P2B-DS & SMART Problem

[geoff]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

I have a p2b-ds with 2 seagate cheetahs and 1 western digital hard disk.
Recently, on power up, the bios, version 1013, says smart reports imminent
hard drive failure. This started about 1 month ago. I downloaded the
western digital utilities and the seagate utilities. They all report a
normal smart status and the detailed diagnostics return normal.

I turned off the smart warning in the bios but still get the imminent
failure message.

Any ideas as to what it is? Is this the start of the motherboard going
flakey or ?

Thanks.

-g

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

Geoff wrote:
> I have a p2b-ds with 2 seagate cheetahs and 1 western digital hard disk.

SCSI, IDE, or mixed?

> Recently, on power up, the bios, version 1013, says smart reports imminent
> hard drive failure. This started about 1 month ago. I downloaded the
> western digital utilities and the seagate utilities. They all report a
> normal smart status and the detailed diagnostics return normal.
>
> I turned off the smart warning in the bios but still get the imminent
> failure message.

Can you tell whether it's the Adaptec SCSI BIOS or motherboard IDE BIOS
generating the error?

> Any ideas as to what it is? Is this the start of the motherboard going
> flakey or ?

Since you're confident the disks are OK, I'd try clearing CMOS to see if
that gets rid of it. If not, perhaps the BIOS has suffered 'bit rot' and
would benefit from re-flashing.

HTH

P2B

 

[geoff]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

"P2B" <p2b@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> > I have a p2b-ds with 2 seagate cheetahs and 1 western digital hard disk.
>
> SCSI, IDE, or mixed?

The seagates are scsi and the western digital is eide.


> Since you're confident the disks are OK, I'd try clearing CMOS to see if
> that gets rid of it. If not, perhaps the BIOS has suffered 'bit rot' and
> would benefit from re-flashing.

I thought the bios ran a checksum. Would it not detect some rot in it?

-g

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

Geoff wrote:

> "P2B" <p2b@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>>I have a p2b-ds with 2 seagate cheetahs and 1 western digital hard disk.
>>
>>SCSI, IDE, or mixed?
>
>
> The seagates are scsi and the western digital is eide.

Do you still get the SMART error if you disconnect the IDE drive?

>>Since you're confident the disks are OK, I'd try clearing CMOS to see if
>>that gets rid of it. If not, perhaps the BIOS has suffered 'bit rot' and
>>would benefit from re-flashing.
>
>
> I thought the bios ran a checksum. Would it not detect some rot in it?

In theory yes, however I have seen a couple of cases where spurious BIOS
errors were cured by reflashing.

P2B

 

[geoff]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

"P2B" <p2b@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:OFb6e.99$MZ2.57265@news20.bellglobal.com...

> Do you still get the SMART error if you disconnect the IDE drive?

I did not try it. I actually have it in my mind to update my motherboard
with a newer asus p4. I love my p2b tho, I have dual 600 mhz and the scsi
seagates have worked perfectly. This bios thing is the first problem I ever
had. The only downside is the 10,000 rpm drives are noisy. Seagate has
15,000 rpm drives, I can imagine how noisy they are, lol.

The problem is with the ide drive because after the bios detects the drive,
I get the smart warning. As I said before, the western digital and seagate
utilities say the smart status is normal.


> > I thought the bios ran a checksum. Would it not detect some rot in it?
>
> In theory yes, however I have seen a couple of cases where spurious BIOS
> errors were cured by reflashing.

I just did something I hate with a passion, lol, I downloaded the bios from
asus and reflashed the rom. It came out all right and I will have to see if
I get the warning again. It does not happen on every bootup.

-g

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

Geoff wrote:

> "P2B" <p2b@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:OFb6e.99$MZ2.57265@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
>
>>Do you still get the SMART error if you disconnect the IDE drive?
>
>
> I did not try it. I actually have it in my mind to update my motherboard
> with a newer asus p4. I love my p2b tho, I have dual 600 mhz and the scsi
> seagates have worked perfectly. This bios thing is the first problem I ever
> had. The only downside is the 10,000 rpm drives are noisy. Seagate has
> 15,000 rpm drives, I can imagine how noisy they are, lol.

I'm not planning to replace my P2B-DS systems anytime soon - dual 1.4Ghz
and 10K Cheetahs is more than adequate for my needs

http://tipperlinne.com/p2bmod

> The problem is with the ide drive because after the bios detects the drive,
> I get the smart warning. As I said before, the western digital and seagate
> utilities say the smart status is normal.

Very odd.

>>>I thought the bios ran a checksum. Would it not detect some rot in it?
>>
>>In theory yes, however I have seen a couple of cases where spurious BIOS
>>errors were cured by reflashing.
>
>
> I just did something I hate with a passion, lol, I downloaded the bios from
> asus and reflashed the rom. It came out all right and I will have to see if
> I get the warning again. It does not happen on every bootup.

Time will tell...

The last P2B-DS BIOS, 1014b3, is here, should you wish to try it:

ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Slot_I/INTEL_Chipset/i440BX/P2B-DS/1014ds03.zip

P2B

 

[geoff]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

Reflashing the bios did not help, I got the SMART failure on last bootup.
The funny thing is, SMART detection is disabled but the message still comes
up, lol.

-g

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

"Geoff" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:WLd6e.3679$lP1.1266@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Reflashing the bios did not help, I got the SMART failure on last bootup.
> The funny thing is, SMART detection is disabled but the message still
> comes
> up, lol.
>
> -g
>
>
Geoff,

Regardless of all this, if I were you I'd immediately back up the disc in
question. Does the SMART message not identify the disc in question? I had
this recently (P4B266 m/b, Samsung SP16 something (160GB) only 3 months
old). Bear in mind, SMART is reported from the disc, NOT the
motherboard/bios. My message clearly identified the Samsung as the
problematic disc. It was too late for me to Ghost the C drive (which was the
dodgy partition), but I did manage an NTbackup of it, which in conjunction
with the earlier C drive (which I still had) eventually allowed me to sort
things out. Granted, mine was an early failure (not casting any aspersions
on Samsung - this can happen with any disc), but usually if SMART reports a
problem, it probably means it, and you should IMMEDIATELY back it up. If
it's a false report (unlikely, but then who am I to say? I have only 30
years experience with computers), then at the worst you've wasted a few
hours backing up (I nearly said unnecessarily, but then backing up is NEVER
unnecessary); on the other hand, if it does mean it (and it probably does),
then you've just saved your bacon. BTW, I had no problem at all getting disc
replaced by the supplier (PCWorld). Again, please remember, SMART (I
suppose, properly, S.M.A.R.T) is PURELY disc-based, NOT bios, although the
bios does need to be SMART-aware.
Regards,
Steve.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

"Geoff" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:WLd6e.3679$lP1.1266@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Reflashing the bios did not help, I got the SMART failure on last bootup.
> The funny thing is, SMART detection is disabled but the message still
> comes
> up, lol.
>
> -g
>
>

Geoff,
I just answered this on alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus - because there are
far fewer posts on there! Please read my reply there - I DO think you have a
problem!
Regards,
Steve.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Geoff schrieb:

> I have a p2b-ds with 2 seagate cheetahs and 1 western digital hard disk.
> Recently, on power up, the bios, version 1013, says smart reports imminent
> hard drive failure. This started about 1 month ago. I downloaded the
> western digital utilities and the seagate utilities. They all report a
> normal smart status and the detailed diagnostics return normal.

Mind posting the output of a SMART utility like DTemp or (better)
smartctl (-a)?

Stephan
--
Home: http://stephan.win31.de/
PC#6: i440BX, 2xP3-500E, 704 MiB, 18+80 GB, R9k AGP 64 MiB, 110W

 

[geoff]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

> Regardless of all this, if I were you I'd immediately back up the disc in
> question.

I would agree with you if smart reported a problem. However, smart does not
report a problem. Western Digital's utility (and Seagate's) show no problem
at all.

Why the bios says there is a problem, I do not know why.

-g

 

[geoff]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus,alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus (More info?)

I killed the 'stop on all errors' in the bios. I changed it to stop on all
errors except disk and keyboard. That stopped the smart message from
appearing. I guess disabling the smart check is not enough.

-g

 

[Stevem]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

"Geoff" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:V%f6e.3767$lP1.1399@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>I attached a pic of the output from western digital's untility. I know
>some
> servers do not allow attachments. The only parameter that looks the worse
> is the multi-zone error rate. The current value is 200, the worse value
> it
> ever had was 85, and the threshold, the point at which smart says there is
> a
> problem, is 51.
>
> -g
>
>
>

Umm....
Strange... You did not say which OS you are running, but if it's W2k or XP,
is there anything in the Event logs? That's where my problem first appeared.
The logs showed dsk errors. If there's nothing there, then yes, it does look
to be BIOS (though goodness knows why). Curiously, mine appeared in the
event log two or three days before SMART reported anything (again, mine was
a severe error, rather than gradual decay).
Regards,
Steve.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

"STEPHEN MCGOVERN" <s.mcgovern@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:tLf6e.70798$Nr5.34443@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>
> "Geoff" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:WLd6e.3679$lP1.1266@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> > Reflashing the bios did not help, I got the SMART failure on last
bootup.
> > The funny thing is, SMART detection is disabled but the message still
> > comes
> > up, lol.
> >
> > -g
> >
> >
>
> Geoff,
> I just answered this on alt.comp.periphs.mainboards.asus - because there
are
> far fewer posts on there! Please read my reply there - I DO think you have
a
> problem!
> Regards,
> Steve.
>
I wonder how whoever created these groups could have seen a mainboard as a
peripheral.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

I can confirm that the O.P.'s problem is real and exactly as stated. It
has puzzled me for years and this is the first time I've seen it
addressed on the net.

I too have an ASUS P2B-DS with two Seagate SCSI drives (17 GB) and a
few Maxtor atis. I've always used the latest ASUS BIOS.

Only one of the drives - the oldest Drive 'SEAGATE ST118273LW' - causes
the error message to appear.

Like the O.P., I've checked the drive independently and it passes as
OK.

I've gotten this spurious message for about five years and counting.


--
_pF_

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

_pF_ wrote:

> I can confirm that the O.P.'s problem is real and exactly as stated. It
> has puzzled me for years and this is the first time I've seen it
> addressed on the net.
>
> I too have an ASUS P2B-DS with two Seagate SCSI drives (17 GB) and a
> few Maxtor atis. I've always used the latest ASUS BIOS.
>
> Only one of the drives - the oldest Drive 'SEAGATE ST118273LW' - causes
> the error message to appear.
>
> Like the O.P., I've checked the drive independently and it passes as
> OK.
>
> I've gotten this spurious message for about five years and counting.

Interesting. I've been running multiple P2B-DS systems since 1997 and
never seen a SMART error, not once.

I suspect mixing SCSI and IDE drives may be a prerequisite for this
issue - I've occasionally connected an IDE drive temporarily to get data
off and/or scrub the disk, but in general use only SCSI drives.

At what stage in the boot process does the error occur? Before or after
the SCSI bus scan?

P2B