X 3220 Rig

I just put together a new system, and I think Im having some issues but not really 100% sure......I know I have a few misunderstandings but not sure if I have things setup and configured 100% correctly either.

CPU: X3220 G0 + TR Ultra 120-E
Mobo: P5K Premium with BIOS American Megatrends version 0204 (latest and most up to date from asus website).
Memory: 4 X 1 gb Crucial Ballistix PC8500
Hard Drives: 4 X 320 gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 perps
(drives are supposed to be, and hopefully setup in Matrix RAID 0 (400gb)/ 5 (600gb)
Corsair HX620W
Vista x64 Ultimate.

I put the rig together, booted to bios, checked temps for like 20 mins and looked good with cpu/mobo both at 30c solid. Changed BIOS settings for RAID enabled.

Went into RAID array setup utility. Seemed fairly intuitive and simple. Sliced 400gb (100 per drive) for RAID 0 with a block of 128. Sliced the remaining amt (worked out to be 593gb or something) into RAID 5 with a block of 64.

Popped the Vista x64 DVD in the drive and started install. When asked for drivers I used the P5K CD that came with the board, and Vista automatically picked a Jmicron Vista driver and continued with install. Installed Vista NP, setup drivers, etc.......

When I go into BIOS now, I do not see any HD at all. None are listed.

There are 2 screens that flash VERY quickly after POST.

Screen 1) So quick I cant see everything. Top line is something about Jmicron but cant see. Next line says " Detect Drives Done no any drive found" worded EXACTLY like that.

Screen 2)RAID setup utility screen. It flashes quickly so once again I cant see all details, but I see 4 drives listed, and all say normal in green.

Computer works fine as far as routine functioning, so obviously there ARE drives there....but...Im really confused. Is there some way to slow these screens down so I can read them? A dump file somewhere with the information that I can retreive? Any way at all I can determine if the RAID setup is done properly?

I cant use HD tach bc I am running Vista, so I ran HD tune and got a burst speed of 117 (seems WAY WAY WAY LOW????) and an average of about 100 or so. Seems off......

Another weird thing.....I have 4 X 1gb Crucial Ballistix PC8500/1066 Mhz. In CPU-Z it says PC6400 (400 Mhz). I assume its really 800Mhz since its DDR2 and dual pumped, but still....Why isnt it showing the proper 1066 Mhz (or actually would say 533Mhz)???

Same thing with the CPU.. CPU-Z shows my X3220 at 1.6Ghz instead of 2.4 Ghz. POST screen clearly shows it at the proper 2.4Ghz.

Any input on these issues/questions appreciated

HD Tune:

Dawgdoc said:

There are 2 screens that flash VERY quickly after POST.

Screen 1) So quick I cant see everything. Top line is something about Jmicron but cant see. Next line says " Detect Drives Done no any drive found" worded EXACTLY like that.

Screen 2)RAID setup utility screen. It flashes quickly so once again I cant see all details, but I see 4 drives listed, and all say normal in green.

Click to expand...

Be ready and put your finger at your "PAUSE/BREAK" button, once they show up, just press it to freeze em, press any other key to continue.

Dawgdoc said:

I cant use HD tach bc I am running Vista, so I ran HD tune and got a burst speed of 117 (seems WAY WAY WAY LOW????) and an average of about 100 or so. Seems off......

Click to expand...

Actually it is the "Average" speed that you want to improve and watch for, that high burst speed is just the nice side effect of Intel raid when Write Back cache enabled and won't affect any of the real life performance.

Enable your Write Back Cache at Intel Matrix Console like this HERE, look at the last pic.

Rerun the benchmark again, and compare ! Trust me, your average will be higher and of course that crazy burst that you're expecting !

Bing thx for the info.

Where can I find that Intel Matrix RAID console though?

Simple, by downloading Intel Matrix Storage Manager & installing it ! -> HERE












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TY Bing!

You're a huge help!!

Ok here are the first benchies after getting everything set up.

Looks smooooooooth to me but what do you guys think?

Ohhh...and BTW...how do you get a screenshot of your desktop? Or if not that...do whatever it is that you need to do in order to get the crisp clean images of SuperPi, CPU-Z, HD Tach, etc for posting purposes?

Thanks!

Press Alt-PrintScreen button to capture the active window, open MS-Paint, at "Image" menu choose attributes or Ctrl-E, change the width & height to 1, and edit & paste, save as PNG.

Re-run & repost again for your HDTune as well to see the comparison with the old one !









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Hmmm... Interesting.

Not sure I understand it, but here is my repeat on my HD Tune after enabling write back cache. It is DEFINITELY better than my previous one, but not nearly as good as my HD tach info.

Why is that?

Hmmm... Interesting.

Not sure I understand it, but here is my repeat on my HD Tune after enabling write back cache. It is DEFINITELY better than my previous one, but not nearly as good as my HD tach info.

Why is that?

They use different method and measurement, that is why you don't compare them, unless you try to disable WBC again, run the HDTach to see the different.

Stick with one program and observe the difference, thats matter !

One thing for sure your average jumped from 98.6MB/s to 274.7MB/s, that is more than 100% ! Congrats !






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Redo on HD Tach after my last post....

Disable the WBC again and re-do the HDTach to see the performance difference !

Tips : You can save the HDTach result (Save Results button), and then compare (Compare Another Drive button) with the new result in a nice two slopes comparison screen !







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Sweet

Thats a heck of a performance gain from enabled the write cache