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Problem: C:\ shows as removable

Q

Quay

n00b
Joined
Sep 25, 2005
Messages
16
Howdy howdy folks, I've run into a problem and i'm stumped. I've recently upgraded a few things and have ran into some speed bumps.

( I completely understand why this SOUNDS like a video card problem, but please just read and you'll see why I include seamingly unimportant details.)

Computer as of 1 week ago:
Asus SLI, Athlon X2 3800+ (stock speeds), 3 harddrives, 1gig Cosair DDR400, dual BFG 6800GT OC, Audigy LS

Few days ago I upgraded:
another 1gig Cosair DDR400 (exact same model # and everything, so now 4x512mb), Creative X-FI XtremeMusic, Logitech Z-5550.

Now for my problem which began shorty after the new parts. I first noticed a little bit of a slow-down while playing WoW. I get a constant 64fps (which is an strange number, eh?) but every 4 seconds I get a 1 second burst of 35fps (always 35, never a different number). This doesn't matter if I'm walking or standing still looking at the ground.

So, I've updated ALMOST everything. X-Fi updated, Video cards, windows. I attempted to run Asus Update... strange .dll failure. I've searched and seems this is a problem with Creative conflicting... one possible soultion offered (change a registry value) didn't work. I tried to load nvidia's nforce4 update drivers... I began to get ANOTHER strage error "Another copy of Microsoft Installer is already running, please exit this program"

Then my freaky problem happens... I noticed the "Safely Remove Hardware" logo in my task bar. Upon clicking it, I see this:
hdprob.jpg


Woah, my primary harddrive is removeable? I think this is what is causing my lag skips (since it didn't skip BEFORE this lil guy popped up) and was wondering if any of your harddrive guru's could help whip my windows into shape.

Thanks a lot for your time, sorry if I'm not the best typer in the world... just trying to give as many details as possible!

-Quay
 
i got that same issue when I changed my SATA cables. I had originally had them in the nvidia slots (which said all my HDDs were removable) and when I changed them to the Sil SATA ports it disappeared.

Just wondering do u also have the A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium?
 
I appreciate your speedy response

I have the basic A8N-SLI seen here link product specs from asus link

And I'm slightly confused as to what you mean by "nvidia slots" and "sil SATA" ports. Also, the C:\ which is seen as removeable is a SATA drive so it seems you may be on to something.

Another thing I noticed a moment ago, when I have the "Safely Remove Hardware" window up, my cursor goes to the hourglass once every 4 seconds (much like my lag in WoW) so I think I was correct in assumeing this is the source of my problem.

I also have the SATA drive plugged into the "lower right" out of the 4 spots available. Now that you mention it, I recall some people saying to plug their drives into SATA3, if that makes any sense. Is that safe to try? (as in, that will STAY as the C:\ boots to it, etc)
 
it sees the drive as hot swappable...

i fyou go into the drives properties under device manager there should be a place there to change it, which hopefully should get rid of tht icon


ps:
when a drive is seens as removable like that, it usually means the cache is disabled, which would probably be causing your lag
 
I edited my 2nd post slightly, didn't think you guys would reply so fast! Going to check the hot-swappable now. Also, how could I check to see if cache was disabled?

Checked in device manager, don't see anything about swapping. Much like the lag I get in wow/"safely remove hardware" screen, my device manager flashes. As soon as the device manager loads, it will constantly (again, about 4 seconds) contract + expand the trees as if it's constantly reloading something.
 
More update... might make a new post in processor forum to see if anyone can help figure this out.

I just noticed my processor usage jumps 10-15% once a second, no matter what i'm doing or what is running in the background.

usage.JPG
 
I think it has to do with Nforce drivers or installing your OS with the Sata Drive hooked up. Reason being is because I don't have the remove hardware icon anymore because I've reinstalled windows with the sata drive in and haven't installed those nforce drivers(IDE ones), which wrecked havoc on my comp's stability.
 
there should be 8 SATA slots to plug your hdd into the motherboard.

there are 4 that are nvidia raid slots and there are 4 Sil sata raid slots. they are depicted as red and black in color. If you are plugged into the red slots try plugging the sata cable into the black Sil slot and see what happens.
 
alkoholik said:
there should be 8 SATA slots to plug your hdd into the motherboard.

there are 4 that are nvidia raid slots and there are 4 Sil sata raid slots. they are depicted as red and black in color. If you are plugged into the red slots try plugging the sata cable into the black Sil slot and see what happens.
Click to expand...

as seen here link
There are only 4 SATA slots on the regular A8N-SLI mobo. 4 Blacks
 
The Safely Remove Hardware icon is normal, just set it to always hide on the taskbar customization options.
 
Mine is the same way on a Gigabye K8N Pro. I have some stuttering problems in games i wonder if this could be causeing it.
 
I'm not sure, I don't believe I'm running the harddrive as a RAID. I'm currently doing a virus scan and crossing my fingers. Next step is to 100% remove Creative drivers/software and reinstall. I closed DLLML.EXE and my processor only constantly jumped 5% rather than 10-15%... so methinks creative is up to this madness.

Anyway to figure out if I have nvraid installed?
 
devman said:
The Safely Remove Hardware icon is normal, just set it to always hide on the taskbar customization options.
Click to expand...

I understand the icon is normal, but that doesn't explain why it suddenly started to show up and why my system goes to "hourglass" every 4 seconds when i have the "safely remove hardware" window open. It's almost obvious that the harddrive has something crazy going on with it causing the strange processor usage spikes (spike up = hourglass, spike down = no hourglass)
 
When you use the Nvidia IDE drivers it views your SATA drives as removable. I have adopted the practice of not installing the Nvidia Storage drivers since the Microsoft once work fine, have less problems and you don't get the Safely Remove Hardware Icon.
 
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