Vista Users: Are You Getting Constant System-Drive LED Thrashing? (2024)

Q

Quiet1onTheSet

New member
  • Sep 6, 2008
  • #161

danielkaiser said:

Took my machine about two weeks to start to settle down, and most of the tweaks that I applied were concerning boot time issues, it just wasn't fast enough for me, it's now down to about 10 seconds from log on to usable desktop.

That's utterly fantastic Dan.

"...it must be some kind of MS thing just doesn't float".[/quote] Oh, sure it does. Why is it that the desktops in various stores, with 64 bit Vista on them, have the incessant hard-drive flashing, after weeks and weeks have gone by?

Perhaps some day we'll hear of a fix from the Redmond guys. for now, those sheepish folk want to run a scan on my computer system remotely, while refusing to have me open the Resource Monitor to report back to them what's goin' on.

Hmmmp! I vote "Microsoft Issue".

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Q

Quiet1onTheSet

New member
  • Sep 6, 2008
  • #163

Lightwolf said:

Not really, just trying to find out what you expect - and why you picked that specific system.

Fair enough. Forgive me. I recant on the "guilt trip" thing.

This system from Microcenter http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0282814
wasn't a bad buy for a middle-of-the-road $999.00 system in a really decent case and all. (It was an open box deal at about $950 when I snatched it up: Apparently, a previous owner returned it (with the Microsoft Windows XP "downgrade from Vista 64 Ultimate" activated on the machine).

I wiped out the drives (two 500 GB Hitachi 72,000 RPM SATA 2 drives striped as RAID 0), created dynamic disks with them and Windows RAID-0 striped them instead, for video storage.

Then, installed two SATA 16MB/250GB WD Caviar 2500 drives, installing 64 Ultimate on one of those.

I'll check the Western Digital site for the possibility of there being some Vista 64 firmware patches, or some other such thing, and get back to you if that's the case.

Q1

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neverko

I am a banana!
  • Sep 6, 2008
  • #164

Quiet1onTheSet said:

"...it must be some kind of MS thing just doesn't float". Oh, sure it does. Why is it that the desktops in various stores, with 64 bit Vista on them, have the incessant hard-drive flashing, after weeks and weeks have gone by?

It's not an issue here. So it is obviously not an inherently broken thing in Vista x64 or I would have the issue as well. I am tempted to say that it must be people's low-grade crappy hardware, maybe cheap motherboards with sub par drivers... I dunno... I have nothing concrete to back it up with. I only know that I have absolutely zero issues and no constant disk access.

I mostly run motherboards that are slightly more expensive than your average board (at time of purchase) such as workstation class ASUS or TYAN boards, but my experience over the years has been that I very rarely have any of the issues that seem to plague other people.

:goodluck:

avkills

New member
  • Sep 6, 2008
  • #166

Quiet1onTheSet said:

Yeah, Markie. I'm lovin' Vista 32 Home Premium, frankly. Nice on the drives and all.

Hmmm. that new system you just installed Vista32 on -- Sounds like a Mac system. 'That a desktop? What're the specs, guy?
Q1

I thought it was clear in my earlier posts that I was a Mac guy; basically mostly due to the fact that editing is my main chore, not 3D, and Final Cut Pro + AJA hardware is basically the core I have chosen.

Anyhoo, my new edit system is a 8 core Mac Pro @ 3.2Ghz with 8GB RAM and 2 500GB internal ATA drives, and a GeForce 8800 w/512MB vram. I also have a 30" Cinema display and a 4 drive eSATA RAID. It is a very nice system and makes a lot less noise than I imagined it would. It renders around 10x faster than the Dual 2 G5 system running LW. Nice!

Probably will not do renders on Vista since it is limited to 2 cores via VMware and I just do not want to do a boot camp setup. Besides, even with 2 cores @ 3.2Ghz that is faster than most run of the mill Wintel setups anyway; for stuff like powerpoint, etc etc.

-mark

Q

Quiet1onTheSet

New member
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #167

billpana said:

Crap hardware can cause lots of problems.

:agree:

Fortunately, the PowerSpec E361 is a particularly decent quality machine with a proven mobo and chipset, and a really fantastic case, and more. Let's wait and see if there is a firmware patch for the WD drives I installed.

Q1

neverko

I am a banana!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #168

Quiet1onTheSet said:

:agree:

Fortunately, the PowerSpec E361 is a particularly decent quality machine with a proven mobo and chipset, and a really fantastic case, and more. Let's wait and see if there is a firmware patch for the WD drives I installed.

Q1

What motherboard and chipset is inside that machine?

"Proven" is not a brand I'm familiar with :hey:

I'm not a fan of nVidia chipsets either, while I'm at it. I've had to fix too many issues for too many people running those. And before I'm flayed alive by the nVidia chipset enthusiasts, I know that they CAN work well, it's just that they're not exactly Intel chipsets when it comes to drivers and stability.

Q

Quiet1onTheSet

New member
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #169

neverko said:

What motherboard and chipset is inside that machine?

Intel DP35DP with Intel P35 Express chipset http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DP35DP/configs.htm

On the other hand, the specifications sheet for the machine, at the OEM website is old and is out-of-date; http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0282814

There've been hardware improvements since, including two sticks of 2GB RAM' a 20x optical drive, plus a 550-Watt PSU (instead of four 1GB sticks of RAM, 10x optical drive and 450-Watt PSU for earlier builds).

Again, not bad for a middle-of-the-road system.

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neverko

I am a banana!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #170

Intel DP35DP budget board:

I checked a local site for customer reviews and there were only two reviews for this board.

One 4/5 star review from a person unable to install XP to a SATA disk because this board doesn't support standard floppy drives! He went Vista instead as you can load drivers directly from CD/DVD during OS install, something XP doesn't. Otherwise he has a good experience with a single SATA drive.

Then there was a 2/5 star review from a guy with nasty RAID 0 issues under Vista x64! He had a 3 hour disk thrashing session resulting in the system partition and the data stripe getting messed up. He places the blame squarely on the motherboard. He also mentions the lack of floppy support.

These customer reviews are in Danish, so I doubt linking to them will help you much. I have given pretty accurate accounts of the two customer reviews I found.

Maybe you should dig further into this and look around for some info on that motherboard.

IMI

Pancakes!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #171

neverko said:

I'm not a fan of nVidia chipsets either, while I'm at it. I've had to fix too many issues for too many people running those. And before I'm flayed alive by the nVidia chipset enthusiasts, I know that they CAN work well, it's just that they're not exactly Intel chipsets when it comes to drivers and stability.

Yeah, I hear ya. My AMD machine has the 590 chipset (man, only a year old and sooooo outdated!), but my new box has the Asus P5Q Pro with the Intel P45 chipset.
Now, I don't have any issue with the AMD box - it's rock solid, but back when I first set it up, it took alot of tweaking to get it good. In fact, neverko, you may remember about a year ago I was doing the Vista whining thing... the difference is, I listened to you....

But this Intel board... no troubles at all, really. Well, unless you want to count the fact they sent me a malfunctioning Rampage and one of my new HDD's died after only two days... but that's not this board - the P5Q has given me zero troubles and installing Ultimate x64 on it was a breeze.
I've even done a little OC'ing with it, getting my Intel quad core 2.83 up to 3.21 ghz and it's stable, far as I can tell. Works with apps, haven't tried it with any games yet.

IMI

Pancakes!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #172

Here's that board at NewEgg, with reviews.

4 out of five stars. Claims to be Vista Certified. I dunno - I sure wouldn't buy it - 800 mhz RAM, the PCI Express x16 aren't 2.0

That's a budget board? 100 bucks at NewEgg, seems kind of steep -0 the P5Q was only 140 or something.

IMI

Pancakes!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #173

Quiet1onTheSet said:

:agree:

Fortunately, the PowerSpec E361 is a particularly decent quality machine with a proven mobo and chipset, and a really fantastic case, and more. Let's wait and see if there is a firmware patch for the WD drives I installed.

Q1

I have those same drives - the 250 GB WD Caviar. Remember, I told you one of them died after only two days, the other seems - I say, *seems* to be having some issues. I was copying a 99 MB file to it and the last little bit of it took maybe 5 minutes, while the countdown showed 5 seconds left that whole time.
I don't know - I'm not trusting it, not putting anything important on it, and just waiting for it to die now. IMHO, those drives are crap - if 2 out of 2 are bad, that's crap.

neverko

I am a banana!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #174

IMI said:

That's a budget board? 100 bucks at NewEgg, seems kind of steep -0 the P5Q was only 140 or something.

'Budget' is my definition, sorry if that caused confusion.

Any motherboard I'd even consider to build a solid workstation around is at least twice as much as that Intel board. At least when comparing products and prices around here. You can get boards at half the price of the DP35DP, but personally I wouldn't even build an office spreadsheet machine around one of those.

When I bought my current ASUS WS board it cost roughly the same as the Striker Extreme which was their top enthusiast board around that time last summer (2007). I went with the WS board instead of the Striker due to its no-bling workstation nature and the Intel chipset instead of the nVidia SLI stuff on the Striker.

I know people have different standards.

neverko

I am a banana!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #175

IMI said:

In fact, neverko, you may remember about a year ago I was doing the Vista whining thing... the difference is, I listened to you....

How can I forget my favored Vista apprentice Vista Users: Are You Getting Constant System-Drive LED Thrashing? (12) I have molded and warped you into a being of Dark Vista Energy. Just waiting to be set free at my command.

One day your phone will ring and the Windows Vista logon sound will chime softly from the speaker. You will be utterly paralyzed at that moment. Then I will proceed to recite my secret Windows Vista Activation Code of Doom. Once you are activated and verified by my phone server gnomes in India you will be fully under my supreme control and ready to do my Dark Vista bidding.

I think Steve Jobs will be first to face deletion...

Vista Users: Are You Getting Constant System-Drive LED Thrashing? (13)hone_cal

IMI

Pancakes!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #176

neverko said:

How can I forget my favored Vista apprentice Vista Users: Are You Getting Constant System-Drive LED Thrashing? (15) I have molded and warped you into a being of Dark Vista Energy. Just waiting to be set free at my command.

One day your phone will ring and the Windows Vista logon sound will chime softly from the speaker. You will be utterly paralyzed at that moment. Then I will proceed to recite my secret Windows Vista Activation Code of Doom. Once you are activated and verified by my phone server gnomes in India you will be fully under my supreme control and ready to do my Dark Vista bidding.

I think Steve Jobs will be first to face deletion...

Vista Users: Are You Getting Constant System-Drive LED Thrashing? (16)hone_cal

Heh. OK, but you'll have to explain it to my wife. Vista Users: Are You Getting Constant System-Drive LED Thrashing? (17)

I RMA'd my Asus Rampage Motherboard a couple days ago... am very much looking forward to getting the new one.
It figures I'd get a bad board. I'd really love to know how that happens..
But it overall got some great reviews.

DiscreetFX

Make Your Films Effective
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #177

neverko we will not be joining your vast army of Vista jedi knights, we will wait for Windows 7.

:beta:

IMI

Pancakes!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #178

billpana said:

neverko we will not be joining your vast army of Vista jedi knights, we will wait for Windows 7.

:beta:

Don't you think Windows 7 will be a continuation of Vista?
I mean, I don't know, and I haven't really read much about it yet, but it seems to be a logical assumption.

IMI

Pancakes!
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #179

I was curious, so....
Windows 7

Looks cool, really, and I'm sure it will be.

The only real problem, as *I* see it, is they're still going in that OS-as-Nanny direction. Vista is largely that, and it lloks Like Windows 7 will be even moreso.

I really really really wish they would release "barebone" OS's, or maybe even graphic workstation versions. Vista, great as it is, still is cluttered up with a bunch of crap I have no interest in, not to mention all that background crap which needs to be turned off.
I can understand why they do it - keep non-PC-savvy people, who are the greater portion of the market, from screwing up their machines and inadvertently passing viruses, worms and trojans all over creation.
But still, if you have a Windows machine attached only to several other PC's all on a network and not online, or through a good hardware firewall, and all you're mostly doing with it is making CG, you don't need all that stuff like Defender, UAC and so on.

I'm honestly surprised they don't make such an OS. With CG and more and more windows boxes being used as graphic workstations, I'd think there'd be enough interest in it to justify it, and it would cost them alot less time and money, without the need for continually updating Defender, and patching holes.
"Windows Barebones" would be virtually maintenance free, once assembled and released, and it's just a matter of stripping out the crap from the existing OS.

DiscreetFX

Make Your Films Effective
  • Sep 7, 2008
  • #180

@IMI

They should give you those options when you install it. For example; power user, n00b, web server, bare bones config, video editing config, gamer config, etc.

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