I personally am still staying away from SATA drives for several reasons (for now at least): -My motherboard doesn't support SATA. -Things like external drive USB/1394 cases and drive caddies don't seem to support them (please correct me if I am wrong). -I've read about random issues with certain mo...

In idle both drives are very quiet except the SP80 vibrates more than I'd like so you have to isolate it from your case and the 7200.7 makes the extremely annoying maintenance sounds. During seeks the SP80 is *much* quieter, you cannot hear it. Temps are also lower for the SP80 compared to the 7200.7

Yes, ATI should definitely add throttling but it's not *that* big of a deal (Nvidia only added it b/c well, they *had* to, given the combustible engines they're putting out mascarading as GPUs). Use Powerstrip and set up two profiles - one minimum and one maximum. You can switch between them in 2-3 ...

That's probably true, it just depends on your tolerance of fan noise. I'm working on a *silent* system from 2-4 feet away and not just a quiet one - that I already have but it's not good enough for my tastes; I want it so in the dead of night when there isn't a sound, I can't hear my PC besides my m...

From my experience those Sapphire Ultimates and the Zalman HP coolers are an exercise is futility. The whole point of removing the average Vid card HS/Fan is to eliminate the noise. Okay, the Zalman does that, but it generates an INSANE amount of heat (I had one with a 9700 pro stock speed and most ...

Well then, let's take a poll and see if we can isolate the issue.

Anyone having problems using the SiS 964 southbridge? I had no problems with either the SiS 964 southbridge or the SiS add on RAID controller.

That's fine but VIA has *always* had problems with HDs so this shouldn't really surprise you. And mas's KT400/8237 is reading his SATA fine (same mobo as mine). Now that could be very interesting. Is it the SAME mobo or is it the same chipset? If it's the same chipset but not the same mobo then tha...

That's fine but VIA has *always* had problems with HDs so this shouldn't really surprise you. Personally, I would *never* buy a mobo with a VIA chipset. That's most likely the problem rather than Samsung's SMART implementation, which, from my experience, works as it should. I don't think the proble...

That's fine but VIA has *always* had problems with HDs so this shouldn't really surprise you. Now now - a bit OTT with the generalisations :?: What problems? My last 7 mobos I can remember have been Via (includin KT133, KT133a, KT333) with zero HD problems. My main KT600/8237 reads PATA temps fine,...

That's fine but VIA has *always* had problems with HDs so this shouldn't really surprise you. Personally, I would *never* buy a mobo with a VIA chipset. That's most likely the problem rather than Samsung's SMART implementation, which, from my experience, works as it should.

Are you using DTemp or some other utility and getting an accurate temperature readout for your hdd? I get 18C with DTemp and that just isn't realistic. Every utility I tried worked fine. What temps are you getting? Depends on time of day and what I'm doing. Overnight, low usage I get about 33C and ...

So you think you are having a rough time?? I got a SP0812C on a SFF that has Via 8237 southbridge SATA and can't even get a driver to load for it in Win98. (The OS boots & runs fine but the disk is in DOS compatibility mode :( ) So DTemp cant even find a drive. And wow - reminds me how noisy a syst...

JVM wrote:

Bar81 wrote:I recently switched out my Seagates for a pair of SP1312C drives and SMART works fine.

Are you using DTemp or some other utility and getting an accurate temperature readout for your hdd?

I get 18C with DTemp and that just isn't realistic.

Every utility I tried worked fine.

I recently switched out my Seagates for a pair of SP1312C drives and SMART works fine.

UGH!!! Well, they just lost a customer :roll: Pertinent text: "All of our 7K250 drives, as well as any future product releases will have this feature. At this time, there is no way to disable it. Anti-vibration materials will not eliminate the noise, but it may help to minimize actually hearing the ...

I'm happy with it for the most part as it's completely silent save for a little whoosh from the exhaust fans. The only thing left is to wait for the Asus SiS Socket 754 board to get an Athlon 64 3200+ as the P4 2.8 I have right now isn't doing it for me. Well, on with the pics: http://hanisbottomlin...

Well, I really didn't think it could be done, but, wow, you can quiet the new Raptor :D My method is a little different than suspension and is more "stable" in my mind for the HD. My Chieftech case has two removable HD cages and underneath each cage is a platform welded to the case itself. I don't u...

You can't really go by those ratings - they're more of a general guide. I find that both the 7200.7 and the SP80 generally have the same level of idle noise *if* you isolate the SP80 from the case. In my experience with several of each type of drives the 7200.7 is extremely well behaved and quiet bu...

I have 2 SP1213C drives and they both support S.M.A.R.T. fully; if you're having problems it is your SATA controller, simple as that.

JVM wrote:

Bar81 wrote:DTemp works fine although I prefer the other programs

Well, I get 16-18C with DTemp - if that's fine, then I'm fine.

Those numbers are way too low for a normal room; doesn't look like it's working right.

What do you think of the RAID PCI cards that run independant of the CPU? still a bottleneck b/c they transfer info.? Yes, the controller card is still using the PCI bus and creates a bottleneck. The only way to get around that is to have native SATA support in the southbridge chipset. As for the Ra...

There's no whine. What there is, is a lot of seek noise. Unlike say, most SCSI drives, the Raptor's seeks aren't a deep crunching sound but rather a higher pitched lighter crunch if you can imagine that. What you can do is reduce those seek noises to a mutch more subdued deep crunch a la SCSI drives...

DTemp works fine although I prefer the other programs

It shouldn't make a difference as the temps are reported from SMART, right? I haven't used DTemp but point me to it and I'll see if it works.

Drive Health:
http://www.drivehealth.com/

HDDHealth
http://www.panterasoft.com/index.html?s ... h_shortcut

I have 3 SATA drives and they all work fine. Mobo is the Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe (SiS 655TX chipset) and I'm using the SATA controllers on the mobo. Drives are Raptor 740GD on SATA1 and 2 Seagate 7200.7 SATA in a RAID1 array on SATA3&4 I get temps between 36-45 for my Raptor and 47-51 for my Seagates ...

Well, I have one of the new Raptors and I can attest to how quiet they are at idle and they also run quite cool. My setup: Chieftec case lined with Acoustipack Deluxe V2 2 1500 rpm Pabst 80mm fans (one exhaust and one for CPU) Nexus NX-3000 PS Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe Pentium 2.8C 1G PC3200 At idle the...