Random Reboots - configuration help?

firehawk_1

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Hi all.
Thanks to the folks who have tried to help me in my other thread. it is much appreciated and always welcomed.

So, I took it back to the store again today. the manager just was absolutely pissed when he saw me and started to get angry/shouting the odds saying its a problem with the software (Windows etc...) when clearly, that is not the case.

After arguing with him he shut up and continued to process a returns request, which was made earlier in the week and was raised by their tech guys who said that it sounds like the motherboard for sure because this is what had happened:

It was working fine until another random reboot except this time, the mobo could not detect the SSD disk at all. After numerous CTRL+ALT+DEL it still didnt pick it up.
after I physically turned off the system and switched it back on, it detected it and booted straight into Windows.

yes, I did get the branded PSU (Corsair) this time.

So the tech guy said it is most likely a problem with the motherboard but it is unfortunately we cannot figure out how to exactly reproduce the problem.

The store manager was shouting (yes, literally) the same thing and adding many other things and saying that in his 4 years that he sees the route of giving back my money....


Folks, this is my system configuration - can anyone tell me if something "smells" odd? I dont think so....

Asus mobo P6X58D-E.
12GB of Corsair DDR3 1200 Mem.


my SSD (120GB) by OCZ is on the Marvell 6GB/s port.

I have 2 other HDD's which are 2TB each and are WD branded SATA III.
These are on the Intel ports (I believe on the 6GB/s ports). These are configured as RAID0 in Windows Server.

I have another HDD which is 3TB of WD brand, and this is just on the other unoccupied Intel SATA port.
I have a DVD Writer drive which is on one of the Intel ports also.


My SSD is just for Windows to boot into. The program files AND documents/desktop/users are rerouted to the RAID Drive. This works fine with no problems in terms of loading the user profile and running Applications including office, developer tools, SQL Server etc... There are no errors in the event logs of any kind.

Does this hardware/setup/configuration smell bad at all from your views, that would cause anything fishy/odd happening?

Many thanks :)
 
They always try to blame it on the customer or the software or the drivers or the power supply.
But it's the motherboard. And if you changed to a different manufacturer's board, you would not be having any of these problems.

I think Intel or Gigabyte would make you most happy.

You can pull your hair out for days trying to make a bunk board work, or you can get a good board, and enjoy the computer, uninterrupted.

Don't try to overclock or customize anything until you have a really stable working system, and you have run it for a long long time to test it. In fact please don't try to overclock at all if you can help it.

As far as drive configuration, It is far better to use a small fast drive for the operating system and applications, and set that drive to boot first in the bios setup.

Put your files on the other large drives only. Don't put your files on the dedicated OS drive.
That way the thing runs faster. Putting your OS on a big drive with all your files will slow you down a lot. 3 TB drive, 2 TB drive is very slow.

And after you install the small drive, dedicated to OS, Run windows 7 setup disk, choose UPGRADE option. This will reconfigure all your stuff and make the whole thing work better together. This does not erase files or applications, it reloads the OS.
But it WILL NOT fix a bunk board, although doing this may make the thing APPEAR to be fixed, for a while anyway, until it crashes again.
 

firehawk_1

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soundguruman - thank-you!!
I NEVER overclock and dont like overclocking. I hate that. I dont do anything "odd" with the system at all.

The reason I went with Asus was because ive used the boards before and have been fine. infact the mobo that I am using right now to reply to this thread is using an Asus board (for the Quad Core 6600 CPU) and that has been fine since I bought it around 2/3 years ago. No issues at all.

The Intel board I would go for if I could but I cannot find any locally and also they dont have as many SATA ports as I need in addition to PCI/PCI ex ports either. So Asus is the one really. As for gigabyte in my experience - not so good and I hate the BIOS :)

But yes, I do think its the mobo. but just wanted some sanity check.
 

firehawk_1

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ok so they rang me today and said that they couldnt find any problems again but they did change the motherboard as per request of one of the technicians whom i had a conversation with.

lets see what happens when I get the system in 2 days time.

if it still causes the problem then..... im stuck.
 

festerovic

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i looked at the specs on that Asus board, it has a total of 8 SATA connections. 2 are 6Gbps and the other 6 are intel and they are 3gbs. This shouldnt mean anything to any problems you have. I state it only to question why you need a board with 8 SATA connectors vs the usual 6. (I counted 5 drives on your system). The 6 Gbps is irrelevant to anything but the SSD, and then it would need to be a SF2 controller SSD to even use that.

Again, only stating this as you may feel you are stuck with Asus and that particular board. While I love Asus, they are not perfect, only close :) You can have problems with any manufacturer when it comes to overseas electronics. I have had success with makers such as Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock, and even ECS.

 

firehawk_1

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I've used Asus for years and have had no problems hence why im going for it again :)

The reason for all these SATA ports is because of the amount of physical drives I have... and will be increasing.
 
I didn't have the time to read your whole post, if you're having issues still the read the following:

If you cannot Boot into Windows then run Windows 7 (F8) recovery and choose Startup Repair option -> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-are-the-system-recovery-options-in-Windows-7

If you can Boot into Windows and the SSD OS Drive 'disappears' occasionally, reboots or has odd behavior then I would look at the registry, Start = 3 in AHCI is incorrect an loads the wrong drivers, it 'should be' Start = 0; see -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Under AHCI they should look like this:
AHCI_Start_0.jpg


BTW Marvell 912x is limited to 360~380 MB/s, reason x1 PCIe lane whereas 918x is x2 lanes.
 
I have 10 P6X58D-E - 120GB SSD + RAID 1.

What EXACT SATA Ports and what EXACT BIOS settings over Defaults? Especially the SATA settings? IMO - I would absolutely look the registry as I showed you above.

Q - see above and...
Q - What BIOS version?
Q - What Marvell driver version?
Q - What SSD Firmware version?
Q - Intel Matrix Storage Manager version?

IMO - it's fine to RAID 0 HDD's as long as ALL of the data has no importance and is copied on your 3TB; otherwise it's a bad idea.