WD Raptor with Vista problems

[jontom07]

Interesting article

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2007/06/25/wd-raptor-nvidia-g80-dont-play-nice-with-vista/

A debug tool is offered but what does this debug tool actually do ?

 

[sandmanwn]

They don't show the source of the code at all. Therefore no one should recommend using it for a problem that they cant fully explain themselves. If the problem really exists and this is the solution then I find it more prudent to wait for either Nvidia or WD to release an official patch for the issues.

Otherwise it sounds like BS. With wording like it this...

Attaching the hard drive to a different SATA port can sometimes eliminate the problem for a short while.

...its seems like they have no clue what the real culprit is. Anyone who points to a random occurance of a problem and then arbitrarily picks out a component as the problem really has NO understanding of the issue at hand.

So we repeated our initial component-swapping marathon and finally determined a second source of error - Nvidia's 7000 and 8000 line of graphics cards. Once again, as soon as we copied the system, OS and all, from the WD1500 to another hard drive, the issues disappeared. Also, when Vista was installed on a system using an ATI graphics card (X1900 line), no errors appeared, even when the WD1500 was used.

With this statement it seems the problem has nothing to do with WD and lies more in the lap of Nvidia. To confirm the problem they should have tested the setup with other video cards like Matrox or other integrated solutions like VIA. If the problem doesnt exist between those manufacturers and WD then it definitely points to Nvidia.

This makes more sense as we've seen in past articles that the IO on Nvidia's hard disk controller is truly pathetic. And even to this day, months and months after the 8800 series, Nvidia still has some issues that need to be addressed with their graphics cards.

Until now, we had quite a number of WD1500s in use in our Lab. However, the recurrence of the problems detailed above and its comparatively low capacity of only 150GB - which is hardly state of the art - force us to part ways with this model. Tom's Hardware will no longer the WD1500 for testing from our Munich labs.

In the end the truth is finally revealed. They just wanted an excuse to bash WD for something that is probably not their fault. This sounds more like a way of validating another manufacturer paying more money to advertise their products in THG's benchmark tests.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Poor article. The research and troubleshooting is very "voodoo", with little control of component swap-outs and documentation of each particular hardware, software, and driver combination.

The conclusion that Vista isn't the problem is incorrect. The truth is that since no other OS was tested, Vista's role in the problem is unknown.

Though motherboards were swapped out, only Intel chipsets were tested. By not testing an AMD or NForce chipset, you cannot exclude something common across Intel's chipsets from being part of the problem, either.

The existence of their "debug" service indicates that they found a reason or work-around for solving the issue, but didn't disclose what that was to us. What are they trying to hide? What does the service actually do? I highly doubt it patches the NVidia or Western Digital drivers, and it can't mess with the graphics card's or hard drive's ROM code, so that leaves what? Chipset/BIOS/motherboard hardware registers? (That certainly would seem to deflect blame away from the two hardware manufacturers if chipset settings fix the problem. That would appear to blame Intel, which wasn't even considered as a factor.) What else could it do? Registry settings/Vista internal settings? (That also deflects blame away from the hardware manufacturers and would seem to place blame on Microsoft.)

Again, poor article, poor research, and invalid conclusions.

 

[leexgx]

well i asume this error does not happen with XP as how many users have XP computers with raptors

if thay are even reading this post do the Raptors work when thay are setup in RAID 0 as the OS no longer has direct access to the hard disk so i asume the prolem would go away (goes tho an driver that access the raid array) unless it is an Vista + Nvidia problem + WD in the same pc (i blame Nvidia drivers still but thay did test intel and nvidia chip sets so we could blame M$ VIsta with its New driver model there be an fix i guess from windows update on vista to resove this {probly do that Debug thing on vista start up})

heh fun fun

 

[sailer]

Also, when Vista was installed on a system using an ATI graphics card (X1900 line), no errors appeared, even when the WD1500 was used.

With this statement it seems the problem has nothing to do with WD and lies more in the lap of Nvidia. To confirm the problem they should have tested the setup with other video cards like Matrox or other integrated solutions like VIA. If the problem doesnt exist between those manufacturers and WD then it definitely points to Nvidia.

This makes more sense as we've seen in past articles that the IO on Nvidia's hard disk controller is truly pathetic. And even to this day, months and months after the 8800 series, Nvidia still has some issues that need to be addressed with their graphics cards.

Until now, we had quite a number of WD1500s in use in our Lab. However, the recurrence of the problems detailed above and its comparatively low capacity of only 150GB - which is hardly state of the art - force us to part ways with this model. Tom's Hardware will no longer the WD1500 for testing from our Munich labs.

In the end the truth is finally revealed. They just wanted an excuse to bash WD for something that is probably not their fault. This sounds more like a way of validating another manufacturer paying more money to advertise their products in THG's benchmark tests.[/quote]

I'll toss my 2 cents worth in. Some of the listed bugs, such as clicking on "Control Panel", "My Computer", have shown up on my computer while using XP. Further, on that computer, I'm not using a Raptor, but a Seagate drive. The one common thing is that I have a card from Nvidia, a 7800 GTX model. After installing a 8800 GTS on a second computer, also using XP but having a Hitachi drive, I started having similar problems. This time I went to Nvidia and found a notice that their 7XXX and 8XXX cards have known issues with AMD CPUs and require changes in the registry to accomidate their cards. I didn't see a problem stated concerning Intel CPUs, but I wasn't looking for that, so a notice for Intel problems might have existed that I didn't see.

I have a 150 gig Raptor in a third computer that uses Vista and have had no problems so far. Oh, did I mention that it uses a ATI X1900 XTX? To quote a line from the so called review in the first paragraph on page 4, "Also, when Vista was installed on a system using an ATI graphics card (X1900 line), no errors appeared, even when the WD1500 was used". What's this? The Raptor works fine with an ATI card, but not with an Nvidia card. So the reviewer says that the problem is with the hard drive, not the with Nvidia. That sounds like some extremely biased reporting to me.

So in my experience, I've seen similar errors that the reviewer noted with Vista and the WD1500 on two computers that use XP and different make hard srives (Seagate and Hitachi), having only an Nvidia card in common. I've so no such error in a computer that uses Vista and an ATI X1900 XTX. In my opinion and estimation, that points more to a video card problem than a hard drive problem. Of course, this reflects just the experience of myself and not that of the esteemed reviewer.

 

[russki]

To all those saying they should test it with XP, XP has a different device driver model, so if the contention that the problem is the driver is correct, then testing XP will accomplish precisely nothing.

It would be nice to have more explanation as to what the tool that is claimed to solve the problem does, and how they figured out to do that something.

 

[warezme]

Uh, I had the same problem with XP SP2.

I thought it was a possible virus problem so I ghosted to an earlier image of XP from March.

Its working perfectly now.

I have Vista Ultimate 64 on a separate drive using dual boot. I haven't noticed any issues but honestly I hardly ever use it and it seems frought with pop messages and weirdness anyways so how can you tell???? :roll:

 

[Major_Trouble]

I think the testing leaves alot to be desired but the conclusions are the same 8800 + WD + Vista = problem.

If it was a choice in my machine Vista would go first (not even there till SP1 or SP2) then the raptor. Why junk a £250 graphics card before a £150 hard drive.

 

[sink]

I have 2 Raptor 74gb drives running in RAID 0 using Abits IN32x-MAX onboard controller, and a Point of View 8800GTX and i'm running Vista Home Premium 32bit. So far I have had none of the problems described in the article and i've been running Vista for over 3 weeks.

 

[bullaRh]

good 2 know, i just got my raptor by the mailman today, not that i wanna use vista anyways but still.

 

[turtle1]

I have a pair of Raptor 150's (non-Raid) and an 8800GTX running under Vista Ultimate 32 with no problems at all. My second machine is running a 74 gig Raptor and a pair of 36 gig Raptors with a 8800GTS 320 and Vista Home Premium with no problems. My last machine is running a 74 gig Raptor with a 6800GT card and Win XP Pro. No problems.

 

[bullaRh]

thank u for letting me know, got a little scared there.. but whats up with the tom's article then

btw i can see you run vista with 4gb ram can u feel anything from going to 2gb to 4gb?

 

[ragemonkey]

After reading this article twice over I still find myself very perplexed by the conclusion. The article itself attempts to solidify a logical argument, but the article seems thrown together with a lot of potentially key testing factors missing. Also... it just felt like there was some agenda at work here.

They prove it to be an issue with Vista when using both 7xxx-8xxx Nvidia graphics cards and the WD Raptor 150. They then go on to prove that the issue does not occur when using an ATI card... further isolating the issue to Nvidia's corner... yet the conclusion is to shun WD Raptors from the testing labs.

To me this is false logic... the conclusion doesn't represent a totality of the facts. What else is going on here I wonder?

 

[ragemonkey]

Upon my last refresh of THG... the article has magically went *poof*! out of existence from the main page.

heh... nvm... its still on the UK one.

 

[PCD]

Upon my last refresh of THG... the article has magically went *poof*! out of existence from the main page.

Maybe they are debugging someone... I think that article is the worst I've ever read here at Toms, looks like put together using a shovel. I also wonder what that debugging tool is doing, as far as I know debugging tools finds bugs and writes a logfile, fixing the errors is done by the user of the debugging tool.

My guess is that when booting the "debugging" tool is changing some registry setting that for some reason is changed when the computer is shut down.

I wonder if this is related to the iaStorV.sys error on some intel chipsets.

 

[turtle1]

To : bullaRh

I went with 4 gigs on my new build because I got a good deal on the memory. I plan on installing Ultimate 64 on this machine soon and figured the extra 2 gigs could not hurt any. Right now Vista "sees" 3.25 gigs. Have I noticed any difference between 2 and 4 gigs? Maybe a little, but it would be more subjective as I have not run any benchmarks.

 

[dobby]

i hope these "issues" are sorted out in SP1

 

[machinegunmonkey]

I'm running Vista Ultimate 32-bit in a dual boot with XP Pro on a 74gb Raptor with a 150gb Raptor X as game install drive and an Xfx 8800 GTX. I have yet to see any problems like those mentioned.

 

[dobby]

thats coz your using a different HDD contoller

 

[sailer]

After reading this article twice over I still find myself very perplexed by the conclusion. The article itself attempts to solidify a logical argument, but the article seems thrown together with a lot of potentially key testing factors missing. Also... it just felt like there was some agenda at work here.

They prove it to be an issue with Vista when using both 7xxx-8xxx Nvidia graphics cards and the WD Raptor 150. They then go on to prove that the issue does not occur when using an ATI card... further isolating the issue to Nvidia's corner... yet the conclusion is to shun WD Raptors from the testing labs.

To me this is false logic... the conclusion doesn't represent a totality of the facts. What else is going on here I wonder?

That's basically the point I was making in my post above. They experienced a problem, they figured out it occured with the Nvidia card but not the ATI card, so they choose to blame the Raptor. Makes me wonder what they been drinking, or smoking. There is no logic to their conclusion unless they just have a personal grudge for some reason and found an excuse to vent it. The logical conclusion would be that Nvidia still needs to work on their drivers so that their cards work with Vista.

 

[iinweed]

My guess is that they decided to ditch the Raptor because its a bit tricky to do game reviews without an Nvidia card... :lol:

However, it sounds to me like both need to be ditched in reality.


Oh, and guys... can I have your old Raptors please?

 

[ricochet]

I have the nvidia mobo, an 8800GTX and some WD 150 raptors in a raid 6 array on an Areca PCi express RAID card - and I see this issue using vista32bit (not tried 64 bit vista).

I have never seen the issue using XP sp2. The system is rock solid stable under XP sp2.

From 2 days testing I've found that I only see the problem when I have the nvidia version 15.00 platform driver installed (not tried any prior versions), i.e. with only the Vista drivers installed following Vista installation on the raid6 array plus maybe a windows update chipset update (I haven't studied exactly what the first windows update did yet) and the 158.45 video drivers, I don't see the issue. At least not yet - I've only had Vista installed for 2 days.

Pleased that THG are reporting it but utterly bemused, to the point of screaming and pulling my hair out, as to why its as clear as mud what the debug tool does. Very amateurish - not what I expect from THG.

Unfortunately I have no ATI cards to test. I do have other hdds and I may look at troubleshooting this further.

 

[Major_Trouble]

I think the issue occurs when the Raptors are on the motherboards HD controller not on an expansion card.

 

[ricochet]

hmm, no. I see the issue and I my raptors are in a raid array on an expansion card.

 

[Major_Trouble]

My mistake. reading through the article again I found this.

In our experience, operating the drive on an (expensive) add-in controller does not avoid the issue.