floppy, DO NOT "Initialize Array", DO NOT "Synchronize Array", NO, NO, NO!
3. Boot the OS if it will boot but I doubt it BUT DON'T LET IT BOOT INTO THE OS. With the OS only really on one of the disks I don't know what would happened and if the RAID controller uses the "Read Least Busy" algorithm who knows what will happened.
4. Power down the system and unplug the SATA drive that DOES NOT have the OS on it.
5. See if the system will boot. If so great, proceed to step 7.
6. Do what you have to do to get the system to boot with only the one, original drive connected and in the mirrorset. Ignore for now the FastBuild warnings on boot that mirrorset is CRITICAL. In my case I had to use the Windows XP install CD and Repair an existing installation.
7. Install from MSI ATI's WebPAM utility.
8. Power down the system.
9. Connect the SATA drive that is to be the second member of the mirrorset that you disconnected in step 4. Power up the system. When you get FastBuild's warning that your mirrorset is CRITICAL ignore it. DO NOT GO INTO THE FASTBUILD BIOS AND DO A REBUILD THERE. NO! NO! NO! I tried that once on a 500GB mirrorset and after 8 hours with the drive activity light blinking sort of dimly it's progress was still at 0%.
10. Once the OS is running (Windows I presume, XP Pro in my case), start WebPAM. if all went well you will see that WebPAM knew the mirrorset was missing a member, found the FREE drive you reconnected in step 9, and is already in the process of rebuilding the mirrorset. If not, you can manually start the rebuilding process in WebPAM.
Of note, WebPAM only took somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 hours to rebuild the 500GB mirrorset as opposed to the BIOS rebuild running for 8 hours and accomplishing nothing. (This wasn't a one time anomaly, I had tried it before letting it run a few hours and saw no progress. The 8 hour run was just to be sure.) While the WebPAM rebuild is running you are in Windows and it is running and you could do other things. I didn't though, I left it run until it finished.
There ya go, a rather unorthodox way to make a mirrorset on a MSI K9A Platinum preserving your OS and data and getting around the shortcomings of the ATI SB600 South Bridge RAID implementation.
And I know I could have used Ghost. But that is in hindsight. I would have had to know I needed to do that *before* removing and replacing the MB. But I didn't do that, because I didn't know I was dealing with a brain dead RAID controller.
<Added some more info in the steps.>

K9A Platinum - Not seeing RAID Array on restart...

Hello again guys...
Here's the deal...
The computer will not recognize the RAID array when I choose to restart from inside Windows. If I press the reset on the computer or I do a shutdown then reboot, it works fine. Also, this morning I finished a clean install of Vista 64 and forgot to turn off sleep mode like I normally do, and when I came back home I got a tasty blue screen. When I tired to restart I got a message stating that the RAID driver was corrupt or missing. I reloaded Vista again, but I still have the issue of the machine not seeing the RAID array upon restart, and I have tried this about 10 times with the same results.
Restart = No Recognized RAID Array.
Cold Boot, Reset Switch or CTRL+ALT+DEL = No problems.
My system specs are in my sig below.
There was one other tidbit, I had a problem with this motherboard failing to load Windows with 4GB of RAM installed when I first got her, and thru this forum and the MSI help center, it was suggested I update my BIOS to a beta version that was out at the time. I see now that the version is now a standard release v1.6, should I go to the release BIOS or just stay with the current one?
Thanks for your time!

Yes I can. I first installed XP Pro since I was testing system stability with my new 6000+. Every soft reboot results in the array being undefined. I have to wait until the controller scans and says there is no array, then I can reset it to make it see the arrays. If I reset before the controller scans, it still shows no arrays.
Vista 64 Ultimate will only install on my K9A platinum if the following is true:
1) The SATA controller is in RAID mode, I have 4 SATA HD's, none are striped, and my DVD is external
2) The desired HD/array must be the first boot device, if the DVD is first it will refuse to recognize the partition as valid to use
If I use Native IDE or AHCI mode, Vista doesn't see any partitions. If I use Legacy IDE mode, Vista will start the install, but on reboot the motherboard pauses for 5 minutes and tells me the HD has an error and I have to hit F1 to continue.
I only recently got Vista 64 Ultimate stable again. I was having a problem where the system would power off instantly when it reached the desktop. I replaced the power supply. I then had trouble getting the drivers installed without crashing the OS. One thing I noticed while reinstalling Vista is that Microsoft automatically updates the driver for the RAID Controller. The driver version is 2.5.1540.41 and the version that the ATI 7.6. and 7.7 want to install in 2.5.1540.36. That would put it out of sync with the ATI RAID Console driver. The next reboot would result in crashing. Can't prove that is why though.

MSI K9A Platinum and VIA drivers issue? XP 0x0000007B stop error.

I get a Windows Stop error when trying to boot into Windows XP with new components. The SATA hard drive (and Windows XP installation) is from the old computer.
The new computer components are:
MB: MSI K9A Platinum, chipset: RD580 (North Bridge), SB600 (South Bridge)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+, boxed (the cooler and fan came with the CPU).
Video: MSI Radeon 1950 XTX
The old (and working) computer setup is:
OS: XP Professional
MB: Abit AV8-3rd Eye, chipset: VIA K8T800Pro + VT8237
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Video: Sapphire Radeon 9800Pro All-in-Wonder, videodriver: atidvag.dll version 6.14.10.6542
HD: Maxtor 6B200M0 SCSI Disk Device
BIOS: Phoenix 6.00PG 20.04.2005
System drivers with "via" in the name: VIAAGP1.SYS, viaide.sys, viasride.sys
VIA 4in1 (Hyperion) version: 4.55 (that can be found at HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Via4in1Driver).
VIA 2.20e SATA/RAID driver was used when installing this computer setup.
The precise stop error is:
0x0000007B (0xba4c3528, 0xc0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
From many sites I have gathered that the error is related to Windows XP not being able to access a critical system drive. Most probably the SATA hard drive issue.
The problem probably is the VIA drivers of the old motherboard and/or the SATA driver.
First I should mention, that MSI K9A Platinum does not have a hard disk SATA driver. If it does, I have been unable to find one. Certainly no such floppy disk included, and no such driver in the MSI's Web page for this motherboard.
Second important point: I never used RAID. I did use VIA 2.20e SATA/RAID driver disk when installing Windows XP to the old computer.
Strange that the hard drive model is reported as a "SCSI Disk Device". It's not a SCSI drive however: it's a SATA disk.
I have tried to uninstal the motherboard chipset drivers (Hyperion v4.55), but there seems to be a bug here: the drivers should be uninstalled using the installation program, and select the uninstall option. However, I do not get the uninstallation option to choose at all! Yes, I'm using the normal installation mode, not the quick installation (although tried that, too). The Hyperion setup program just installs, and asks to reboot the computer. After rebooting and trying again, it still does not offer me an uninstallation choise.
I know how to install hard drive VIA SATA driver, but I have no idea how to uninstall it. And I'm afraid to do that without certainty that it IS the solution, since I could not access the hard drive any more in the old computer setup (and return to read this forum). Also, I do not have a floppy drive any more. Anyone know if there is an issue with K9A and XP having VIA SATA driver installed?
When I tried the new computer setup, I first tried the simplest possible hardware combination: there were no CD/DVD-drives, no (parallel)IDE hard drives, and no PCI cards, except the MSI video adapter.
My BIOS Setup experiments. None of these helped: got the same stop error each time.
1) I didn't much touch the BIOS setting first. Just tried to boot with the settings BIOS came with.
2) Next I disabled the integrated audio, LAN and IEE1394 devices and floppy drive and disabled all other choises except the SATA drive as a boot device.
3) Next I tried with the fail-safe BIOS defaults.
4) Cleared CMOS.
5) Changed OnChip SATA type from Native IDE to Legacy IDE. (Only one boot attempt with the setting as Legacy.)
6) Disabled PCI IDE BusMaster.
7) Never touched anything in the Cell Menu: so the settings are in minimum.
A step I have taken after the last attempt: run Windows XP hard drive error-checking tool to every logical drive with the fix option selected, and the system drive also with scan the bad sectors option selected.
My plans next are:
1) to install a newer Hyperion driver. If that would correct the no-unistallation-choice-bug,
2) to disable USB-devices in the BIOS (desperate),
3) to choose the Windows general video display driver (although I seriously doubt this is a display driver problem!).
4) to uninstall the Anti-Virus software (Avira Antivir).
I've read a numerous Web pages so far about the 0x0000007B stop error. Here are some links:
Quote
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/knowledge_base/
Stop 0x0000007B or INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x7B, indicates that Windows XP Professional lost access to the system volume or boot volume during the startup process. This error always occurs while the system is starting and is often caused by one of the following:
* Hardware problems
* Corrupted or incompatible storage drivers
* File system problems
* Boot sector viruses
* Outdated firmware
During I/O system initialization, this error can occur when:
* The controller or driver for the startup device (typically the hard disk) failed to initialize the necessary hardware.
* File system initialization failed because the system did not recognize the data on the boot device.
Quote
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082
You receive a Stop 0x0000007B error after you move the Windows XP system disk to another computer
SYMPTOMS
After you move the Microsoft Windows XP system (boot) disk to a backup computer, you may receive the following Stop error when you try to start the Windows XP-based backup computer:
STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF741B84C,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
CAUSE
This error may occur if the registry entries and the drivers for the mass storage controller hardware in the backup computer are not installed in Windows XP.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this error, use the same hardware for the backup computer.
Heh, heh! Very nice Microsoft, but I plan to update my computer, so I NEED to use different components
Quote
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103
Device Driver Issues
You may receive a "Stop 0x0000007B" error message in the following scenarios:
•   A device driver that the computer boot controller needs is not configured to start during the startup process.
•   A device driver that the computer boot controller needs is corrupted.
•   Information in the Windows XP registry (information related to how the device drivers load during startup) is corrupted.
Hardware Issues
You may receive a "Stop 0x0000007B" error message if there is a resource conflict between the boot controller and another controller or between SCSI devices. You may also receive this Stop error message if drive translation is not being performed or if drive translation was changed. To troubleshoot this issue:
1.   If an IRQ or I/O port address conflict exists between the boot controller and another controller, Windows XP either stops responding (hangs) or displays a "Stop 0x0000007B" error message. If you recently added new hardware, remove the new hardware or reconfigure it so that it does not conflict with the resources of any other installed controllers.
2.   If you are using a SCSI hard disk, check the SCSI chain for correct termination. Remove any unused SCSI devices or make sure that each SCSI ID is unique.
3.   Make sure that drive translation is turned on (if it is required) and that it has not been changed. For example, if you recently switched controllers, this issue may occur. For additional information about this issue, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 314082.
Quote
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316401/
SYMPTOMS
When you start your Microsoft Windows XP-based computer after you replace the motherboard on the computer, you may receive a Stop error message that is similar to the following:
STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE
CAUSE
This issue may occur if the new motherboard contains an embedded IDE controller that has a different chipset than the original motherboard.
RESOLUTION
Method 1: Perform an in-place upgrade of Windows XP [<- That means repair installation of Windows XP]
•   Do not use a repair or in-place upgrade if you suspect disk problems.
Method 2: Repartition and format your hard disk and reinstall Windows XP

Alright I got the situation over.
Quote from: Roskaposti on 19-May-07, 04:44:59
My plans next are:
1) to install a newer Hyperion driver. If that would correct the no-unistallation-choice-bug,
2) to disable USB-devices in the BIOS (desperate),
3) to choose the Windows general video display driver (although I seriously doubt this is a display driver problem!).
4) to uninstall the Anti-Virus software (Avira Antivir).
I did try all all the above, and none of them helped.
And by the way: after installing the new Hyperion (VIA chipset drivers), I was finally able to also uninstall. It also uninstalled the IDE SATA (I think) and PATA drivers.
But what I had to do, was to make a REPAIR installation of Windows XP.
So, I was wondering now afterwards: this is really, really silly. Why the hell we need to re-install Windows if we move the SYSTEM SATA drive to another computer? We don't have similar problem with parallel IDE drives. Whom should we thank here??
The issue is to insert the driver files and the information of the ide drivers Windows should use with the next boot. How can it be this difficult?
What you basically need is..
- the information about the new chipset's PCIIDE.SYS/[VENDOR_PROVIDED_FILE].SYS and ATAPIIDE.SYS inserted into the values in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSetXXX\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase
- and the vendor's IDE drivers to the %SYSTEMROOT%/System32/drivers folder.
Maybe something else, I don't know. But the problem was, Windows didn't know how, or what drivers to use. That can't be so big problem you need to install the whole OS anew!

K9A Platinum - Periodic lock up

Hey folks,
New to this forum and MSI boards in general. Having an issue where my PC is locking up periodically in XP (32 bit) that I can't quite figure out. Initially after performing a fresh install of XP my machine locked up occasionally while unattended. Basically it seemed that if I walked away for 5-15 minutes, when i'd come back it would have locked up (while running windows update, for example).
After being sure I had installed all the drivers (and updating to the latest bios) I could find for the motherboard, including AMD's dual core optimizer, this problem seemed to have been resolved - until last evening. I ran a torrent program and again, after leaving the PC unattended for a few minutes, it locked up. This happens like clockwork when using either Burst! or uTorrent.
Any suggestions?
Here's my hardware spec:
MSI K9A Platinum
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz AM2
OCZ Gold 2GB (1 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA
PHILIPS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with 12X DVD-RAM
HIS Hightech H190GT256DVN Radeon X1900GT 256MB
Okia 450W Power Supply
Thanks!

Quote
edit: Is it the number of 12V rails thats most important, or the number of amps per rail? For instance, if you have 50A, over 3 rails is that considered better than 33A over one rail?
ONLY thing important is amps per rail! 3 rails with each 18a doesn't mean you have 54a total! They can't be simply added as the component using one rail can't use another when the used one doesn't provide enough power. That's why a strong single rail is the best to have.
Quote
As far as memory goes, what exactly is the 2T command rate?
Memory setting to be found in bios "dram settings". The CMD Rate is the chipset latency, the time the chipset needs to select the ram chips.
2T is the slower but safer setting as many AM2 systems have problems with 1T.
Quote
I do use the Cool 'n quiet feature and haven't tried disabling
Well try it, if it locks up when not used this could be the source of trouble.
Quote
I'm running the HD in whatever default mode the SATA controller is set at
deaden asked for raid mode as you're not using a raid setup you don't have to set anything to use SATA. Just plug and play.

New Builder needs some info K9A Plat. RAID Array help

This is a new build AMD 64x2 6000+, K9A platinum, Lite On DVD Re Writeable SATA, 2x74Gig WD Raptors in Raid 0, Asus X1950 pro Thermaltake 700 W PSU Crossfire cert.
BIOS registered my drives, Built array PC Rebooted, Installing Win XP pro Hit F6 install drivers, Format drives, Then before Install It says that :setup cannot copy the file ahcix86.inf.
If I skip it, it will install XP but when I try to boot from the hard drive It starts to load XP but crashes to the blue screen of death
*** Stop: 0x0000007BC ( 0xF78A2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
Has anyone got this error string?
First RAID array I would very much appreciate any help given.

Hi!
Looking at some info on Google and Microsoft site, I cannot find the BC error code, only the error code ending with B. It indicates an error with the boot device. It can be caused by several things.
Check that you are using the correct device drivers to install Windows
Also, check the installation CD. It could be that the disk was damaged and that you are missing a crucial file because of that
You can also try installing Windows again and choose to recover the previous installation.
If this all does not help, try installing Windows on a single HDD (no raid) to see if that will work.

K9A Platinum Won't load XP PRO 64

I have a K9A Platinum board, Athlon 64 x2 4800+, 4 x 1 GB OCZ Gold ram. The system boots up, recognizes the raid drive, starts to install Windows, I specify the driver for the raid controller, it loads it, finishes loading all the rest of the drivers, and then sits there with a blank blue screen with the text "Starting Windows" at the bottom.
It will not go past this point. Any ideas?

It has nothing to do with the board!
But everything with the CPU and number of memory banks.
The CPU only supports 4 banks at full speed, this is:
2 sticks double sided (=4 banks)
4 sticks single sided (=4 banks)
This is a CPU limitation, not board.
Normaly you can get it running with more then 4 banks by reducing the memory speed.

Overclocking K9A Platinum

I was wondering if there are any overclockers who have gotten a K9A Platinum with a 5200+ Windsor (2.6GHz) to run over 3.3 GHz?
I'm pretty experienced as an overclocker and I have a liquid cooling system. I can't cross the 3.3 Gig threshold to save my life. I'm not talking instability..I post, all looks good but then it doesn't even bother to boot to Windows. I only get as far as 3.27 GHz and it is rock solid at around 40C under load. It just seems odd to me that my overclock would stop so abruptly at 3.3
Thanks!
gg

I'm running 252 X 13 with voltage at 1.350 + 20%. I have my memory base at 667 with an adjusted freq of like 830 or in that area. The only HT link speed setting on my board is "Standard" or "For Overclocking", whatever that means. I've tried lowering my divider to 12 and all kinds of other things. In every case, I can't get to 3.30 GHz.
I'm considering lowering the proc freq so I can get more out of my memory by starting at 800 and trying to reach a balance of max memory freq along with a lower overclock. I guess the question is; which will benefit me more: A maxed out proc with a lower memory freq? or ,a lower proc overclock with maxed out memory?
gg

K9A Platinum and Sata Harddrive

Hi,
I recently upgraded from a K8n to a K9A Platinum and unfortunately my SATA drives no longer show up in the "safely remove hardware" icon in the taskbar.
I thought this might be a Windows problem with old boarddrivers and all, so i did a clean reinstall. Still not there. (In the disk policies tab under the drives property the "write caching and safe removal" is grayed out and set to "optimise for performance", the only thing can select is "enable write caching on the disk". I have no idea if this makes any difference, I just thought I'd mention it!)
Does anyone know how I could get the Sata drives to show up in the taskbar again??
I mostly found people wanting to get rid of the Sata drives in the taskbar, so call me weird! I want them back!!!
Thanks for your help!

Quote from: Ybeen on 29-August-07, 23:06:55
Yea, that's what i gather from all the post on the internet, I'm just not happy with what i have!
Is there anyone out there who can tell me why my "write caching and safe removal" policies under the harddrive properties is grayed out??
Thanks!!
"Yea, that's what i gather from all the post on the internet, I'm just not happy with what i have! "
"Is there anyone out there who can tell me why my "write caching and safe removal" policies under the harddrive properties is grayed out?? "
because those options are valid for removable storages only.
"Thanks!!"

K9A Platinum memory question

I have just purchased 1 x (249621) MSI K9A Platinum Xpress 3200 Sempron/Athlon 64(FX)(X2) SktAM2 DDR2 ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/Serial ATA Retail mother board. My question is about the memory - On the MSI web it says this mother board supports Supports Dual DDR2 533/667/800 and 4 DDR2 DIMMs (240pin / 1.8V). What memory brands and models does this mother board support? Can I get memory what has higher volts than 1.8 like 2.0 or higher? I was looking on www.zipzoomfly.com for memory but I don't want to get the wrong memory please help. I want to get 2 gigs of memory can I just run one 2 gig sim by it self or do I need to have 2 1 gig sims and what is cheaper. I would like to get something around $200.00. please help.

vonbarter,
I did find two options which meet your criteria:
OCZ S.O.E 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory $190 after MIR
OCZ Gold Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory $200 after MIR
Take Care,
Richard

K9A Platinum with PCI VIA 6421A SATA Controller

Hi everyone, I have a problem, I was using a VT6421A VIA Sata Controller with K9A Platinum FW 1.1 without any problems, I upgraded to 4 GB of RAM with Vista x64 then flashed the motherboard 1.7 firmware, mother recognizes full 4 GB of Ram. After upgrade firmware to 1.7, PCI VIA Sata controller doesn't recognizes both Pioneer 112D attached to it, before firmware update it was working perfectly.
I'm using RAID configuration in the motherboard, could be a problem betwen the motherboard's RAID and the VIA SATA Raid controller?
Since the upgrade to 1.7 firmware, POST doesn't show the VIA Controller menu with the attached devices, Windows Vista can see the card installed but no drives attached to it :(
Any help will be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad english.

Quote from: GrounDZero6 on 24-October-07, 03:55:41
Thanks for your reply, can you tell me how can I enable or disable memory remapping from the Setup?
Where can I find it in K9A Platinum? is something that looks like HW/SW Memory Mapping or how it's called that option?
Is it possible to get a screenshot of where i can change it??
Thanks a lot!
"can you tell me how can I enable or disable memory remapping from the Setup? is something that looks like HW/SW Memory Mapping or how it's called that option?"
Yes name of option is correct, but think its not available in BIOS if im correct.
Can you test with 2GB of memory only to see if the problem will be duplicated there too?

K9a platinum and ocz memory cas 4-5-4-15

Hi ,
I need help and i need it fast
I have k9a platinum and i want to buy this memory:
OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800, 4-5-4-15,
Is it compatible with my mobo and do u have opinion about this ram?
Thanx

Well my OCZ RAM which is meant to run @ 800MHz 4-4-4-15 timings. Runs very fine @ 800MHz w/ 4-4-4-10. 4-4-4-10 works up until about 870MHz.
OCZ seem to state their timings lower then the RAM sticks can actually cope for some reason.
I'm pretty sure it'll work, but contact OCZ for a correct answer.
Also like Bas said: Sig should be updated

K9a plat and raid

I have an MSI k9a platinum. It has worked fine with a single barracuda 320 gig sata 3.0 drive. I just purchased a twin Hd and want to set up raid on it. When I tried to reinstall win xp pro it did its thing. It even picked the right drivers off the floppy. When I rebooted and used the ctrl-f command to enter setup utility it worked, but I cannot do anything once there. It shows both hds in jbod mode with no options to change to raid array. I tried with both disks preformatted and still no luck. I have an amd 6000+ windsor with 2 gigs of 800 corsair dominator;dual hd 2600xts in crossfire;thermaltake 650 watt toughpower. I just redid my system with a via chipset and had no problems at all. The system works fine other than that.

First of all, you need to setup bios properly. Now, I don't have your board, so some terms used may be wrong, but just look around and try to follow steps. You need to setup bios first. Enable the controller you want and disable the controller you are not using. Set the used controller to the proper value, something like RAID or simply Enable. Don't set it to Native IDE (if there). Then reboot, and you should now be able to configure the RAID-array. First, delete everything that is there. Do note that you will lose all data, currently on the disks. Now, setup a new array, choosing Raid-0, 1, or whatever you prefer. Leave all other values to Auto. Save changes and reboot. Setup Windows now, using F6->install driver and off you go.... I hope.

I have an MSI K9A Platinum board

I am showing very low scores on 3dmark with my new 8800gts, I have been told its some settings in my bios, I need some advice to get the potential from this card,,, not lookig to oc. here are links to my cpu-z info...
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fdwzvc&s=3
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=141tfma&s=3
Ive been told I need to change the ht link to 1000mhz or 1gz.. any help from someone who knows this board well?
OS: Win XP Pro SP2 64 Bit
Board: MSI K9A Platinum Crossfire ATI 3200 Chipset Bios ver 1.8
RAM: 4GIG Patriot Extreme DDR2 800MHz
CPU: AMD Athlon 6400+ 64x2 3.2 GHz
Hard drives: (2) WD Caviar 250 GB
Graphics cards: (1) XFX 8800GTS (G92) 512mb
PSU: Antec TruePower Quattro 850 watt
Burners: (2) Sony/Nec 7170A
Chassis Gigabyte 3D Aurora Tower
Sound Card: Creative labs X-Fi SoundBlaster Xtreme Gamer

Quote from: BOSSKILLER on 31-May-08, 22:07:32
Go to BIOS, "Cell Menu", locate "HT Link Speed" and change it from "Auto" to "1GHz"
hey BOSSKILLER been awhile, does everything else look in order? ( from the screen shot links I posted)

K9A Platinum Low Raid 0 Performance?

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