# A78NX-E Deluxe + 1TB Sata = insanely slow write performance



## Jeraden (Feb 12, 2008)

I have an old A78NX-E Deluxe board that I use in a PC acting as a media storage server. I previously had 2 SATA 250GB drives (both sata i) and 2 250GB PATA drives. I was running out of space, so I figured I'd remove one of the 250GB Sata drives and put in a 1TB sata drive instead.

So, I got a WD 1TB WD10EACS drive. Initially, the computer would freeze during the sata detection at the beginning. After much struggling, I manged to update the motherboard to the latest BIOS (1013) and also bring the SATA controller (sil 3112a) up to the latest bios (don't have the version on me right now). I also have the latest drivers for the sata raid controller loaded. I also set the jumper on the drive to set it to 1.5gb mode.

It now detects the drive, boots fine, windows finds the drive and installs it. I formatted it doing a quick format, and that was fine. However, the drive is slow as molasses when you write to it. It reads quite speedily, but writing is insanely slow. A 4GB transfer to it was estimated at 25 minutes. Once data is on it, I can read data off it just fine and it transfers to other drives fast. So for some reason something is messed up with the write performance.

I ran the WD extended test diagnostics on it last night, and it didn't detect any issues, though I'm not sure what all it tests on it.

Is there anything I can do to figure out why write performance is so bad? The other SATA drive works fine, its just this one it chokes on.


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## 2pistolpacker (Dec 3, 2007)

I have read a lot about the NForce2 chipset having problems with SATA controllers. I own a system with this board, but have never used an SATA drive in it because of that, and plus I have a lot of IDE drives laying around. Since the drive tests fine with the diagnostic utility, download and run HDtach or try the drive in another system. Since this is an older chipset, it is possible these controllers don't fully support this large of a drive. Mike


HdTach


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## midknight (Apr 8, 2008)

Hi Jeraden,

I am in exactly the same position, slightly different motherboard.

My system uses an ASUS K8N-E Deluxe. This has 2 SATA (SIL3112) and 4 SATA (SIL3114) connections. It currently has hooked up:
1x750GB PATA
2x500GB SATA (on the SIL3112)

I got 3 ST31000340as 1TB drives and a ST labs 4 port SATA (SIL3114) PCI card - I originally forgot I had the other 4 ports on the MB so just bought the PCI card.

When I installed the PCI card and the 3 1TB drives I found, as you did, the 1TB drives exetemely slow. At 1 point 1 of the drives did "come to life" and worked at a respectable speed - but it stopped and hasn't done it since.

I've re-installed the OS (MCE2005) and tried the 1TB drives on the MB SIL3112 ports - same slow result. When I tried to connect the 1TB drives to the MB SIL3114 ports the PC locks up at boot time (but the 3114 bios is old). The 2 500GB SATA drives I have all work on all SATA ports no problem (including the PCI card).

I also tried the 1TB in a USB caddy on a laptop - it worked fine and fast.

I've used the latest drivers - but I supsect it's the MB bios that needs the fix. The PCI card has the latest drivers / bios installed but I really think it must be a MB issue. Sadly it looks like the Bios development on the MB stopped a long time ago.

One thought just occured to me - what If I disabled ALL of the MB SATA ports (currently I just have the 4 SIL3114 ports disabled) - and then run all the SATA drives from the PCI card - I wonder if that would fix it - that's one for the weekend I think.

Also -- I did check in device manager on the controller cards (the PCI and the MB ones) that all drives were using DMA and set to the appropriate UDMA mode - everything looked good there.


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## 2pistolpacker (Dec 3, 2007)

Let us know if disabling the SATA controllers and using the PCI card fixes the problem. Mike


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## Jeraden (Feb 12, 2008)

I never did get the drive working in that PC. I actually decided that PC was old, so I might as well upgrade. So I upgraded my main computer, and moved my parts into the computer I was trying to install this drive in. So that computer switched to a MSI K8N Neo4 - and wouldn't you know it, it had the same exact problem!
So then I tried it in the brand new computer with an abit IP35-E and it finally worked properly. So I think it was just something with the older chips/drivers not liking sataII drives.
Now, the weird thing is, the Neo4 PC started having all sorts of problems with another SATA drive I had in there (though I believe it was a SATA I drive). It would constantly revert back to PIO mode. After doing some research online, people recommended NOT using the specific SATA drivers in windows for the onboard SATA controller, and instead just using the generic windows drivers for it. I tried that and it actually worked - it solved the DMA/PIO issue. So I was tempted to go back and try the 1TB drive in that computer, but its already in my main computer and I deemed it too much hassle.

But maybe its something to try. Just uninstall your chipset-specific sata drivers and just use the generic windows ones and see if that makes a difference.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

My room mate uses the regular A7N8X Deluxe with 2 SATA drives. No problems at all.


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## midknight (Apr 8, 2008)

Here's what I'll try next:

1) I'll un-install the motherboard SATA drivers and try generic windows ones.

2) Disable the entire Motherboard SATA ports and see if that helps just uing the PCI card.

Like I said before, at one point on 1 of these drives (I actually installed 3 in one go - I've got a lot of DVDs to put on this server) I managed to copy 125GB in about an hour and a bit - so I did get good transfer speed. That performance just disapeared never to be seen again.

One other thing which was slightly weird, the MB 3114 ports (4 of them) have been disabled. However, with the PCI card installed (which is also a 3114 chipset) I occasionally got the MB hanging with the MB 3114 initialization screen showing the model number of the 1tb drive - even though these ports were disabled! (I could tell it was the MB controller and not the PCI because the bios reported was very old). I could not figure out why the MB controller would be reporting anything when a) no drive connected and b) controller was disabled in the bios.

If the either one of the solutions 1),2) above actually work, I hope the addition of the PCI 3114 card does not start causing the MB to hang on some reboots - it's a wierd one for sure.

In the end it maybe that I just have to bite the bullet and upgrade the MB.

I'll keep this thread updated (it may take a while to get back to tyring this out though - I'm kinda sick of pulling drives in and out if this thing at the moment!)


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## midknight (Apr 8, 2008)

OK .. had a quick bash at updating the driver.

Firstly - the only "generic" SATA driver I could find was the UniATA driver from alt.org.ua. This seems to support a lot of motherboards and PCI cards, however I couldn't install the driver correctly. It seemed to identify my PCI SIL3114 card but when I tried installing the driver it came up with an error saying there was a problem in the "services section" of the inf file.

I managed to get it past this error (not sure if it is correct or not) so it seemed to install the driver for the card - but as soon as that install finished another device is detected (a Uniata SCSI miniport device) - and it tries (unsuccesfuly) to install that. In the end - computer virtually hangs (With a drive connected to the PCI sata port) - so I unistalled it all.

If I let the hardware wizard go to the windows update site it seems to find the latest SIL3114 driver (x.x.15 I think from memory) - this was the driver I originally installed. This one gives me painfully slow transfer speeds.

So - unless someone can point me to a "generic" SATA driver for the SIL3114 PCI card - I don't know what else to try (other than just disabling all of the MB SATA ports - haven't tried that yet.)

Unless there is some reg tweak needed, or a driver I can try - I really think I'm going to have to upgrade to a new motherboard.

What a pain ...

:sigh:


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## blah789 (Aug 25, 2008)

I know this is VERY late, but if anyone else ever stumbles upon it, here's an interesting reference:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/246470-32-hitachi-ultrastar-a7k1000-write-cache-settings
It basically says a user with the same motherboard (and same SATA chips) found the write cache bit got reset (that would explain original poster's write speed being so slow).
I do wonder if when you look at drive properties in Windows you'd be able to enable write caching, or if that would reset itself to off on reboot, or if that would simply be grayed out.


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