SATA 2 add on card advice

My pc is getting a bit old in the tooth, but I want to keep it some more, since it fullfills its purpose just fine, except for one thing, which is the Nvidia 3 Ultra SATA controller.
Main characteristics are:
MSI K8Neo2 Platinum
Opteron 180 dual core (socket 939!)
2 gig Geil DC CL2 pc 3200 (DDR!)
Nvidia FX 4000 Quadro (AGP!)
WD 38 gig SATA 1 Raptor for Windows XP Pro SP2 and programmes
Samsung Spinpoint 750 GB SATA 2 for data.

Problem is the SATA 2 disk. - I just bought it, because it was suppossed to be able to work as a SATA 1 disk via a "software" downgrade, but it doesn't really work. I get BSOD's from time to time, and windows has "downgraded" it to PIO mode, due to "excessive tranfer errors "
Since this used to be an extremely fast box, this is unacceptable, plus the BSOD's are driving me crazy.

So now I'm looking for a pci controller card that will give me at least one internal SATA 2 port, but I have no experience whatsoever with that.

I'm not going to use RAID, so I do not really care what RAID modes are supported, just need a nice controller to control the SATA 2 disk with no fuss.

I think I have tried and implemented all the known sollutions for SATA 2 with this chipset, and I did try (and gave up) on another SATA 2 disk (Maxtor) last year, but I think it should be possible to have SATA 2 disks via an extra card?

I used to solve my storage problems with 3 IDE disks, but when one of them died on me recently, I bought this 750 GB disk, which is the only major component that will pass on to my next pc, everything else will be outdated, I'm afraid.

I have been looking at a Promise Fasttrack TX2300 card, which has a nice price here, but I'm actually unsure, if it is intended for that use, and if it will work? - The shop does not know, but they think it is for servers only?
It is suppossed to connect to a 66 Mhz PCI slot, which I believe is what I have, cannot find it in the specs though.

Does anyone here have any experience/knowledge, they would share, I would be very grateful, since this is driving me crazy.

Best regards

/Henrik

 

Henrik,

Very nice, very fast board indeed. Although I'm not 100% on your particular Samsung drive, there should be a 2 pin jumper to set it as a SATA I drive. I'm a very strong advocate of their SpinPoint drives and all the SATA IIs I've seen from Samsung have this capability. There is no "software downgrade" necessary. Having said that, I haven't used a 750 so that's where the "not 100%" comes into the picture.

 

Thanks for your replies, allthough not directly useable to me.
My main concern is to know, if I can get a controller card to allow me to use SATA 2 disks without problems, and in particular if the Promise board I mentioned would work?

I looked at your links Pete, and indeed there are lots of boards that offer Sata 2 control, most of them are for PCI-express, but will they do the job, I think so, but I'm not absolutely sure, I don't think my needs are typical?

I must admit it confuses me that the shop says it is server only this board, but they do not appear to be very competent, so I'm not sure.

And Rockster you are right, the board does have the ability to turn itself into SATA 1 via the jumpers, but Samsung recommens to use the software flash method. Still I tried both ways in all 3 combinations, but to no avail, it still makes errors, and goes to PIO mode.

I tried another advice as well, which was to uninstall the Nvidia drivers and use the windows drivers, and it did not work either.

So did someone here try a SATA 2 card?

 

Have you tried the Samsung diagnostics?
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/ES_Tool.html
Do they report any errors?

Have you identified the model of your nVidia chipset? For example, mine is the model 570, so I get those specific drivers from nVidia. If you update the drivers, do you go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the old ones first?

(Sorry haven't tried a SATA controller card)

Matt
PS Watch for Windows Updates trying to install the wrong version of the SATA controller drivers.

 

Problem partly solved - At least I think it is.....?
So I took the chance and got the Promise Fasttrack card, which turned out to be a Raid card i.e. a card to allow you to have Raid on your pc in case it did not have the feature in the first place, which mine ofcourse did...

Still it supports SATA 300 so I installed it, and connected my Samsung disk.

And up to yesterday it has working absolutely flawlessly, thinking the disk is part of an JBOD array, no BSOD's in spite of several virus scans copiing of large amount of data between the disks a.s.o. - so maybe everything is ok.

With the configuration program for the Fasttrack I can see the transfer speed is (only!) SATA 1, which s not not what I expected though, I did ofcourse flash back to SATA 300 mode, and put the jumper in the right place, so I probably cannot have the 300 mode with this mobo.

With this card installed, I cannot speedtest the card from devicemanager from the Sata controller section, I now have a Scasi and RAID controller, which does not offer that feature.

The uncertainty of this project comes from the fact that I did indeed have a BSOD yesterday, when I was updating one of my favorite XP utilities eBostr (highly recommended for XP!). After you have installed the new version, you have to rebuild the cache, which is when it happened, so I'm not absolutely sure I have solved my problem.

So for now I'll see what happens, and ofcourse keep the new card .

/HM

 

Did you have any luck with this? The "SCSI" controller might be the SATA controller, but it has not been identified correctly, I would not expect you have an actual SCSI controller installed. I might wonder if the SATA controller cannot be identified correctly because of higher level drivers (the chipset drivers).

You are looking from the bottom up (Why won't it run at 300?). I suggest you look from the top down.

I have a feeling that the SCSI controller should be identified as the adapter's SATA controller.

Matt

 

Matt,

Both of them will be read as SCSI in Device Mgr when drives are attached - Don't forget, he has two now. The original onboard NVidia SATA controller and the new Promise FastTrack controller. Most all SATA controllers will be read as SCSI. Don't ask me why - I don't know but thats the way it is. That even dates back to the older HighPoint controllers when a second pair of IDE headers was present for RAID, JBOD or whatever.

 

Hello Rockster
You've got me booting up my systems

On one that runs Win XP (VIA chipset), there is a heading in Device Manager -> SCSI and RAID Controllers. The listing under that heading is RAID Controller. I only have an IDE drive attached and I can't see any SATA Controller.

On my Vista system though, with the nForce 570 chipset, under the heading IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, there are three NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controllers. Maybe it is a Vista thing (maybe an nVidia drivers thing)?

Matt

 

Look under the heading for your hard drives too - Yes, I admit - its a little bit of a paradox. The machine I'm on now lists SCSI and RAID controllers but when the tree is expanded, there sits VIA Sata RAID Controller and Win XP Promise SATA 378 (tm) IDE Controller. I have 5 drives active right now - My 36 Gig WD Raptor (System Drive) is identified as a SCSI Disk Device, then I have 3 Samsung SATAs, all identified as SCSI Disk Devices and one Samsung SP 1614N, identified as just that. Its the only active PATA as my other one is currently unplugged.

Go figure ..... Like I said before, Don't ask me why but thats the way it is.

Maybe somebody at Microsoft had a thing for SCSI and when it came time for naming configurations, they had enough pull with the powers to be.

 

What a nice board this is, with lots of feedback and discussions.
Here is a quick update, after some more days of use, and no problems at all.
I do have the correct drivers for my ancient Nforce 3 chipset, but now I ofcourse have the Scasi/Raid controller ass well, which does not list what devices (The Samsung disk!) are connected to it.
I have more or less given up having Sata 300 speed, even if that was what I was expecting to have with the fasttrack card, but it appears I now have a controller, which handles the SATA 2 disk with no errors contrary to the Nforce chipset, so I this is good enough for now.
It appears to be reliable, and I can keep my old pc for some more time, which suits me fine, because it actually is very nice and extremely fast.
Still I do not understand where the SATA 300 speed disappears, and downgrades to SATA 150, it appears that the Nvidia chipset is involved somehow anyway?