HPT-370 PCI RAID Card and Win2k

[neurobash 0]

Hey all,

 

I seem to be having a problem with a newly installed HighPoint HPT-370 based PCI RAID controller. After installing the card and connecting two drives as masters on each controller (two 43GB 7200 RPM IBM drives) on a RAID 0 array, I have noticed an intermittent "stuttering" while there is disk activity. By "stuttering" I mean the mouse movement becomes very slow and erratic, and audio pops and distorts. I also have a 30GB 7200 IBM drive connected to the primary IDE controller on the motherboard which is being used for the pagefile (among other things). I have switched PCI slots, disabled the motherboard IDE controller, connected both drives to a single controller on the RAID card, and moved the pagefile to the RAID array - none of this however has solved the problem. I have also tried using several BIOS for the card available at highpoints site (including the new beta), as well as several different driver revisions and still nothing. Below is my setup ...

 

FIC AD11 (AMD 761) Motherboard

256MB PC2100 DDR-SDRAM (Crucial)

Asus V7700 (32MB GeForce2)

Creative SoundBlaster Live! Platinum

D-Link DFE-530TX NIC

2x 43GB 7200RPM IBM HDD's

1x 30GB 7200RPM IBM HDD

Plextor 12/10/32 CD-RW

Toshiba 8x DVD-ROM

Windows 2000 SP-2

 

All hardware has the latest (non-beta) drivers/BIOS installed, and this is a clean install of Win2k. I plan on removing the Live board and enabling the on-board audio to see if that makes any difference. Of course by removing the RAID card and running the two 43GB drives independently this problem disappears. If anyone else has experienced this problem, or has any suggestions I'd love to hear 'em.

[ValkyerieK7 0]

I would say keep it away from pci slot 1. Because this shares w/ the agp slot

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

What kinda raid card is it???

I had the IWILL raid card and it totally refused to work in my system, got a Promise fast trak 100 and it worked the first time, all powerful, she moves and shakes.

 

What im getting at is that no matter the chipset some manufacturers make em different, as the iwill didnt like my system and the promise whipped up asap.

[Dragon-Lord 0]

No bios rev would fix this problem for me (I am now using the latest 1.2 enhanced series), only driver rev 1.03b. Any later drivers take the whole system to hell and back again - bus contention across the board. Anytime there is disk activity everything else (sound, mouse, 3D, you name it), slows, stops, or stutters. And mine is an onboard HPT370 on the VP6...

 

So, try the 1.03b driver set with whatever bios rev you need and see if that doesn't do the trick.

 

And the funniest thing is that the 1.2 series drivers were released officially today, and they are crapola as well...sigh.

 

Anyone know the magic trick I am missing here?

 

:}

[neurobash 0]

Thanks to all who provided feedback, I appreciate it. I've got the 1.3b drivers installed now and that seems to have taken care of the problem. Hopefully Highpoint will take care of this issue soon.. but I'm not holding my breath.