seagate sata2 160GB

[vangelis]

Hi all

I just set up a new desktop on an asus M2N-E motherboard which supports sata2 and a seagate 160gb sata2 drive.

Hovewer when i go to the device manager under the sata controler of the motherboard it shows the following

Transfer rate: SATA generation 1 150g/s...is that normal???

I'd appreciate your advice since im a newbie and I want to know whether i have done something wrong

Thanks

[Just Learnin']

Hello Vangelis, :wave:

Check if there is a jumper installed from factory like in this picture, http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/sata_lock.html if so try removing it.

[vangelis]

Hi Learning!

I did check the drive and all 4 pins are uncovered...there's no jumper on them

I must admit thkugh that in the device manager it said that the drive's speed is regulated by the bios...But i didnt find anything there..allowing you ti switch between sata1 and sata2 mode.

Anyway thanks for your reply. If you have any other suggestions by all means share them with me

[RyderOCZ]

How many SATA controller's are on the M2N-e?

Is there just the 4 controlled by the southbridge or are there others as well?

What "mode" do you have the SATA set to? Raid, IDE, etc?

[vangelis]

Well the device managers shows 6 controles under the ide/ata/atapi controler tab

3 sata ones
primary ide channel
secondary ide channel
standard dual channel pci controler

The hard drive is shown to be on Location 0, (Pimary ATA channel)

it is the only hard drive in the computer by the way

[RyderOCZ]

In the bios though.....what mode are you running the SATA in? IDE? enhanced? Combined?

[vangelis]

wish I knew...i'll go and have a look

However i didnt manually configured anything in the bios concerning the hd..

I really appreciate your help Ryder, wish i could be more detailed but since im a newbie my knowledge is limited on such issues :(

Anyway i'll hyave a look and let you know

[fchateau]

I've been reading the manual today for the M2N32-SLI Deluxe which is similar to the M2N-E so I thought I'd mention a few things that might help.

First thing, I haven't received my motherboard yet but from some posts I've read in other forums, it sounds like some of these Asus motherboards do not come with a full manual so if that's the case with your motherboard, you can download the complete manual here:

ftp://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socketAM2/M2N-E/e2630_m2n-e_manual.pdf

It's a fairly large file (> 2.5 MB) and it will take some time to download, so be patient.

For a second resource, here's a neat little slide-show on SATA drives from Seagate:

http://www.seagate.com/support/howto/install_guide/sata_slideshow.html

The M2N-E motherboard uses the NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra chipset and I'm wondering whether it's necessary to install the chipset drivers in order to properly negotiate the SATA rate with the drive. So, have you installed the NVIDIA drivers? The manual refers to a "Make Disk" utility that's used to create the NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra "OR" RAID driver disk. That sounds like a disk driver might be needed whether or not your are using RAID.

Regards,

Fred Chateau

[vangelis]

My mother came with a full manual np with that. I can asssure you that the connections are right, and i have created a disk with the raid drivers from the asus cd and installed them while installing windows.

The drive is recognised as sata in the bios and works fine i dont have any probs with it. My question was why it is reported as having SATA1 transfer rate 150g/s in the device manager...since it is a sata2 drive

I checked the options in the bios under the drive...which is placed on SATA1(it has 6 by the way)

Extended Ide Drive: NONE, AUTO....it is in AUTO
Access Mode: AUTO, LARGE...it is in AUTO

[fchateau]

> ... and i have created a disk with the raid drivers from the asus cd and installed them while installing windows.

OK, but did you also install any NVIDIA chipset drivers in Windows? I don't think you ever mentioned whether or not you were using RAID, so do you have a RAID array set up or are you using the SATA interface to access a standard drive configuration? If so, I haven't seen this motherboard yet but I also have never seen an advanced motherboard that didn't require updated drivers in order to work properly in Windows. If you are not using RAID I still think the problem is an incorrect or missing NVIDIA chipset driver.

When you say "reported in Device Manager" does the Device Manager properties window look like a normal Microsoft properties window or does it look proprietary (as in an NVIDIA properties window)? Many chipset drivers alter the look of their properties window to reflect their own design. If the window looks like a standard Microsoft window, the chipset drivers may be missing or not installed correctly. It doesn't matter if the properties window reports an NVIDIA driver. You need to verify the driver version to insure you are using the correct driver. Also, sometimes Windows Update prompts you to install a new hardware driver and actually installs an old driver over the newer one, so verify you are using the correct NVIDIA driver.

Regards,

Fred Chateau

[vangelis]

Hi Fred..and thatnks for the time you're spending to help me with this.

I dont use a raid configuration it is disabled in the bios, after all this is the only hard drive i have on the pc. Indeed after installing the raid drivers from the disk i created and completed the windows instalation, I also installed all the drivers chipset,audio etc that were included in the mobo cd.

Now when i refer to the decive manager i mean start-control panel-system-hardware-device manager. All the devices are working properly and i get no !!! near any device. So the is no need to install any new drivers.

However as i told you when i open the tab for my sata controlers and locate my hard drive on the primary channel it shows that the transfer mode is gen1 150G/s.

Why does this happen since its a sata2 drive? Shouldn't it be recognised automatically as a sata2...I double checked and my drive is indeed sata2 supporting NCQ also. So is my motherboard it can take up to six hard drives all sata2.

Anyway, i hope this helped thanks again for your reply

Regards Vangelis

[RyderOCZ]

What is the part number of your SATA drive.

Try "un-checking" the controlled by bios and tell Windows that it is SATA 2

[vangelis]

Hi Ryder

its the ST3160812AS...as you will see it is sata with NCQ. ok will try and do that

By the way i use the msn messenger and skype.. If you would like to talk in one of these for a while i would appreciate it as it would be much faster than those mail replies. I want to ask you something about the memory too.. unfortunately the horrid blue screen came back again yesterday.

Anyway let me know and i will send you my msn or skype adress

Regards Vangelis

[fchateau]

> I dont use a raid configuration it is disabled in the bios, after all this is the only hard drive i have on the pc.

Yeah... I suppose you did say that... sorry.

> Why does this happen since its a sata2 drive? Shouldn't it be recognised automatically as a sata2...

That's why I thought it might be the driver. An older driver would work but not know it's supposed to check the drive and tell the controller to increase its data rate.

Also, have you considered it might a reporting error. If it's an XP driver (and it's still not clear to me whether you looking at properties of an NVIDIA or Windows driver) it might not know about 3 Gb/s even though the drive rate is correct. You might want to consider measuring the drive rate by some other means.

Regardless, I'll be watching for this problem next week while assembling my system. If you don't get an answer by then, I'll let you know what I've found.

Regards,

Fred Chateau

[vangelis]

Hi Fred

It was the jumpers after all...They are so small I didnt see em when I first Installed the HD.. I just removed them and rebooted the system.

As it was loading windows i got a blue screen error...Most probably because the speed of the drive had changed.. I reset the system and loged in safe mode..loaded it ok.. I rebooted again and loaded windows just fine. I hope it was because of that and not anything else:rolleyes:

Now the device manager reports the speed As GEN SATA2 300G/S:D

I had also previously installed the new 202 bios which game me a new option "AMD LIVE" Enabled by default, which gave me an unknown devise message in Windows. However i installed the AMD LIVE patch so its ok now.

Anyway I'd like to thank you Fred and you Ryder, and everyone else who devoded their time to help me with this! I'll try to be more observant in the future.

Regards
Vangelis

[Just Learnin']

I should have questioned you more about that, and mentioned that it is a small jumper. The Seagate sight mentions somewhere that they ship without the jumper but you are the third person including myself who I know of that got them with the jumper from factory. Is your drive an OEM? :scratch: Anyway glad it's sorted out now! :thumb: