SATA-II Problems, HELP!

[Solema]

I'm hoping someone else here has a SATA-II drive on an NForce4 mobo and can help me. I just go two Hitachi 7K80 SATA-II drives and cannot get the BIOS or Windows to detect the drives as SATA-II. I am 100% positive that they are in fact SATA-II drives, as I have matched the part numbers directly to Hitachi's website. Are there any special BIOS tricks I need to do to get them running in SATA-II? Also, NCQ is correctly detected and enabled via the latest 6.53 NForce4 drivers from Nvidia's site.

My setup:

A8N-SLI Deluxe
A64 3200+ Winchester
1GB Corsair PC3200 XL
250GB WD2500JB (OS) Connected to Nvidia SATA port 1
Plextor PX-716SA Connected to Nvidia SATA port 2
80GB Hitachi 7K80 Connected to Nvidia SATA port 3
80GB Hitachi 7K80 Connected to Nvidia SATA port 4

I have tried removing the other SATA drives and connecting just the Hitachi's, to all ports, with no effect. Anyone have any advice? I'm desperate! TIA

Nick

 

[grdh20]

Did you use the Hitachi's F-Too utility to enable the sata2 on the drives? Sorry don't have the link, but it is needed to enable sata2 on these models. That should solve yopur problem.

 

[Dangermouse]

Feature tool (v1.97)

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

 

[Solema]

Thanks for help guys. I figured it out an hour after I posted after I called Hitachi, but it's good to know that there are knowledgeable people here I can go to for help!

 

[Dangermouse]

hey when you called Hitachi you didn't happen to find out what the spread spectrum thing is did you?

 

[Solema]

No, I didn't, but I did look it up on google before I changed to SATA-II, and as far as I can tell it doesn't have any bearing on performance, so I left it disabled. From what I can tell, it is more for some sort of low-level hardware diagnostics.

 

[DougLite]

I wouldn't fool with NCQ - it will most likely decrease performance unless you are multi tasking heavily with more than one disk intensive application.

 

[Lazn_Work]

hey when you called Hitachi you didn't happen to find out what the spread spectrum thing is did you?

Well when you are talking about MB's and BIOS options, spread spectrum is: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=8&var1=0&var2=133

"Spread Spectrum

Common Options : 0.25%, 0.5%, Smart Clock, Disabled

Quick Review

This BIOS feature allows you to reduce the EMI of your motherboard by modulating the signals it generates so that the spikes are reduced to flatter curves. It achieves this by varying the frequency slightly so that the signal does not use any particular frequency for more than a moment.

The BIOS usually offers two levels of modulation - 0.25% or 0.5%. The greater the modulation, the greater the reduction of EMI. Therefore, if you need to significantly reduce your motherboard's EMI, a modulation of 0.5% is recommended.

In most conditions, frequency modulation via this feature should not cause any problems. However, system stability may be slightly compromised in certain situations. For example, this BIOS feature may cause improper functioning of timing-critical devices like clock-sensitive SCSI devices.

Spread Spectrum can also cause problems with overclocked systems, especially those that have been taken to extremes. Even a slight modulation of frequency may cause the processor or any other overclocked components of the system to fail, leading to very predictable consequences.

Therefore, it is recommended that you disable this feature if you are overclocking your system. The risk of crashing your system is not worth the reduction in EMI. Of course, if EMI reduction is important to you, enable this feature by all means. But you should reduce the clock speed a little to provide a margin of safety."

Personally I don't give a rat's about EMI, so I always disable this.

My guess is that on the HD it has a similar purpose.

==>Lazn