I have been having ongoing problems with one of our computers which
has the P7P55D Deluxe motherboard in it. This system has been in
service for about a year and was problematic from the start.

This system belongs to our Office Manager, who is a heavy user and
*needs* a bullet-proof system that is both fast and reliable.

O/S is Win7 Professional x64. CPU is i7 860 with 8 GB of RAM.

The system has, IIRC, 3 x 750GB HD in a RAID-5 using the Intel Raid on
the mobo. The very first problem we had was that the RAID kept
degrading for no apparent reason. We eventually returned the system to
the VAR for repair. Between them and myself googling, it turns out
that it had Version 8.9 of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed
in it. V8.9, as it turns out, was a very bad thing. The VAR installed
V8.8 and that stopped the random degrading problem.

More recently we have started having all manner of problems with this
system. Random problems that should not happen. In my experience,
these are all realted to "disk" problems - which means the RAID
(again).

I did some searching on the Intel Site and see that Matrix Storage
Manager has been replaced by "RST - Rapid Storage Technology" and is
now at V10.1.0.1008.

The question is... Is this a case of window dressing the same old
crap? Does anyone have experience with RST 10.1? Is it any good? and,
more importantly, can I just upgrade the existing install of MSM 8.8
with RST 10.1 without trashing the RAID???

Now onto the BIOS....

IIRC, the BIOS in this system is at 1002, and the current is 2003.
Looking at the revision history on the ASUS web site (such as it is!),
there are a lot of refereces to "Improve system stability". So again,
does anyone have experience with the 2003 BIOS? It is very recent, and
I am always leary. I have found that there are "good" BIOS updates and
"bad" BIOS updates. I actually had an Intel mobo where the BIOS
upgrade slowed the system down so much that I had to downgrade the
BIOS to its previous revision to restore system performance until a
newer BIOS rev came out! And the other question, again, can I jump
from 1002 to 2003 BIOS??? Sometimes it is better to upgrade in steps.
Some revs can be skipped, some are best not (sometimes).


Since elements of Win7 x64 appear to have degraded, what I intend to
do is to rebuild the system. I am getting a WD 300GB 10,000 RPM
VELOCIRAPTOR and will attach it to the JMicron 363 3 G/s controller
for maximum performance. I will do a clean install the O/S onto the WD
drive, and then get all the other programs installed and critical data
transfered from the RAID.

I do not know if I will bother keeping the RAID. I have had a few
experieinces with "desktop" RAID, and they have all been bad. Any time
you let WinDoze get involved with a RAID it seems to have problems.
The only bullet-proof RAIDs I have seen have been in servers with
dedicated hardware controllers which prevent WinDoze from screwing
things up.

And I have also learned that the Office Managers computer is not the
machine to try something "new"on for the first time! lol.

All thoughts and input greatly appreciated.