[ElderDruid]

I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out why games (e.g. NWN, Far Cry) are choppy when running off either of my Serial ATA drives. They run just fine off the lone IDE drive in my system. I have the latest drivers for every component in my system, I've defragmented the drives, etc.

My system specs are:
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B
512MB Corsair XMS in dual-channel mode
eVGA GeForce FX 5900 SE
120GB WD Special Edition on IDE1
(2) 80GB SATA Maxtor DiamondMax Plus drives

In Neverwinter Nights, the choppiness is really bad when playing from either of the SATA drives. Smooth as silk when running from the Western Digital drive.

I've tried (and returned) a WD Raptor. Same issue.

I disabled the Ethernet ports and removed my TV card (the only other card besides the video card in the system). Same issue.

I just did some Windows Performance Monitor tests while running Neverwinter Nights. In particular, the Logical Disk / Avg. Disk Queue Length numbers show that a huge bottleneck exists for the SATA drive:

Running from IDE on drive C:
Average = 0.017
Maximum = 0.394

Roughly the same test from SATA on drive D:
Average = 0.236
Maximum = 2.048

Now I'm not sure what those numbers really mean, but the relative values between the IDE and SATA runs certainly reflect what I see on screen when the game is running.

What else can I possibly try? Please advise. Thanks very much.

[jlin453]

Have you tried running hdd benchmarks like atto or hdtach on the sata drives? If scores are low in this category, have you tried the latest bios which might've updated sata drivers?

[ElderDruid]

Originally posted by jlin453
Have you tried running hdd benchmarks like atto or hdtach on the sata drives? If scores are low in this category, have you tried the latest bios which might've updated sata drivers?

The HDTach scores for the SATA are attached to this reply. I'm not sure if they are acceptable or not.

Also, can you please tell me if I can safely test my single drives with the 3114 controller set to "SATA RAID" in the BIOS instead of just "SATA"? Maybe that will make a difference. (but again, I will not actually have a RAID setup).

Thanks.

[theELVISCERATOR]

all your numbers look ok but your cpu usage..you have all mobo drivers installed?

[ElderDruid]

Originally posted by theELVISCERATOR
all your numbers look ok but your cpu usage..you have all mobo drivers installed?

I believe so. I know I have the latest Forceware drivers, as well as the latest Silicon Image drivers. Is there something else I need? Thanks a lot.

[blackjackel]

I have the same problem on an IDE drive:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=278276