Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with Intel processors => Topic started by: ozemail on November 03, 2010, 06:06:53 am
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Hi,
Built a system with a GA-P55-USB3 board and setup an intel raid mirror. Everytime the ssytem boots it says status: rebuild. Should it be saying rebuild every boot?
2nd why are there the 2 raid controllers, the Intel P55-H55 chipset controller RAID and the Gigabyte Sata2 controller RAID? Is one a hardware raid and the other only uses software raid or something?
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Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.
No it shouldn't have to rebuild the RAID1 array everytime that you boot up.
What disks have you got and how are they connected up?
There are two RAID controllers because one is part of the Southbridge chip and the other is a seperate chip.
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2nd why are there the 2 raid controllers, the Intel P55-H55 chipset controller RAID and the Gigabyte Sata2 controller RAID? Is one a hardware raid and the other only uses software raid or something?
Neither is hardware the only hardware they do is allow you to boot off them then software take over.
Why 2 raid controllers? It an addon an extra the blue SATA ports are best for RAID.
Why is your array rebuilding and use RST and let it rebuild.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2101&DwnldID=18859&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel%c2%ae+RST)&lang=eng
An number of reasons why its rebuilding here:
Your OC cause a OC to not just the CPU & RAM but other things too test the system at stock clock speeds.
Bad shut down.
Bad drive
Bad SATA or power cable.
Your drive are GreenPower and don't work in RAID and should not be used in RAID.
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They are 2 Samsung 750GB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm HDD plugged into SATA 0 and SATA 1.
It is a brand new computer we just built (work in a computer store) and not using any OC.
Going to try it on the Gigabyte ports and see if it still has the same problem.
EDIT:
Well couldn't try to run the intel software in windows since hwile windows installed and booted fine yesterday today it keeps crashing while its loading (Windows 7 Pro).
Decided to try the Gigabyte ports this time and instead of saying rebuild on every boot like the intel one it says the RAID is normal :| See what happens once we get Windows installed and if there are any problems.
Okay well thats a no go, try to install windows and it wont install says need 8GB free :| tell itto make a partition and all it makes is the 100MB system partition then will not install on the unpartitioned sapce, try to partition the unpartitioned and you get an error 0x80300024. Try to deleted the 100MB partition to try and partition it all again and you get an error 0x800706ba.
Now when you reboot the 2nd disk says its no longer in a RAID and get a status degraded. So went back into setup deleted the RAID and made a new RAID and on reboot it still says the 2nd disk is not in RAID :|
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I take it you have loaded the chipset drivers and the RAID drivers from Intel, the rapid storage ones?
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For the issue while connected to the Intel, did you let the system sit long enough to finish the rebuild when you initially noticed this?
It will tell you it was done, or no errors found, but if you shut down or interrupt it then you will continue to see a rebuild state until you let it actually complete the rebuild.
As for moving around, you cant move RAID from one controller brand to another.
Put the drives back on the Intel controller, enter the Intel RAID ROM at startup via Control + I, then delete the array. Then from there create a new one
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Yes all the chipset and RAID drivers were installed when having the trouble with using Intel.
I don't know if it rebuilt or not but did not interupt it. Would just turn on the computer and it would say RAID status rebuild and sit on that screen for about 6 seconds or so then would start loading windows but crash during the windows update.
Finally got it working with the Gigabyte controller. Again all drivers are installed and windows Gigabyte RAID configurer was working fine. Computer was working fine all yesterday, installed windows, did all updates and drivers, restarted system about 12 times in total and each time said RAID normal.
Today get into work and turn it on and it says RAID rebuild "degraded/rebuild drive detected. it is suggeted to rebuild in the operating system to preserve the completeness of your data". That screen stays for a few seconds then it starts to load windows but thats it it stays stuck on the Starting Windows screen. Restart the computer and launch startup repair but that doesn't help so will need to reinstall again like when using the Intel however this time there were no updates being installed or anything it was all finished and working fine.
Surface scans find no porblems on either of the disks.
Obviously can't give it to the customer if it might end up like this one day when they turn it on, only thing left I can think of is to try the 32bit edition of windows incase its some issue with 64bit but I don't see why it would be.
Tried using the dos RAID setup utility to rebuild the disk and same as with the Intel it just says rebuilding fail! check hard disk.
Do you think it could be the hard disk even though all diagnostics on it come back fine or could it be the motherboard? Definately has to be something wrong with something for it to keep occuring.
Okay was going to try putting another disk in to see if it would rebuild to it and now it's saying status Conflict. A couple of times it has also been stuck on "Detecting drives" when the Gigabyte controller starts.
Tried another set of new cables and finally have it rebulding so see what happens. be annoyed if it is just the cables since have already replaced them once to make sure it wasn't them lol.
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I don't know about the Samsung F3s but it might be worth checking if they have done the same on them as on the Western Digitals and removed the TLER compliance so they don't run in RAID mode properly. With the WD drives you now have to pay extra for the Enterprise versions if you want to RAID them. It definitely sounds like the same problem we had.
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32 & 64 bit windows should not make a difference.
Your PSU could be bad......or both HDD's not running right...
with RAID 1 if one drive goes bad windows should still boot as its not this is like the worst thing that can happen so bad PSU or both HDD's are bad.
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Is your memory 100% tested stable, if not this could cause data corruption as well.
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We are also having the same issue:
I have five identical machines with exactly the same P55-USB3 v2.0 Motherboard. The first "test" machine that I built worked perfectly and still does not give me any problems. However, the four additional machines are ALL causing major headaches. They are all using Western Digital hard drives.
The setup is as follows:
Windows XP Pro SP3
SATA PORT 0 - A single stand alone 160GB Western Digital HD which runs the operating system and ALL applications.
SATA PORT 1 - 2TB Western Digital HD (RAID 1) (Model WD20EARS)
SATA PORT 2 - 2TB Western Digital HD (RAID 1) (Model WD20EARS)
SATA PORT 3 - Stand alone 2TB Western Digital HD (Backup Drive) (Model WD20EARS)
The idea is to have a 2TB RAID 1 drives to store all of our critical customer data. In addition, we've added single stand alone 2TB drive which every night, using a backup program called SyncBack, has all of the data from the 2TB RAID drive copied to the stand alone 2TB "backup" drive as yet another layer of protection against failure.
The data stored on the 2TB RAID is never "in use" is simply data storage. It is never being access from any other computers or any applications.
The problems we are experiencing are as follows:
The 2TB RAID array is constantly going into degraded condition. One of the drives in the array continually shows up as “offline” “failed” “error occurred” We can reset the drive status to normal and it will rebuild the array to 100% and then it will run OK for a day or two until it fails again.
The second issue is that when copying the data to the stand alone 2TB backup drive we consistently get the following error:
{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.
The error log also shows these errors:
1. An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during a paging operation.
2. The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.
To troubleshoot I’ve already done the following steps:
1. Updated BIOS to latest F9 Version
2. Ran official Western Digital HD Diagnostics in FULL TEST on all hard drives. ( They all passed 100%)
3. Purchased another set of brand new SATA cables
4. Replaced the hard drives with another set of brand new hard drives (Tested them as well 100% OK)
5. Downloaded and installed latest version of Intel Rapid Storage Technology Application
6. Deleted entire RAID array, Deleted all Partitions on HD, Recreated RAID array, Reformatted RAID 1 drive.
7. Performed clean install of the OS from XP Pro Disc
8. Took an EXACT CLONE using ghost of the original working ‘test” computers OS hard drive and used in the problem machines.
9. Replaced the entire motherboard with another brand new one
10. Replaced the memory
11. Replaced the power supply
12. Replaced the CPU
At this point I have no other choice but to feel the problem is with the motherboard itself. Again, I have five machines all identical and only one of the works without issue. These problems are occurring on all four of the other machines. I’ve spent the last three weeks swapping out parts, rebuilding raids, replacing cables, OS’s, etc and still after a day or two the problem resurfaces and drives start going offline and being unable to copy the data to the backup drive.
Any advice you can give will be appreciated.
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Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.
My feeling is that it is because you are using Western Digital hard drives for the RAID which are not the Enterprise versions that are made for this. The trouble being that they don't have the TLER and so either get dropped or don't even get picked up properly in the first place. Until recently this wasn't a problem as you could retro enable TLER on the WD drives but more recently they have made this impossible now and you have to purchase the more expensive RAID friendly version.
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I've been told there is a limit to the capacity that the RAID controller on this motherboard can handle and that is why I'm having problems. Is it true that a 2TB RAID 1 Mirror exceeds the capability of the RAID controller on this motherboard? I don't want to buy these more expensive drive just to have the same issue...!
Thanks
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It's true that there is a limit of 2TB for a single partition but that isn't just for RAID. Maybe it would be a good idea to check with GGTS for clarification on this RAID size issue as I am not sure.
I am afraid they will take probably about a week to answer but I can't do anything about that!
Just enter your email address and click on the language of choice.
GGTS http://ggts.gigabyte.com.tw/Default.aspx
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Have you tested the memory and full system for stability using Memtest86+ for 8 hours, and or prime95 for several hours?
Just wondering it maybe some slight instability is causing the issues. You could also try increasing the ICH voltage a little bit, that may help too.
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I finally found the solution.
I has four hard drives in my system and using a power supply that was a MAX of 500W. Apparently, the system needs more power to run properly. I replaced the power supply with a 1000W power supply and everything works perfectly. I guess lack of power was causing the drives to run properly and in turn causing them to go offline and the RAID to constantly fail.
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We find this all the time. People use these online power calculators and say I only need x amount of watts and really don't believe us when we try and tell them differently.
Anyway glad you found the problem and fixed it.
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*** SOLUTION FOUND
After weeks of swapping out parts I've finally found out the cause the problem. It turns out the power supply was not large enough to handle the power draw from all the components. I was using a power supply that has a MAX of 500W output which I thought was enough to handle the motherboard, basic graphics cards and four hard drives but apparently it wasn't. The drives were constantly turning on and off causing delay write fail, raid failure etc. I replaced the power supply with 1000W Max output and everything works perfectly. All the drives detect properly, not a single issue of read/write problems. Not a single rebuild etc.
MAKE SURE YOU'VE GOT A LARGE POWER SUPPLY WHEN USING MULTIPLE DRIVES!!!
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The thing is on the whole a large PSU isn't significantly more pricey than a small PSU unless you go to the very cheap end of the market and then you deserve all that you get.