Weird Dimension 9200 problem

Hello again,

I pulled the video card out and ran the tests over remote desktop with
no card whatsoever. BTW, the system has 2G of RAM and is currently
running BIOS 2.1.2. The HD is still on SATA3 and still is NOT in "Raid
On" mode.

The following 4 tests were all with no video card. The first 2 were
with services (VMWARE and SQL Server) running--although presumably
idle--and 2 USB 2 external hard drives connected. For test 3, I stopped
the services and for test 4 I also disconnected the external drives.

AFTER these 4 HD Tune tests, and things still sucking, I added another
SATA drive to SATA4 and put the video card back in (I had to get into
BIOS, so...)
Anyway, now I know how things *-should-* look.

'New results!' (http://four15.com/~sdejmal/img/more_hd.html)

I have the front panel memory card reader on the thing; maybe I should
take that off. Mostly kidding there.

All of a sudden, I'd like to salvage this machine. Maybe I can buy a
SATA controller and it will work? Anyone have any controller
recommendations or guesses as to the likelihood of success if I try
this? I'm ok writing off the first 160G if I have to--I'm that
desperate--but is the OS drive always going to have awful performance?
Is that how this works? I don't get it; it's not the SATA port and the
(current boot) drive passed all tests without the OS loaded. If I put
an OS on the drive in SATA4 and boot from that, will -*that drive *-
become the one with horrible performance... Also, where is that Dell
guy that was lurking around here earlier =) This is terrible.

Thanks for all the responses already; it's at least good to have heard
from someone else with the same problem. Oh; one other thing... Tom,
did you have it working with a different vid card and 1.0.3 or 2.1.2
BIOS? I could still downgrade AND remove the video card, but.. I don't
feel confident that will help after the last test. And if this has
something to do with power, why does the 2nd SATA drive perform fine
with they're both in there along with the video card? Is there some
kind of interrupt conflict? (I don't know if those still happen, but
that kind of thing, along with mobo/memory compatibility is why I
stopped building my own computers. I'm now 1 for 2 with Dells though.)


Scott


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If I am reading this right, it is only the boot drive causing the problem,
correct? What happens when you go back to BIOS 1.x.x. That should make a
huge difference (although not perfect).

If the problem is the drivers loaded for the 7300LE, it is possible they are
still loaded even without the card, I suppose. I used DriveCleanerPro to
get rid of them all (run it in Safe mode).

For now, I'm just writing off the boot drive (250GB!) and using the
secondary drives. Dell is clearly aware of the problem and seems to be
working on a fix.

Tom
"scott9200" wrote in message
...

Hello again,

I pulled the video card out and ran the tests over remote desktop with
no card whatsoever. BTW, the system has 2G of RAM and is currently
running BIOS 2.1.2. The HD is still on SATA3 and still is NOT in "Raid
On" mode.

The following 4 tests were all with no video card. The first 2 were
with services (VMWARE and SQL Server) running--although presumably
idle--and 2 USB 2 external hard drives connected. For test 3, I stopped
the services and for test 4 I also disconnected the external drives.

AFTER these 4 HD Tune tests, and things still sucking, I added another
SATA drive to SATA4 and put the video card back in (I had to get into
BIOS, so...)
Anyway, now I know how things *-should-* look.

'New results!' (http://four15.com/~sdejmal/img/more_hd.html)

I have the front panel memory card reader on the thing; maybe I should
take that off. Mostly kidding there.

All of a sudden, I'd like to salvage this machine. Maybe I can buy a
SATA controller and it will work? Anyone have any controller
recommendations or guesses as to the likelihood of success if I try
this? I'm ok writing off the first 160G if I have to--I'm that
desperate--but is the OS drive always going to have awful performance?
Is that how this works? I don't get it; it's not the SATA port and the
(current boot) drive passed all tests without the OS loaded. If I put
an OS on the drive in SATA4 and boot from that, will -*that drive *-
become the one with horrible performance... Also, where is that Dell
guy that was lurking around here earlier =) This is terrible.

Thanks for all the responses already; it's at least good to have heard
from someone else with the same problem. Oh; one other thing... Tom,
did you have it working with a different vid card and 1.0.3 or 2.1.2
BIOS? I could still downgrade AND remove the video card, but.. I don't
feel confident that will help after the last test. And if this has
something to do with power, why does the 2nd SATA drive perform fine
with they're both in there along with the video card? Is there some
kind of interrupt conflict? (I don't know if those still happen, but
that kind of thing, along with mobo/memory compatibility is why I
stopped building my own computers. I'm now 1 for 2 with Dells though.)


Scott


--
scott9200
------------------------------------------------------------------------
scott9200's Profile: http://www.futurehardware.in/member.php?userid=768
View this thread: http://www.futurehardware.in/showthread.php?t=564622

Future Hardware - http://www.futurehardware.in