A call for ANYONE who has Maxtor NCQ drives working with A8N-SLI Deluxe

[xtknight]

Does anybody have this drive working in their A8N-SLI at this moment? Did flashing to the latest BIOS help the issue? I just started having trouble with my BIOS not detecting this drive tonight.

 

[babyjocko]

NO problem here.

 

[Darknezz]

:shocked:

I have a Asus A8N-SLI not the deluxe. The controler can't even see my Maxtor10. What is there to 2 do, ??? I hope there is a bios on the way...

 

[Bottom Feeder]

Hi, this is my first post on this forum.

What BIOS version are you using? If it's 1.3, you might be able to fix your problem by downgrading to version 1.2.

I built a system using the A8N-SLI Deluxe shortly after it came on sale here in Japan. I used a pair of Maxtor 7B300S0's for my data, and a fairly new 120GB Maxtor IDE drive (recycled from another system) for my Windows XP and software installations.

It worked fine for a while, but when I tried enabling NCQ on the SATA drives I quickly sufferred massive data corruption, so I had to disable it and reformat both drives. I would therefore recommend avoiding NCQ like the plague until this issue is officially acknowledged and fixed by a future BIOS version.

A few days ago I upgraded my BIOS to version 1.3. It worked fine when I rebooted the system without turning off the power. However, last night I tried my first "cold" boot, and it hung while booting Windows. I tried rebooting multiple times, and noticed that it spent a while searching for IDE drives, didn't find the 7B300S0's, then hung just after displaying the Win XP splash screen. When I disabled the SATA controllers in the BIOS, or disconnected both SATA drives, it booted OK. I also discovered that the Silicon Image controller could recognise the drives when I plugged them in to its connectors, so I figured that the drives were OK.

After a while I suspected that the new BIOS was the problem, and rollled back to version 1.2, after which it worked fine.

 

[mikepro]

Stick with the 1.2 BIOS and NCQ off for now, and things should work fine. Waiting for a bios update to finally fix whatever is wrong so we can enable NCQ and upgrade to the latest BIOS.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: mikepro
Stick with the 1.2 BIOS and NCQ off for now, and things should work fine. Waiting for a bios update to finally fix whatever is wrong so we can enable NCQ and upgrade to the latest BIOS.

I've had NCQ off all along. The BIOS was not detecting my drive and I couldn't boot. However, after unplugging power to the machine for roughly 16 hours, and starting up again this afternoon, everything seems fine. I'm typing on that PC as I speak. Could this be an overheating issue? I really doubt it since a lot of people's BIOSes can't see these drives. I had overclocked prior to the detection failure of this drive, but I also updated my BIOS and screwed with the SMART on/off setting before this happened as well.

 

[Thorsson]

I knew people who'd had problems with these HDs on NF3 motherboards so I was half expecting a problem. I haven't had one problem with the HD though. Booted up first time, HD recognised, SMART enabled, installed XP and no problems since.

NCQ seems to be turned off by default, and I'm not touching it!

 

[wgoblin]

Ive got this drive and 1003 bios...It works fine...NCQ is off...But i believe theres a bigger problem with nvidias drivers then there is with bios or the mobo or the drive.

 

[imported_Vanden]

New nforce4 drivers being released today. There's an article at The inquirer . Drivers should be on nvidiasite.
Don't have my nf4 board yet, but been reading everything i can. I've read a few times that the ncq problem is caused by the nforce drivers not supporting it. Lets hope the new driver fixes this.

 

[ahurtt]

I have the Maxtor SATA DiamonMax 10 250GB w/ 16Meg cache. I read a lot of posts ahead of time before I built my system and knew from what I read to leave NCQ off for now. So I have never had it on. I had drive detection problems with 1003 final bios. And I had the issue sporadically in the beginning with 1002 bios as well but it seemed like it was somehow linked to powering off the system for a long time (several hours or more). But I recently put the 1004-01 beta on there (like 4-5 days ago) and there have been no more issues with drive detection or powering down. However I still have not enabled NCQ and will not do so until I see some driver release notes or bios release notes which specifically address the issue.

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: Vanden
New nforce4 drivers being released today. There's an article at The inquirer . Drivers should be on nvidiasite.
Don't have my nf4 board yet, but been reading everything i can. I've read a few times that the ncq problem is caused by the nforce drivers not supporting it. Lets hope the new driver fixes this.

Lets hope these drivers specifically mention support for nForce 4 systems. The official drivers they have up there now only say they support up to nForce 3 Ultra. Waiting with baited breath here. . .I am running the 6.37 Beat drivers currently and they do seem to work ok but I can't wait to try the new official ones.

 

[JMag]

Originally posted by: Vanden
New nforce4 drivers being released today. There's an article at The inquirer . Drivers should be on nvidiasite.
Don't have my nf4 board yet, but been reading everything i can. I've read a few times that the ncq problem is caused by the nforce drivers not supporting it. Lets hope the new driver fixes this.

I seriously doubt that drivers can cause a problem with the BIOS even detecting the disks... Is it possible? Also, if you have 1003 and the DM 10 drive, can you cut and past the info within device manager under the properties of the disk on the details tab? I would like to see what firmware version you have for the drive. This is because me DM 10's are lost when swtiched to 1003 BIOS, but not 1002 (maybe I guess i should try the 1004.001)

 

[woodman1999]

Holy Crap!! This is what I have been looking for. I recently (last Wednesday) upgraded to the 1003 BIOS and have hadn't turned my computer on since last night. Well, I have the DiamondMax 10 250GB and I can't get the damn drive to be detected on the nVidia SATA ports. When I try the Silicon ones, it says the device is invalid.

So from what it looks like, I should either downgrade to the 1002 BIOS, unplug the system for a long time, or turn off NCQ (how???)?

Any info is appreciated.

 

[babyjocko]

Originally posted by: woodman1999
So from what it looks like, I should either downgrade to the 1002 BIOS, unplug the system for a long time, or turn off NCQ (how???)?

Looks like you may have a lot of searching and reading to do. This has been discussed in length on this board and virtually all other computer boards on the Internet. But then, the new nVidia nForce4 drivers may resolve all the problems.

In the meantime, DM10 drives work with BIOS 1002 and NCQ off (setting in Device Manager > RAID Controller). But, try the new nf4 drivers first.

 

[imported_Fumunda]

Im running 1004.001 and can still see my drive. So far the only revisions that have seen the drive were 1002 and 1004.001

Anything 1003.00x looses the drive everytime.

-fu

 

[runestone]

Originally posted by: Vanden
New nforce4 drivers being released today. There's an article at The inquirer . Drivers should be on nvidiasite.
Don't have my nf4 board yet, but been reading everything i can. I've read a few times that the ncq problem is caused by the nforce drivers not supporting it. Lets hope the new driver fixes this.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp_6.39
Anyone tried em yet?

 

[ahurtt]

In the meantime, DM10 drives work with BIOS 1002 and NCQ off (setting in Device Manager > RAID Controller). But, try the new nf4 drivers first.

There is no way the new nForce drivers are going to help out with the bios detecting the Maxtor Diamondmax drives. This is purely a hardware / bios issue. How could they? No drivers load until the OS starts to load. And you can't load any drivers or anything else for that matter until the hardware is at least visible to the system. However, it is possible they could help with the NCQ problems. Who will be the first brave soul to try it out?! Not me!

 

[woodman1999]

Once I get home tonight, and get the damn 1002 BIOS back in there, I will give the new drivers a shot, provided I don't hear any bad news about them between now and then...

 

[davidos]

A firmware update for the Maxtor drive might be the solution....
I found this in the MSI forums... http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread.php?threadid=73124

looks like you need a PCI sata controller card to do the update though. I'll hopefully try tonight or this weekend.

 

[wgoblin]

It seems that on new drivers ncq is turned on by default. But those drivers seem to be ok. I have no problems and everything is sooo much faster.

I dont get the audio driver stuff in the driver,but nevermind..If you have a8nsli-deluxe i wouldnt recommend installing the audio part it messed up my audio...Sorry offtopic.

 

[xtknight]

Update: I installed the new nForce 6.39 drivers and haven't had any issues. NCQ was enabled by default, and is still working. If you have a problem with the BIOS not detecting your NCQ drive, flash to the original 1001 BIOS, UNPLUG the system for 16 hours (that's what worked for me) then plug back in, and hit the power button. Good luck.

 

[Speedo]

Ok, cool. So is seems the latest nForce drivers fixes the NCQ problem, and hopefully the 1004 BIOS will solve the detection problems? I hope the 1004 is released soon... (Don't feel comfortable running beta bioses).

 

[wgoblin]

Had 6.39 drivers installed since they went out.

Unfortunately i got little yellow triangle in tray tonight that some file was corrupted and that windows needs to do chkdsk.

I turned off NCQ. chkdsk is now saying the volume is clean...but i just hate this...
Ive just set up my computer as i like it and will prolly have to do reinstall.

local settings folder in which the corrupted file was in is still behaving weird.

Its a real shame. Because i could swear i noticed a speed and performance boost with ncq on.

And then again maybe it was a fluke...i was using remote desktop connection when the corrupted warning showed up...so it may be not ncq but just thought to mention it.

 

[wgoblin]

I can now confirm that disabling ncq didnt help. My files seem to be beyond repair. everything that has any remote link to the local settings folder(like outlook) ends up with a bsod.

Any suggestions? I would be grateful since i dont have time or will for another install.

Thnx

 

[ahurtt]

Just an updated on this. Here's what happened to me last night.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1521864

Haven't determined if the problem actually was NCQ related or not but it sure looks suspicious. System was running fine with NCQ for like 3 weeks then suddenly BOOM, locks up while playing BF Vietnam and will not reboot to windows.