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WD Raptor = No overclock???

Z

Zinn

Guest
Hey,

On both my DFI Lanparty NF4 and Asus SLI Premium, on two different CPUs, any amount of overclocking seems to corrupt the partitioning on my WD Raptor. I am not sure why this happens but it's annoying to not be able to push this rig at all for fear of losing all my data. I'm not talking about an insane overclock either. Both my 3500 and my 4400 have been prime, game and everything-stable at 2.6 ghz. But running this inevitably means reformatting a few days later.Has anyone else had this problem? Would I do better to lose the Raptor?
 
It's definitely not normal
I have a A8N-SLI Premium with a 4400+ @ 2.6GHz and a Raptor and I'm not having any problems

I'd suggest checking for memory errors first - run Memtest for at least 12 hours (24 if you can) at your overclocked speeds

However, it's strange you'd have the problem on both systems. If Memtest doesn't turn up anything, I'd do a zero fill on the Raptor just to clean out anything that may be on there, and if that doesn't work, I'd RMA it.
 
That is interesting, i've never heard of anything like that. You only own 1 raptor? but 2 systems? Or you upgraded to the 4400 from the 3500?

Change you SATA cable(dont use the one that comes with the Raptor), use a different power rail of your PSU to power your Raptor, try using a different PSU altogether.. other than that I can't think of anything else that might be causing that problem. If nothing fixes the problem make sure your OS cd isn't corrupted and perform a low level format

I'm running my 3500 venice @ 2.64ghz on a NF3 board with a Raptor as well and have been lucky enough to have not encouter this problem.
 
I ran into that problem with a RAID 0 configuration, but only when my overclock failed miserably. Just step it up slowly and you should be ok.
 
make sure you are using SATA ports 3 and 4 (the locked ones) because ports 1 and 2 are not locked and will cause data corruption above ~230 FSB
 
KaptainBlaZzed said:
make sure you are using SATA ports 3 and 4 (the locked ones) because ports 1 and 2 are not locked and will cause data corruption above ~230 FSB
Click to expand...
my Raptor is on port 1 and my 300GB Seagate drive is on port 2
no problems in over 3 months
 
No problem here either...overclocked system on raptor and maxline III. May be it is your raptor is um..dying?

Oh yeah, I have them run on port 3 and 4 since they are locked....Port 1 and 2 not good for overclocking...
 
maybe you guys are luckey but it is a WELL knowen fact that ports 1 and 2 are not locked on NF3 and NF4 chipsets.
I would not tempt fate with my OS install, or my data.
 
KaptainBlaZzed said:
maybe you guys are luckey but it is a WELL knowen fact that ports 1 and 2 are not locked on NF3 and NF4 chipsets.
I would not tempt fate with my OS install, or my data.
Click to expand...
That's strange because I've never heard anything about it.
 
sounds like your pushing your memory too much.

beleive it or not your memory will corrupt your install if o/c too much.
 
is your HT Link multipler too high? if its faster than 1000mhz thats a nono and will corrupt your windows i think..
 
EnderW said:
That's strange because I've never heard anything about it.
Click to expand...
It's true that port 1 and 2 are not locked. I made that changeover to 3-4 myself just recently, and it made a difference on my overclocking limits. There are lots of posts on boards out there about the SATA ports. You just have to go looking.
 
taichi said:
is your HT Link multipler too high? if its faster than 1000mhz thats a nono and will corrupt your windows i think..
Click to expand...
This is sometimes true, sometimes not. I have my HT at 1050, and it's fine. I wouldn't expect much more out of it though.
 
vmerc said:
It's true that port 1 and 2 are not locked. I made that changeover to 3-4 myself just recently, and it made a difference on my overclocking limits. There are lots of posts on boards out there about the SATA ports. You just have to go looking.
Click to expand...


Glad I found this out BEFORE my build. Why in the world would they not lock all of them?
 
Scroatdog said:
Glad I found this out BEFORE my build. Why in the world would they not lock all of them?
Click to expand...
If I recall it's due to the location on the board. They use the physically closest clock bus for each port. I might be wrong on this, but I think that's what it is.
 
magnuspah said:
No problem here either...overclocked system on raptor and maxline III. May be it is your raptor is um..dying?

Oh yeah, I have them run on port 3 and 4 since they are locked....Port 1 and 2 not good for overclocking...
Click to expand...

I was also recently told to switch over to sata port 3 on my nf4 LP sli-d to boost my overclock. , I haven't tried it yet because I thought it was just my CPU but I guess this is enough to give it a shot.

but im NOT understanding what you guys mean when you say "locked and unlocked"
can you explain it? and also if I just suddenly change to port3, nothing happens OS wise right?

thanks
 
aldy402 said:
I was also recently told to switch over to sata port 3 on my nf4 LP sli-d to boost my overclock. , I haven't tried it yet because I thought it was just my CPU but I guess this is enough to give it a shot.

but im NOT understanding what you guys mean when you say "locked and unlocked"
can you explain it? and also if I just suddenly change to port3, nothing happens OS wise right?

thanks
Click to expand...
Technically PCI locked and PCI unlocked. PCI locked means that the clock of the SATA port is locked to the PCI bus. The unlocked ports just follow the FSB clock. The PCI bus is locked at whatever the PCI spec is so you don't fry all the addon boards.

When I changed my RAID array from 1-2 over to 3-4 I didn't have even a hint of an issue from XP. All I did was move the cables over and boot up.
 
vmerc said:
Technically PCI locked and PCI unlocked. PCI locked means that the clock of the SATA port is locked to the PCI bus. The unlocked ports just follow the FSB clock. The PCI bus is locked at whatever the PCI spec is so you don't fry all the addon boards.

When I changed my RAID array from 1-2 over to 3-4 I didn't have even a hint of an issue from XP. All I did was move the cables over and boot up.
Click to expand...

great writeup , thanks i'll switch them when i get home from work
 
aldy402 said:
but im NOT understanding what you guys mean when you say "locked and unlocked" can you explain it? and also if I just suddenly change to port3, nothing happens OS wise right?
Click to expand...

Devices on the PCI bus are not supposed to be run over it's normal operating speed (33MHz I think). However, some motherboards use a division of the system bus speed to "derive" the PCI bus instead of installing a separate absolute clock. So if the system bus is running at 200 and the PCI bus is a _divider_ of say 1/6, what's going to happen when you raise the system bus speed? 1/6 of 250 is _way_ out of spec for the PCI bus. i.e. "Unlocked".

Board makers can choose to install a separate clock (called a quartz I think) to say to the PCI device in question, "get your speed from this thing that is running at 33MHz". i.e. "Locked"

Typically, ports 1 & 2 are one type of HDD Controller (say NVidia) and ports 3 & 4 are a third party (for instance Promise). Moving a HDD from one type/brand of controller to another almost always has the potential to cause problems but since you've already booted to Windows, your OS should already "know" about the other controller and have drivers ready to go.

HTH
 
WarlordBB said:
Devices on the PCI bus are not supposed to be run over it's normal operating speed (33MHz I think). However, some motherboards use a division of the system bus speed to "derive" the PCI bus instead of installing a separate absolute clock. So if the system bus is running at 200 and the PCI bus is a _divider_ of say 1/6, what's going to happen when you raise the system bus speed? 1/6 of 250 is _way_ out of spec for the PCI bus. i.e. "Unlocked".

Board makers can choose to install a separate clock (called a quartz I think) to say to the PCI device in question, "get your speed from this thing that is running at 33MHz". i.e. "Locked"

Typically, ports 1 & 2 are one type of HDD Controller (say NVidia) and ports 3 & 4 are a third party (for instance Promise). Moving a HDD from one type/brand of controller to another almost always has the potential to cause problems but since you've already booted to Windows, your OS should already "know" about the other controller and have drivers ready to go.

HTH
Click to expand...
In the case of the NF3/4 it's all Nvidia RAID controlled.
 
N H O said:
u sir are living dangerously
Click to expand...
Guess so, but I spend a lot of time reading forums/hardware sites and this is the first I've ever heard of it.
I'll switch them out when I install my SCSI drive next week. You think it will help my OC any?
 
Scroatdog said:
Are all the NF4 boards like this, or just DFI??
Click to expand...
tbh, i've never come across an nf4 board that doesn't have locked sata. check to make sure your pci bus is locked first
 
Wow. Just wow. I was going to wait for the DFI Expert (which seems to be delayed inef) but I might just go and get the EPoX SLI instead.
 
yea, its been known for quite a while that ports 1 and 2 wont lock on nf3 boards.
 
Wow. :eek: I never knew about ports 1 and 2 not being locked. I'll bet that's the problem right there. I'm gonna have another go tonite with the raptor on port 3.
 
Zinn said:
Wow. :eek: I never knew about ports 1 and 2 not being locked. I'll bet that's the problem right there. I'm gonna have another go tonite with the raptor on port 3.
Click to expand...
on nf3 yes. nf4, they should be locked. as i said, check your pci bus. i was able to break 400mhz with two sata drives on either 1+2 or 3+4
 
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