Bios for BD-7 RAID with HPT2.34 driver

[BTInternet News]

I have installed the latest BIOS for this board which claims to support HPT driver 2.32. However the only driver available on the ABIT site is 2.34. Can this be the cause of problems I'm having? Whenever I try to transfer a high volume of data (GBytes) between drives - the system speaker beeps after a few minutes and then the machine spontaneously switches off!! If it is a driver mismatch where can I get BIOS to support 2.34 drivers or if not possible where can I get 2.32 HPT driver?? Note this is BD-7 RAID not BD-7-II. Thanks John I

 

[TomG]

you should always match the Highpoint bios and driver. this *could* be part of the problem but I have to admit, I have never heard of a system switching off due to this. lockups, hanging, slow transfers and that kind of stuff, yes, but powering down, nope.

you can find all revisions of the drivers at www.highpoint-tech.com or on my server at the address below. you can lower the driver revision to 2.32 or, you can try to locate a mainboard bios version that has the 2.34 Highpoint bios embedded. be aware that you cannot flash the Highpoint bios without flashing the mainboard bios. the Highpoint bios is contained within the mainboard bios and is flashed by way of flashing the mainboard bios. therefore, if you want to update the Highpoint bios, you must find a version of mainboard bios that you wish to run that has the version of Highpoint bios you wish to run embedded.

it is quite possible that I already have the bios you are looking for on my site under the /beta folder. I keep custom bios sets under /bets just to keep them separate from the regular released mainboard bios sets from Abit.

 

[BTInternet]

Thanks Tom - I did already look in your FTP resources but the BD-7 BIOS's are quite old. For the moment I located a 2.32 driver to match the BIOS but this did not change the situation.

So have a go at this new information I have discovered....can anyone explain it?

The problem - the PC switches off (power) abruptly approx 5 minutes in to a heavy file copy between the two sets of striped RAID drives. When I look at the Winbond, Hardware Doctor there seems to be a sudden short temperature surge on the processor from 45 to 60 or 70 plus. File transfer shows as a low processing prority in Windows Task Manager 15% or so. So this is not stress/reason for overheating. Also I can run the processor at 100% continuously without risk of overheating.

So why should the CPU temperature surge with low processing dempand? Should I be suspecting the power supply? My machine is heavily hardware loaded.

Any suggestions?

Thanks John I

"TomG" wrote:

you should always match the Highpoint bios and driver. this *could* be part of the problem but I have to admit, I have never heard of a system switching off due to this. lockups, hanging, slow transfers and that kind of stuff, yes, but powering down, nope.

you can find all revisions of the drivers at www.highpoint-tech.com or on my server at the address below. you can lower the driver revision to 2.32 or, you can try to locate a mainboard bios version that has the 2.34 Highpoint bios embedded. be aware that you cannot flash the Highpoint bios without flashing the mainboard bios. the Highpoint bios is contained within the mainboard bios and is flashed by way of flashing the mainboard bios. therefore, if you want to update the Highpoint bios, you must find a version of mainboard bios that you wish to run that has the version of Highpoint bios you wish to run embedded.

it is quite possible that I already have the bios you are looking for on my site under the /beta folder. I keep custom bios sets under /bets just to keep them separate from the regular released mainboard bios sets from

Abit.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

ftp://geerynet.d2g.com
ftp://68.98.180.8 Abit Mirror <----- Cable modem IP
This IP is dynamic so it *could* change!...
over 117,000 FTP users served!
^^^^^^^

... a few minutes and then the machine spontaneously switches off!! If it is a
driver mismatch where can I get BIOS to support 2.34 drivers or if not
possible where can I get 2.32 HPT driver?? Note this is BD-7 RAID not
BD-7-II. Thanks John I

 

[BTInternet]

Thanks to Tom for the suggestions. I now have a matched Bios and Driver (2.32) and the problem remains. Here's some more info.

The problem happens when transferring Gigabytes between the two striped pairs, after a few minutes the PC spontaneously shuts itself down.

I have noted that the WInbond Hardware Doctor shows very brief pulses of high CPU temperature. Is P4 shut down a built in measure when a certain temp is reached??

However I can run the processor continuously at full load (100%) witthout overheating. And file transfer seems to need only 15% or so of CPU power - so why should the CPU overheat?

Could it be the power supply the machine is heavily loaded with drives and other hardware?

Any new ideas?

Thanks John I

 

[TomG]

do you monitor temperatures and such with something like Motherboard Monitor? available at

 

[TomG]

"BTInternet" wrote:

Thanks to Tom for the suggestions. I now have a matched Bios and Driver (2.32) and the problem remains. Here's some more info.

The problem happens when transferring Gigabytes between the two striped pairs, after a few minutes the PC spontaneously shuts itself down.

I have noted that the WInbond Hardware Doctor shows very brief pulses of high CPU temperature. Is P4 shut down a built in measure when a certain temp is reached??

P4 processors have thermal throttling to back themselves down if they get too hot but they don't shut off in my experience.

However I can run the processor continuously at full load (100%) witthout overheating. And file transfer seems to need only 15% or so of CPU power - so why should the CPU overheat?

Could it be the power supply the machine is heavily loaded with drives and other hardware?

absolutely. if I build a system now, I install something in the 400 watt range such as the Antec TruePower True480, 480 watt supply. with the way video cards are so power hungry that they require their own power plugs on the card and the multiple drives in systems, etc...

 

[Yuma]

For the shutdown, have you checked the bios setting under "Pc health status" item "shutdown temp" maybe you have it set at 70 deg C.

For the CPU temp rise, you are using two raid 0 array which gives you the double CPU utilization what can cause the high temp pulse.

The HPT 2.32 is what Tom said earlier an slow performer, you better use the 2.34, I think it will solve all your problems.

What is the power rating of the PSU?
Have you checked the voltage drop of the 12V and 5V power line during file transfer in Winbond?

You can send me the origin bios and I will insert the HPT 2.34 for you send it to

Huib.

"BTInternet" wrote:

Thanks to Tom for the suggestions. I now have a matched Bios and Driver (2.32) and the problem remains. Here's some more info.

The problem happens when transferring Gigabytes between the two striped pairs, after a few minutes the PC spontaneously shuts itself down.

I have noted that the WInbond Hardware Doctor shows very brief pulses of high CPU temperature. Is P4 shut down a built in measure when a certain temp is reached??

However I can run the processor continuously at full load (100%) witthout overheating. And file transfer seems to need only 15% or so of CPU power - so why should the CPU overheat?

Could it be the power supply the machine is heavily loaded with drives and other hardware?

Any new ideas?

Thanks John I

 

[BTInternet]

OK, so I'm hoping I've got to the bottom of it. In the new BIOS CR (not sure about previous versions) there is a shutdown on over temperature selection. Highest setting is 75c. I have disabled it on the following basis. In recent weeks I have replaced the processor from 2.0 to 2.66 and the new one does run marginally hotter. Using the Winbond Hardware Doctor it does seem that the temp jumps up occassionally and briefly when under combined load of hard disk transfers and 100% processor. I reproduced this when Norton Virus Scanning all drives which also triggers the problem it seems. Reading the P4 specs and information on the Intel web the processors themselves will gearchange down if overheating and Intel seem to acknowledge that brief overheating may sometimes occur as they say the performance hit will not be noticable as long as the heatsink is adequate and the overheating not sustained. My other thought is that I'm deeply suspicious of the temperatures the motherboard is reading, over the years the measurements have been far from accurate. So I will trust Intel internal protection and see if the problem goes away. It only happens when stressing the system as described above and I am using the supplied Intel heatsink. Thanks everyone for your help that led me to this conclusion. I hope I don't have to come back with a fried CPU message!!! John I

"TomG" wrote:

"BTInternet" wrote:

Thanks to Tom for the suggestions. I now have a matched Bios and Driver (2.32) and the problem remains. Here's some more info.

The problem happens when transferring Gigabytes between the two striped pairs, after a few minutes the PC spontaneously shuts itself down.

I have noted that the WInbond Hardware Doctor shows very brief pulses of high CPU temperature. Is P4 shut down a built in measure when a certain temp is reached??
... witthout overheating. And file transfer seems to need only 15% or so of CPU power - so why should the CPU overheat?

Could it be the power supply the machine is heavily loaded with drives and other hardware?

absolutely. if I build a system now, I install something in the 400 watt range such as the Antec TruePower True480, 480 watt supply. with the way video cards are so power hungry that they require their own power plugs on the card and the multiple drives in systems, etc...

--

Thomas Geery
...

 

[TomG]

I agree with the direction you are taking but I would also say that you should be mindful of the case air temperature. if the airflow is restricted and the case is heating up, then a cpu that would otherwise not run hot will then overheat. make sure your case airflow is decent and that heat is not building up so that you can get the best efficiency out of the cpu cooler.

 

[TomG]

he should not, however, use 2.34 drivers with 2.32 bios. if he is going to use 2.34, he needs to update the mobo bios to have a Highpoint bios that is
2.34 as well.

 

[BTInternet News]

Just in case you guys are still monitoring this thread here is an update:

Thanks to Huib he returned an updated Bios with 2.34 inserted all within 30 minutes - fantastic thank you. So I have the latest bios and the latest HPT drivers - now working well. However it did not seem to solve the tendancy to overheat and for the motherboard monitor to complain with beeps. Switching off the shutdown in bios worked but left me uneasy that a problem still existed. So I looked elsewhere.

It didn't mention it (because it didn't seem relevant at the time) but I am running a 2.66GHz 533 processor in this board. Using 130MHz clock and actually running at 2.60GHz with fast memory and fortunately it seems to work fine. However I suspect the core voltage spec is lower for these chips than the 2.0GHz/400 Northwood chips the board is designed for. So the default core voltage is 1.525v and as far as I can see the 2.66/533 runs at approx 1.4v. So I have reduced the core voltage in bios and I have a much happier machine. Ambient after an hour or so is 35c, proccessor 48.5c rising to 52c when working. This reduces the number of complaints I get from the bios "beep". I still get some which is a mystery but it seems I now have a stable machine which I am just rebuliding after the hard drive died two weeks ago.

Thanks guys for your help, as always very constructive input and once again fantastic help with the bios - I can't get over it...30 minute service!! Thanks

Cheers John I

"TomG" wrote:

he should not, however, use 2.34 drivers with 2.32 bios. if he is going to use 2.34, he needs to update the mobo bios to have a Highpoint bios that is 2.34 as well.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

ftp://geerynet.d2g.com
ftp://68.98.180.8 Abit Mirror <----- Cable modem IP
This IP is dynamic so it *could* change!...
over 117,000 FTP users served!
^^^^^^^
... the double CPU utilization what can cause the high temp pulse.

The HPT 2.32 is what Tom said earlier an slow performer, you better use the 2.34, I think it will solve all your problems.

What is the power rating of the PSU?
Have you checked the voltage drop of the 12V and 5V power line during file transfer in Winbond?

You can send me the origin bios and I will insert the HPT 2.34 for you send it to

...

Driver

(2.32) and the problem remains. Here's some more info.

The problem happens when transferring Gigabytes between the two striped pairs, after a few minutes the PC spontaneously shuts itself down.

I have noted that the WInbond Hardware Doctor shows very brief pulses of high CPU temperature. Is P4 shut down a built in measure when a certain temp
is reached??

However I can run the processor continuously at full load (100%) witthout overheating. And file transfer seems to need only 15% or so of CPU power - so why should the CPU overheat?

Could it be the power supply the machine is heavily loaded with drives and other hardware?
...