Superpuppy 5

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
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Jim
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Superpuppy 5

Post by Jim »

Is running rather badly. The problem centres around its triple decker "Hot Swap Tray". Although it appears to be beautifully made, (extruded aluminum box, with 80mm front fan individual keylocks to shutoff power for the drives; and very well made latching mechanisms for the drives), the thing has been nothing but trouble. At first I wasn't sure what was causing the problem; the tray box itself, the IDE cables, the HDDs, (Maxtor Slimlines, - and therefore suspect), or the knockoff SIL80 IDE Controller Card, (which likes to "Raid" the drives whether you like it or not)..

Cables have been replaced, The cheapo knockoff IDE controller has been replaced with a definitely not cheapo "Promise" card. And still the problem remains. Put a drive in the third bay; and it doesn't work. Now even the first bay is acting up. Only the middle bay works reliably. Drives pickup and dropout with frustrating frequency. But it doesn't seem to be the Maxtors either. Put any of them in the centre bay and they work alright.

The thing has a bit of circuitry on it; and I am wondering if replacing the components in said circuitry might help.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
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KGB
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Post by KGB »

If it's Fubared, I wouldn't want to mess with it. What I'm confused about Jim is; does the 3-HDD Drivebay reside inside of the case or as a separate unit? Why not ditch ATA, get a 4 port Serial-ATA controller card, few Serial Ata Drives (or IDE ot S-ATA adapters and still use current ATA dries)) and go about it in that way?

I'm looking forward to finalizing my SCSI server box (external) with the addition of a Sun Microsystem Multipack cabinet like this one :arrow: http://cgi.ebay.com/SUN-Microsystems-12 ... dZViewItem
-K6-2 550 Gigagyte GA-5AX (5.2) 1x512MB GeForce 2 Ti500 64MB
-Pentium III 933 Asus P3C-L 2x128MB GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB DDR
-Pentium III 750 Asus P3B-F ATi Rage128 GL 32MB
-Celeron 1.2 Asus TUSI-M 2x128MB
-Pentium IV 1.5 DELL 2350 1x128MB
-Athlon 900 Asus K7M 1x256MB 2x128MB GeForce 3 64MB
-AthlonXP-M 2400+ Asus K7V880 2x512MB HIS Radeon HD3850 512MB DDR
Jim
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Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Answers : 1) It resides inside the case. Occupies 2 of the 3 5.25 inch bays the case has. 2) Mobo has 4 PCI slots. 1 = Sound Card ; 2 = LAN Card ; 3 = USB 2 Card ; 4 = IDE Controller Card. Do not want to go to new, large, fast, drives. 40 Gig data recovery operations are bad enough. Prefer to use multiple older smaller (cheaper & safer) drives.
Last edited by Jim on Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
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KGB
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Posts: 98
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2003 7:55 pm

Post by KGB »

Ahem, in regards to explanantion number 4. If you recall from my suggestions, you still COULD use the old, more verible, heavier, hotter running drives in the system. Simply buy a IDE :arrow: SATA adapter, connect to new 4 port SATA adapter and be done with it.

(Unless your BIOS does not have PCI-Bootable compatability, then I might have overjudged the situation)

I would also recommend, using the system with only VGA and Promise card to see if the problem still arises, and subsequently add the other PCI devices until it works. Narrowing down the possibilities of error.

Also, if you are using MULTIPLE drives, make sure the JUMPER configurations on the back are set correctly. I dont mean this as an insult, however, my IDE IBM Deskstars have 4 different jumper setting for Master,Slace,CS,Single on 1 drive, totaling 16 configurations depending on the usage of the drives. You mentioned Maxtor, is that the only one used?
-K6-2 550 Gigagyte GA-5AX (5.2) 1x512MB GeForce 2 Ti500 64MB
-Pentium III 933 Asus P3C-L 2x128MB GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB DDR
-Pentium III 750 Asus P3B-F ATi Rage128 GL 32MB
-Celeron 1.2 Asus TUSI-M 2x128MB
-Pentium IV 1.5 DELL 2350 1x128MB
-Athlon 900 Asus K7M 1x256MB 2x128MB GeForce 3 64MB
-AthlonXP-M 2400+ Asus K7V880 2x512MB HIS Radeon HD3850 512MB DDR
Jim
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Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Actually, I am pretty sure it is the Hot Swap Tray. Initially the bottom tray was causing problems. i.e. put a drive in it , power it up, and it would not pickup in the bios 90% of the time. When it did pickup it was very unreliable. Frequent freezing mainly. Reset the machine and the drive would most likely drop out. Moreover, when the bottom tray was powered up, the centre tray became unreliable. It would still work, but the drive in it would not pass Maxtors factory tests while the bottom tray was powered up. Yet the same drive in the centre tray would pass Maxtor's factory tests when the bottom tray was shut off.

It is possible that I have the "Master / Slave" settings incorrect; but I doubt it. They are not very clear in the diagrams on Maxtor slimlines; but there are a limited number of ways to set them; and I have experimented.

Examining the "Hot Swap Tray" revealed that the 80 mm front fan was powered off the bottom tray. I changed that, mainly because w/ the bottom tray shut off all the time the fan was not working. Now the fan is independant of all trays. Works whether a tray is powered up or not.

I set it up so that the centre tray was the primary master on the controller card. Had little choice. The mobo specifies 18" long IDE cables maximum. Given the reach of the cables it is setup the only way it can be. The bottom tray is the "Primary Slave" on the controller card, and the top tray is the "Secondary master" on the controller card.

More recently the top tray has been acting up too. The drive in it frequently drops out, or doesn't show up right from boot. There is no "Secondary Slave" drive installed on the IDE controller card. The drives in the Hot Swap Tray are 3x Maxtor (7200) slimlines. (Single Platter drives) There is a 30 Gig as Primary master, another 30 Gig as Primary Slave, and a 40 Gig as Secondary Master.

The permanent drives in the machine are as follows : Mobo Primary Master = WD (7200) 40 Gig ; Mobo Primary Slave = WD (7200) 80 Gig ; Mobo Secondary Slave = Maxtor (5400) Slimline 10 Gig. These drives cause no problems; and so far, neither does any drive put in the centre tray, as long as the bottom one is shut off.

The Circuitry for each of the Hot Swap Trays includes a fairly large discreet Mosfet of some sort, and I am wondering if perhaps they may have under specked when they designed the thing.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Have spent some time re-organizing Superpuppy 5's start menu. It isnt finished yet; but it is starting to look like the setup I use for Superpuppy 3. The desktop has already been done that way. Much better!!
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
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