Lots of bad IBM GXPs?

[Hati]

Went to my hardware dealer today and returned the drive (will be sent to IBM). Had a heavy discussion that ended up as follows :
The powersupply should be sufficient, although it is not AMD approved. Further on I was told, this IBM drives would need massive active cooling When I asked, why the other drive was not defective, he told me this was some kind of luck .
As I wanted to go with a new case anyway (better cooling) I ordered a CS-901 Servertower with an AMD approved Enermax 433W power supply and serveral fans.
Will get it tomorrow and see how my system will behave in the next days.
By the way, both drives were manufactured at the Phillipines.
Let's see, what IBM will do about the defective drive.
Greetings
Hati

[The PIT]

Sounds like they're talking major BS.

[cbman]

Massive Cooling... That sounds kinda like an evasion.
230 Watts... that probably is cutting it fairly close for a high end AMD system with lots of hardware.

At our shop we mainly use 300 Watt PS's with some 250's and 350's thrown into the mix...

The best system we did was in a Micro Form Factor Desktop Case with an Athlon 1200, 52x CD-Rom, Onboard sound and Video, a 20GB Fujitsu with a 145Watt PS...

Its still running like there is no tommorrow

[Wombat]

307030, is that the OEM 75gxp?

75gxp drives do tend to run hot, but not enough to really revamp your cooling. If these are 60gxps, then you need to find another computer shop, because they're definitely trying to milk you for extra sales.

Did you choose to have a non-approved PS, or did they sell it to you? I'd be pretty bothered if they did sell it to you. There are some crappy PSs out there. It's not the wattage so much as the supply regulation that takes the hit when you get a cheap PS. The timing of your drive's failure is stil suspicious.

[Hati]

The DTLA-307030 is a Deskstar 75GXP.
Before i changed motherboards my system had a PIII800EB inside - old motherboard was ASUS CUV4X. So initially, there was no need for an AMD approved PS. When I bought the MSI board and the AthlonXP, I asked, if the current PS could be an issue and I was told that it would be o.k.
I decided to buy the new case too, when I was waiting in the shop and took a look at the CS-901 Servertower standing around, but would have gone for a new PS anyway.
I think this guy in the shop indeed talked a lot of BS!
Thanks!
Hati

[SteveC]

Got my HDD back this morning from Simply. I sent off a 30Gb Hungarian from March (or April?), and I got back a 41Gb (!) Thailandish October one - me happy!

It's actually detected as: 'IC35L040 AVER07-0' which I thought was a bit odd.

[cjolley]

Yup Steve, that's the way 60GXP Model Numbers look.
chuck

[Hati]

Got a new case and PSU (Enermax 433W) and my new configuration is now :
MSI K7T266 Pro2 (no Raid, no USB2). latest BIOS (3.2)
2x256MB Infineon CL2 DDR
AthlonXP1700+
IDE primary master : IBM DTLA-307030 (my 'old' disk that survived)
IDE primary slave : IBM IC35L040 (got this one new for the damaged one)
IDE secondary master : Pioneer DVD
IDE secondary slave : Plextor 12/10/32
VGA : Matrox G400 32MB SH
NIC : Allied telesyn AT-2500TX (for TDSL)
SB live
Problem :
I installed Win98SE several times (always starting with format c) and keep having problems with my first HD's IDE performance.
After messing around with different VIA 4in1's, Busmaster/Miniport drivers I decided to download Sisoft Sandra2001 and ran some disk benchmarks.
Besides the plain numbers the seems to be an issue with my first HD :
For the IC35L040 I get about 27.000, this is o.k I guess.
For the DTLA307030 I get about 13.300 - very bad.
I wonder, what could be the reason that my first HD's performance is only about half the performance of the second drive - this drive is not known as a slow disk?
Any tips/hints please?
Hati

[Indiana]

Hmm, for me the 75GXP (307030) was slightly faster than the 60GXP (the IC35something). But it failed very soon. I really hope the 60GXP is better....

[Wombat]

From what I've seen, the 75gxp is a hair faster, but the 60gxp is soo much quieter, and burns soo much less power, that almost everyone would rather have 60gxps.

[Hati]

Visited storage.ibm and saw they put up a utility to analyze the S.M.A.R.T status of drives on their website

http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Downloaded SMARTDefender and run a short and an exteded Test on the drive (Extended Test almost lasted 50 min!!!).
The result was : Drive status o.k. / no errors!
So I am told at startup (S.M.A.R.T. enabled and status o.k.) and by the Drive Fitness Test.
But looking at the Sandra benchmarks I know there must be something wrong. I was becoming suspicious about the HD performance because of slow Windows startup with an extreme amount of disk activity (you can hear the drive work a lot).
Dont know what to do now .
I dont want to install a bunch of software (will take me several hours as I have only a very basic Windows up running now) to see one more disk break down and have all the install/restore start all over again.
I'm really really really fed up with this shit!
Any suggestions?
Thanks to all who replied!
Hati

[Indiana]

Maybe I'm asking the obvious, but do you have DMA enabled for this drive (in BIOS and in windows device manager)?

[Technoid]

My IBM Travelstar DJSN 2,5 HDD in my HP notebook makes a rather scary sound every od minute!

But it is still not damadged or anyting.

[Hati]

@Indiana:
Yes, checked it again. Btw, I was thinking that the drive behaves as it would be run in some slow PIO mode.
Bios boot-up messages say both drives are run in DMA-100 mode but I wondered if I could check this how Windows handles the DMA mode.
When I had the VIA IDE miniport driver running (currently using the standard busmaster) I was told both drives are running ATA100 too. But can I be sure?
Thanks,
Hati

[Hati]

Strange things happen

Update :
Finally downloaded the IBM Feature Tool too, created boot disk and startet the utility.
Checked, that all value showed up as they should be and then decided to set the maximum DMA level. As it was DMA-5 already, I only confirmed the value. I finished the program and powered off the system as requested.
When I started the system again bootup time was significantly reduced and overall system response was better.
Started Sandras drive bench again and received a value of 23.900 - up from 13.300!!!
After setting acousting management to quiet the value dropped somewhat to 23.500, but is still in an acceptable range.
Now I wonder, if the 'dying' of the other DTLA gave the first drive a hit?
And - should I still be concerned about the drive (reliability?).
Hati

P.S. to Indiana: It's a fine day today (I'm not too far from Reutlingen), blue sky and sunny, though a little cold. Hope you have time to enjoy it!