maxtor sata 2 - problems

NeTTy · 6 Apr 2006 at 00:00

Just bought - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6V250F0 SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-088-MD)

formatted installed 3rd party driver thing, win xp etc all went well up and running fine however I got a bsod once last night and then it wouldnt reboot, I quickly realised this was due to the connector coming loose, replaced it and manipulated the cable so as it hopefuly wouldnt happen again.

However I keep getting this bsod that the drive became unreadable but after a reboot it works fine so it dosnt seem its the cable anymore, I'm also experiancing low fps, stuttering and crashs in cs source (same drivers as I used on my old hard drive).

the game problems could well be a bad install of css as other games work fine but the bsod thing is worrying could anyone suggest other causes or ways I could further investigate it?

ajgoodfellow · 6 Apr 2006 at 02:25

Are you using an nForce 4 motherboard?

There are known incompatiblity problems with Maxtor drivers and nForce 4 motherboards - try disabling NCQ in the BIOS

NeTTy · 6 Apr 2006 at 11:21

thanks for reply but its an asrock duel sata 939 motherboard, left it running last night and its been ok so touch wood it might be ok will monitor it and see how things pan out.

NeTTy · 6 Apr 2006 at 18:32

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/response.aspx?SGD=857ee807-943e-4eb7-93cd-bc9c266adf24&SID=708
Still happening just get a blank blue screen and have to reboot seems totally random although it happens more when I'm playing css disk benchmarks and SMART say all is working fine.

Any suggestions?

ajgoodfellow · 7 Apr 2006 at 01:32

Hi

Can you disable NCQ in the ASRock BIOS?

If so, have you tried it?

Perhaps try installing the chipset drivers?

Are you overclocking your PC at all?

The B.A. · 7 Apr 2006 at 13:02

Not sure if it helps or not as my problem is related to the NForce 4 chipset but when I first installed my sata II Maxtor DM 10 200gig the PC would not boot full stop with the NVIDIA IDE driver installed. I removed this driver and went to the Microsoft std one which allowed the PC to boot 50% of the time. Maxtor support gave me a workaround of putting a jumper on the drive to drop it down from SATA II to SATA (1.5 gig transfer) and the drive now boots everytime.
Maxtor have given me a firmware update which I have yet to try, if neither of the above solutions help then contact Maxtor support then were very helpful.

NeTTy · 7 Apr 2006 at 16:02

ajgoodfellow said:
Hi

Can you disable NCQ in the ASRock BIOS?

If so, have you tried it?

Perhaps try installing the chipset drivers?

Are you overclocking your PC at all?

cant find an option to disable ncq in my bios.

All chipset drivers are installed and up to date, will try reinstalling later.

no overclock on anything.

The B.A. said:
Not sure if it helps or not as my problem is related to the NForce 4 chipset but when I first installed my sata II Maxtor DM 10 200gig the PC would not boot full stop with the NVIDIA IDE driver installed. I removed this driver and went to the Microsoft std one which allowed the PC to boot 50% of the time. Maxtor support gave me a workaround of putting a jumper on the drive to drop it down from SATA II to SATA (1.5 gig transfer) and the drive now boots everytime.
Maxtor have given me a firmware update which I have yet to try, if neither of the above solutions help then contact Maxtor support then were very helpful.

Ty will give that a try and see if it helps, had looked at the jumper but decided to leave it alone. if not ill give maxtor support a shout and see what they say.

NeTTy · 8 Apr 2006 at 19:27

Right this is going to sound really weird at first I thought it was coincidence but now I'm absolutly sure it isn't, the error reading the disk ALWAYS happens after I stand up from my chair and walk away from the pc, I can't recreate it every time but every time it has this error is just after I moved away from the pc.

First I thought it was maybe vibration or something making a lead lose connection for a short time but I can move the case around and not have any problem, has anyone ever had something like this occur?

My case sits on the floor next to my desk on carpet on a stone floor.

Gonna run the maxtor diagnostic tool when I can get hold of another floppy and see what that says, I just cant help thinking it could be something very simple I'm missing.

encephalopathy · 9 Apr 2006 at 15:37

make sure the southbridge on the asrock isn't overheating - mine was and heated up the surounding area +++ until i put on a bigger passive zalman heatsink (the sataII connector is close to the southbridge)