raid 0 and m17 dont mix well

from my and others findings now we have found that raid 0 is causing stuttering and jumpiness for people. it also causes windows to not open and close smoothly and the mouse to skip at times etc. if you are seeing these issues try going back to a non raid setup and it will probably go away and this also seems to allow a higher stable overclock on the qx9300 as well so far this has been confirmed by me and 4 other people that have tested this.

 

So thats why my Whitebook's touchpad keeps skipping? That clears up alot. Thanks.

Dont suppose this is documented somewhere?

 

no but i can assure you it is the cause. i have tested this on three units (ocz ones) and 3 other people here on the forum have also done it now. halogod will prob post here he had the same result it fixed his issues as well.

 

No raid is the best to go then?
seems to be be cheaper anyway. one fast hdd for the os(7200rpm) and a slow one for the music, videoc etc(5400rpm)

or the ssd/hdd setup.

 

correct unless you want to do raid 1 which doesnt seem to have the issues.

 

Getting rid of raid0 helped my stuttering in games and vista UI alot, getting rid of two drives all together helped 100%. It seems like whenever two hard drives access or transfer files on these laptops the stutter occurs. Next time you see the stuttering happen, check your hard drive light, im sure its solid lol

 

yep i recc everything be kept on one drive and if you want to use the second for mainly storage now. this way its not acessing both at once

 

yep thats what i do now and my computer is stable and games run perfect, not to mention the cpu is alot more stable. Seems as if two HD's mess around with the mobos power current or something....with raid0...my gpus would shutoff or crossfire would stop and only one gpu would run....game would be running at 60fps...then drop to 30 or 40 till i quit....now it all works perfect..played gta4 for 4 hours straight without raid

 

^^^ told ya so lol.... (kidding) (but i did didnt i lol)

 

I think my Raid 1 setup was causing problems as well. I dumped both drives for a SSD and the speed difference is incredible.

 

Since I installed my 2nd harddisk and my new processor I also have a problem with stuttering and jumpiness. However I did not enable raid or anything in the bios. And my disks arent simular so raid wouldnt work ( 160 GB and 320 GB disks ).

Is there anything I can check in the bios?

 

as i said did you install any working programs on the second one?

 

Just some games nothing windows need to operate and no other type of programs.

 

doesnt matter, try taking out the second HD and test to see if it happens still, that will eliminate the possibility

 

^^ 2nd drive for storage only imo on this system

 

I'm kind of in a dilemma here if this problem exists on the SSD's. If I could find out that the problem will definitely exist on my soon to arrive M17 with two SSD's then perhaps I could get the factory to not tum RAID 0 on before they ship it out to me. From my understanding, if I turn RAID 0 off, I will need to reinstall the Vista 64 OS and I'm not smiling over that prospect.

 

there are other ways of doing it. but they do require making a backup image then unraiding then doing a restore back to the single drive

 

It sounds like: every time both HDDs are "working" the rest suffers?

Sounds horrible^^ I run Raid0 since öhm may be some weeks and haven't recogniced this ... where does the stuttering occure moste often? (to test it)

Greetings
Julina

 

Strangely enough that solved my problem. Pulled my new HDD out and the problem was gone. So even without raid it gives problems when you install games and such on your 2nd harddisk.. Kinda weird. So bottom line you can install 2 harddisks BUT you cant install anything on it?

Also sent a mail to Alienware with a question why this would happen. Got a very crummy reply that I should enable my High Preformance power setting..

Gave them a very nice reply back as if I hadn't tried that already.

 

DaniaFl, as far as I know AW solds this system only with RAID1 or RAID0 two HDDs configs. As you, I was looking for a non RAID config with 2 HDDs but I think you can imagine the answer I got from AW...

I think this is not possible for RAID 0 configs. If your disk image is from a RAID0 setup you will only be able to use that image in another RAID 0 setup. If you use a RAID0 image in a single drive your system will crash, BSDO or whatever... but it will not work properly.

Believe me... first hand experience as an ex-RAID0 M17 user... in this thread is my story and the explanation of E-wrecked to this imaging-RAID issue:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=349044

zfactor if you know how to do this unraiding-image please PM me. I have been looking for this info in the forums...

Same here. I don´t know why you are having this problems. I ordered my M17 with RAID0 and didnt notice any lag or issue in the two weeks I used it. I think Julian is a happy RAID0 costumer since it has helped to improve his benchs.

I was thinking to go back to RAID0 since I bought an external HDD to create backup copies of my entire system.

Is there any other explanation to this issue? Overcloking and RAID? The only explanation could be a problem in the MOBO or the BIOS...

Definitely weird... no problem here with my two HDDs

 

I wanted to use the 160 GB one as the windows disk and the 320 GB one for my games.. Does the problem also occure when the disk is partitiones and there are programs installed on the 2nd partition? ( 1st partition running windows )

 

i have not tested that yet. i will later to see how it does

 

yeah zfactor let me know the results of that

 

Because the problem which Shockwave_Omega was solved bye pulling out the second hdd i gues this would make no trouble.


But still my question, I am running Raid0 without stuttering may be I just don't recognice them ... where do you get this problem? How can I recognice it easyer.

Is it maybe a Vista problem? I am runing on W7 mainly ... or a driver problem? (W7 has some different drivers e.g the Raid drivers)

Greetings
Julian

 

not sure why you dont see it MANY people do. almost every person i have asked has said they see this issue

 

is it like low FPS rate in "windows"?

Greetings
Julian

 

I sure hope I isnt hardware related. AW ships the laptop with a Seagate disk.. I bought a Western Digital disk.

I was kinda stunned when I had a look at my administrative tools --> computer managment --> Storage to find that my 2ndary disk was seen as disk 0.. ( it was in HDD slot 2 and the original disk was in slot 1 in the laptop).

Will check some stuff in the morning when I am back home.

 

like windows open and close stuttering, the touchpad gets jumpy, programs open and freeze then continue to open. and while the system accesses the 2nd hdd its like running one gpu only at times

 

I bought a second Seagate (160gb exactly the same modle 7000.3) on my own and put it in the second HDD slot.

I don't get why you are stunned? I thought it would see the Raid0 as one drive?

OR
Do you mean the cable from the second slot to the mainboard may had be put in the wrong slot? (bye AW)

But even than ... this shouldn't cause stutters ...

Greetings
Julian

 

Ah ok! I guess, I am realy not sure, I had it one time ... and it was more than "only" less FPS more like what you explained ... I think it was short after installation W7 and rebooting on Vista ... it was nearly impossible to do somthing ... but I just rebootet and never had troube again ...

Greetings
Julian

 

yea it seems like windows UI has dropped in frames......like when you do the flip 3d view...its more choppy than usual....and when dragging windows across the screen its not as smooth as it should be...it happens sometimes...whats funny was it never really happened in games...just windows...i think a recent update could have done this

 

Wouldn't I need to have 2 simular disks for a raid setup? My seagate and wd disks are totaly different. I also didn't setup anything like raid. And I dont recall selecting raid in the bios anywhere.

I will make a picture of what I mean when I get home ( hope it still shows the same way ). Its strange it flips the harddisks in windows but not in the bios ( they both show up correctly there ).

[I know my english isn't perfect thats why I recycle a lot of easy words in my posts. Thats what you get when your Dutch ]

 

Mine as well. But i hope you can understand me ...

To the question with the two equal hhds is so: The slower will make the limmit ... and let me explain it this way.

HDD 1 is fast reading but slow in writing
HDD 2 is slow reading but fast writing

so the Raid is slow at reading and slow at wringt ... but still faster than one HDD ... but not as fast as two similiar HDDs.

Greetings
Julian

 

Ok so now I am bummed out because of 2 things.. 1 I cant get my 2nd harddisk to show up as it did before .. and 2 .. my jitters problem came back with the single harddisk setup.

Ok I'm gonna try some other stuff.. Putting the original CPU back in and also the memory..

 

I really don´t know why is this problem. I think is more related to a especific hardware...

I had RAID0 and, as Julian, I never noticed any lag or performance issue. Actually, the system was like a rocket...

Now without RAID my M17 is solid... I am using this config:

HDD1: one partition to Vista and one partition to personal files
HDD2: just one partition to games

Shockwave you shouldn't have any problem with the RAID, non RAID or single drive setup

Have you tried to call AW? Roswell is a good chance...

 

maybe its only certain hard drive models in raid

 

I've been using RAID 0 since I got my M17. One HDD is the 160GB that came with it, and the other is a 160GB that I had in my old Dell E1705. I haven't experienced any of the problems mentioned in this thread.

 

Well it is mainly with the qx9300 the most of these problems is happening with.

 

Could it be that the Raid setup is in an OS setup rather than a card? Something in Bios not just right?

 

correct don it is mainly the qx9300 with the raid issue at least from what i have seen

 

That could be a reason, I have the T9400.

Greetings
Julian

 

i think a bios update will fix it soon...since the AW bios seems to not have it as much as the ocz bios....but overclocking wins over all lol

 

I am not working in a raid setup. The bios settings are on normal sata/ide use for the harddisks. Also I live in Holland so calling the US isn't a real option for me at this moment .

And also since I changed the processor myself the warrenty is kinda voided..
I sent a mail to the european helpdesk ( I think ) with some questions.

 

I have that one. No problem during the time I used RAID0...

Any other user in the forum who has reported this issue? I am planning to go back to RAID 0 as soon as I buid my new external HDD

 

yes many people have said after removing raid the issue went away. try it for yourself and see if you dont notice the issue then thats great. also to note mark at killer notebooks (and i hate to say this) i remember posted this a long time back about this exact issue he even stopped shipping the systems with raid 0 out to his customers. he reported it before anyone else seemed to and after looking for more info on the issue i found a some older threads about that very thing. so he was right.

 

Are you all talking about the QX9300 as in the Quad or Duo? I notice some of you have Intel Core 2 Duo QX9300 2.53GHz in your profiles which I don't see as being available or maybe I'm missing it. I know there is an Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad QX9300 2.53GHz because I ordered that one. Wondering if it is an issue with both of them or just the duo.

 

there is only one qx9300 and its a quad there is no dual core qx9300

 

Okay has anyone hooked up an array to the esata port? If someone has the capability to do it and test a Raid 0 I would be curious to see what that would bring.

 

In the next days I will go back to RAID 0 (after imaging my HDDs of course). I will keep you informed any problem.

 

is it good to update direct X after installing a fresh copy of vista and all the updates? or do u not have to?