PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

my system consists of:

gigabyte dq6 p965
6600 conroe dual core
albatron (nvidia 7900gtx) 512mb dd3 vga card

scope pro 14dsp+pulsar2 6dsp

2x36gb raptors raid0 as c: on chip raid controller
250 gb hd for recording as d: onboard sata controller as ide.
750 gb disc for instrument banks as g: onboard controller as ide.

4gb kingston ram

i have set from bios as many as i could controllers off.

pci latency from bios set to 128.

questions:
1. what is the actual pci bandwith of my system? i ask and in combination with the masterverb test which i load 12 masterverbs and on the 13th i get a dsp error message.(cset.ini changes do not help)
2. should i consider that the bandwith that is increased from the raid0 of c:, may be lowering the pci bandwith of scopes system? in other words, would it be more beneficial for scope to have ide as c: ? and if yes, ide set from inside the raid bios or straight simple ide function?
3. ully latency has any connection to pci bandwith?

ARCADIOS wrote: 2. should i consider that the bandwith that is increased from the raid0 of c:, may be lowering the pci bandwith of scopes system? in other words, would it be more beneficial for scope to have ide as c: ? and if yes, ide set from inside the raid bios or straight simple ide function?

Hi,

I have a MoBo with an ICH9R southbridge, and disabling RAID on it, dramatically improved my PCI bandwidth, and also made dissapear the IRQ issues I had.

Cheers!

Raul

interesting, but..... how did you measure up the pci bandwith?
irq issues, why before?

in gigabyte dg6 for instance the onchip raid controller shares with a usb which i disable but also shares with one pci slot

what does raid do for you?

ARCADIOS wrote:interesting, but..... how did you measure up the pci bandwith?

MV test.. Before it was lousy (like 8 MVs for an Intel X38/ICH9R chipset), after it's good (14/15 MVs)

ARCADIOS wrote: irq issues, why before?

Windoze was not able to correctly initialize 1 out of 3 cards (random at startup), always because of conflicting IRQs (even after disabling every single onboard device, like USB controllers and so).
After it handles the three cards perfectly, even with all the devices activated.

ARCADIOS wrote: in gigabyte dg6 for instance the onchip raid controller shares with a usb which i disable but also shares with one pci slot

It was something like that that I was facing.. Disabling the RAID controller was the solution.

I thought about it after reading a post where someone mentionned brilliant results and 0 issues with an ICH9.. The only difference between his chipset and mine was the "R"... Wasn't too difficult to find out what the "R" standed for
Since I didn't needed it bad, I ghosted my PC, disabled it, formatted the hard drives and reinstalled windows on top of a simple drive, and make regular backups to an internal and an external drive

i had bought once 2 raptors 10000 36gb.

in fact i put them in raid 0 and i have a 70gb c:. also i have noticed that access times for many things i do are faster.
it seems to be real fast having 2 heads working for one hard disk.
according to gb capacity its is more convenient having them raid because 35gb is much too low for an os.
but.... if i had a pci bandwith improovement beneficial for scope, avoiding pci errors of for instance masterverb test or sometimes loading synths that give me errors of "pci capacity limit reached" nomater the cset ini settings for my two cards, i would prefer switching to a bigger simple and quiter solution of just 1 HD.

in fact i had previusly the gigabyt ds3 which had only ich8 and not inh8r.
it seemed more stable but i am not sure if it was because of the r misssing thus non raid function i was using it, or because it had 3 pci slots and the 2 were free without sharing.

in dq6 i see from bios that the 1 from the 2 pci slots are sharing with a usb and hardisk controller

why just one hd?

programs on c:

samples on another.

record to another.

yes, raid usually steals pci bandwidth.

no, no... as i posted before


2x36gb raptors raid0 as c: on chip raid controller
250 gb hd for recording as d: onboard sata controller as ide.
750 gb disc for instrument banks as g: onboard controller as ide.

how is raid helping you? with stability? does cubase load too slowly for you to wait for it?

i don't really mean to be offensive. i just think that raid is doing little for you, and it is eating resources. if you were streaming video or running a server that needed to run 24/7 raid might be a great idea. i'm just wondering what it's doing for you in your daw...

i just try to make the system as fast as it can be.

someone might say that if raid is beneficial for graphics then it is also for music, because we many times move graphics while doing a recording

it doesn't work that way.

you don't want to make the system as fast as possible. you want to make it as fast as stable. it's like an automobile. how reliable does an auto become when it is built strictly for speed? how many times is a funny car's motor run? how much extra work will the machine do with raid as opposed to without? how many more symphonies can be mixed?

ata66 drives were always good for 30 tracks of streaming audio. isn't a current sata drive more than fast enough?

my os is now on 1 sata2 250gb seagate.
ide and not raid0 any more.
more simple.
less irq conflicts, unless i am wrong.

it was easy enough to make it fast by using a norton ghot image.




now as i test the system things smooth and fast enough and also audio applicaions seem to be as before.

i would not dare to write about a comparison between 2 raptors in raid0 and a seagate in ide, because there must be a specific test under exactly the same conditions and cpu load.
even then things might not have been clear enough because if i test in a few situaltions, there are much more that might have brought the opposite results.

in general, the raptors are slightly more instant, but there is no real effect in audio, as i tested with many channels playing and 32 asios with scope and ableton.

The seagate in ide is just fine, and i noticed LESS CRACKS AND POPS in a project than before with raid0.

i must also be objective and say that my pc now runs in lower temps because of a chang in cpu fan

i put back the intel factory fan of the conroe 6600.

it gave my lower temps than the big thermaltake with the 12cm fan blowing from side.

i do not know why it is better now. i just say what i noticed.
maybe the blowing of the side does not make a good job, especially on system temperature.

now with the intel i have lower temps on cpu and much lower on system.

it may be the paste that is put better
and the test now is much less objective about the raptors because these were with the other cpu fan the thermaltake from the side blowed.

I know it is a messy post, but i have stated a lot of things and i wait for conversation.
you know. its sunday night. bacame a little cold here in athens, i am alone(my girlfriend is with family members for a few days(as i know )and i have some time for rest. and maybe for resetting the whole system back with my raptors
its jusy fun with norton ghost