2 raptors in raid 0

Hey guys I've had 2 raptor drives in raid 0 on my asus A7N8X dx board for awhile now and I finally got some good ram so I wanted to OC it a bit. I have a xp2500+ barton so I figured I could take the FSB up to 200 no problem....but I set it at 185 to be safe. I ran that fine and did prime 95 for 16 hrs no errors. Upon rebooting I get the bright idea to change my mem timings down some to get faster mem (they are 2x512 MB Kingston hyperX pc3200) they are rated at 2-3-2-6 so I tried to set it to those timings. After I rebooted it would go through all the POST and then when it would try to load windows I'd barely see the screen and then it would reboot. So I turned my mem timings back down and still get the same thing..............barely see the windows screen and poof back to post. So I'm wondering.............why would this do that? I thought that the PCI bus was locked so it wouldn't affect my raptors. Yet it would seem that it is the raptors since it won't load up windows but posts fine (all the settings back down to stock) yet no windows. Am I wrong to think that the PCI bus wasn't locked? Well anyways right now i'm and reformatting my system with only 1 raptor ......since I want to OC and raid doesn't seem to like being OC'd. Any ideas would be appreciated .

I ran into a similar problem when building a nice gaming system for a friend.

It appears that SATA controllers are NOT part of the PCI bus or at least do not follow the same timming that the PCI bus uses. So in that, SATA is very sensitive to overclocking the bus. Most review sites that I have read confirm this and as such have been limited on how high they can clock the CPU bus when useing SATA HDDs.

One way to get around the problem would be to use a PCI SATA controller so that the OC doesnt affect the SATA drives......

You probably corrupted your Windows install when you messed around with the mem timmings/FSB and that is the reason why Windows no longer runs.

Since PATA still runs off the PCI bus they are not affected by the OC with a AGP/PCI locked MB.

Foxy

Sweet thx for the reply............at least I know now why it isn't working and thats the big issue. My SATA is built into the MB and I don't really want to spend extra on a PCI SATA controller.........but if I want to OC thats what it looks like I'll have to do. Again thanks for the reply .

really so SATA is affected by overclocking? Are u sure cuss i thought everything SATA IDE and PCI, all were connected together on the bus so if you have locks youre in the clear

When I mess with my overclock and push it too far, even when I go back to the settings that work it won't boot xp, what I have to do is set it all to standard non overclock and then do a normal boot into xp, restart, set back to my normal overclocked settings and boot it fine after that. Maybe if you try that it will work?

I am pretty new to OCing, but I am running 2 36gb raptors in raid 0 and have had no problems with my OC. Maybe i just got lucky

Well im reading mixed stories while searching google, people say that the Nforce 2 boards have this problem, and the Nforce3's are ok.

I mean for one if my SATA wasnt affected by the locks then how am i still able to reach 278fsb without blue screens or clicks or lockup's.

I was searching around the net and it seems ppl have had mixed results with the SATA and OC'n. Some will allow them up to 200fsb and up to 230 and some won't make 200fsb. It would seem that I won't be able to reach 200 fsb with my raptors. So I had an idea...........would it be better to buy a PCI to SATA RAID controller so that the SATA is for sure on the PCI bus? Or do u think I would run into the same problem?

My sata Raid Zero Raptor setup is fine up to 260 fsb, then again its INTEL.