asus p5k-e weird hangs/freezes

[Carphunter]

I've recently set up my comp to run on two WD Green 1.5TB running as mirrored array. (in the past, i was on 2 500GB Seagates running in the same config). Machine's running 6600 proc, and 2gb of ram.

Well... I'm getting system freezes/hangs... task manager sees nothing... but the machine sporadically becomes unresponsive for seconds to minutes at a time. Haven't found a common culprit when this happens...so I can't trigger it on command.

I'm currently firing prime95 on the machine just to see if there isn't a weird cpu/memory glitch.

I plan to shut the machine down, pull one drive offline, and reset things so it's running as a plain sata drive, not raid. Hopefully this would show me if the raid's the issue...or not.

other ideas?

 

[Poly15]

Run Memtest86 and a DFT. Memtest will check for errors in your ram ALOT better than Prime95 will, and your DFT will check your hard drives for any errors. Is this a fresh install of windows you are running on? Is this lag at startup or is it random times?

 

[Carphunter]

this is an existing install.

hangs are not at startup... I leave the machine on all the time. I notice the freezes when I am on the machine at night browsing, viewing videos...or doing whatever.

K, newb question from a non-newb... "DFT"? I assume that's a disk test... but what kind? (i understand now... drive fitness test... but I'm wondering if anyting will respond correctly to the drives in their raid... or if I need to unraid them and check them indvidually)

 

[engiNURD]

Drive Fitness Test. You can use Hitachi's, or WD's... they each have one (WD's is named differently).

Using consumer level drives in RAID isn't a good idea. Basically, the drives may be taking too long to recover from errors, causing problems for the RAID controller. If you have older revision drives, you can enable TLER using a tool from WD. But if you have newer drives, this is no longer an option. Google WD TLER for more info.

... or it could be simply because you're not using a fresh installation. How did you migrate (copy your old installation) to your new array? Did you use WD's old tool, or Acronis, or???

 

[Carphunter]

actually, in doing some more tests... I think it's just one of the drives is flaky. I pulled one out of the raid and started the machine.... problem still existed.

shut down again, restarted with only the second drive in... problem seems to have gone away.

gonna run tests on the suspect drive.