DTemp useless with Samsung SATA?

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 12:35 pm

mas92264 wrote:
Is the fact I get temps like 13C to 18C mean DTemp is reading the drive correctly?
These look like nonsense numbers to me. How can a drive temp be less than or equal to ambient? Can't. Heck, the air inside the box is almost for sure > ambient.

Try Speedfan. I'll bet 5 cents that it shows the same thing or nothing. Have you contacted Samsung?

M

Samsung? Oh, God. Yes, I called and they don't even know about SATA. The guy was talking about checking how the drive is connected and describing the P-ATA drive connection. The instruction sheet that came with the drive is for a P-ATA version!

I don't think Samsung knows anymore about this than me. Maybe they do in Korea or wherever Samsung is made, but here in the USA - forget it.

kesv · Post by **kesv** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 11:22 am

JVM wrote:I've heard it said that you have to enable SMART but SMART is only there if you have an IDE drive. I assume that enabling SMART is in the BIOS, or is it in the HDD? If in the HDD, how can you turn it on?

First of all. SMART is a feature of the HDD. It has nothing to do with the bios. At most the bios might have additional features that can make some use of SMART, but these are not required nor needed. SMART is also provided on almost all drives these days. This means SCSI, ATA, SATA should all be the same in SMART features.

Now on Linux you have a utility called hddtemp. It's a console tool as often is a case in *nix. This program needs a database of drives to function correctly because there is no standard about the register the temperature info is in. I suspect your problem is exactly that. The temperature is not read from the correct register because the info for your drive is missing or is incorrect.

As to turning SMART on. You could get a Linux LiveCD and boot from that. Linux has a tool called smartctl that is part of smartmontools. smartctl can read and manipulate the smart features. You can also run tests with it and inspect the drive error log. A most useful tool.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 2:15 pm

kesv wrote:
JVM wrote:I've heard it said that you have to enable SMART but SMART is only there if you have an IDE drive. I assume that enabling SMART is in the BIOS, or is it in the HDD? If in the HDD, how can you turn it on?
First of all. SMART is a feature of the HDD. It has nothing to do with the bios. At most the bios might have additional features that can make some use of SMART, but these are not required nor needed. SMART is also provided on almost all drives these days. This means SCSI, ATA, SATA should all be the same in SMART features.

Now on Linux you have a utility called hddtemp. It's a console tool as often is a case in *nix. This program needs a database of drives to function correctly because there is no standard about the register the temperature info is in. I suspect your problem is exactly that. The temperature is not read from the correct register because the info for your drive is missing or is incorrect.

As to turning SMART on. You could get a Linux LiveCD and boot from that. Linux has a tool called smartctl that is part of smartmontools. smartctl can read and manipulate the smart features. You can also run tests with it and inspect the drive error log. A most useful tool.

Is that Linux a tool I could use safely in XP? Sorry, but I am not at all familiar with Linux. And where do I get this Linux LiveCD?

kesv · Post by **kesv** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 9:42 am

JVM wrote:Is that Linux a tool I could use safely in XP? Sorry, but I am not at all familiar with Linux. And where do I get this Linux LiveCD?

I would recommend Knoppix from http://www.knoppix.org/ There are other LiveCD distros available too, but I haven't got experience with those. The only downside with Knoppix is that it doesn't include the latest version of smartmontools. The old version works but is not as convenient to use.

It's likely that XP wont even know that the machine was booted. Knoppix accesses disk partitions in readonly mode by default so accidental damage is unlikely to occur. Actually for accessing smart features there is no need to read the filesystem at all.

For you there will be the additional problem of learning a little bit of Linux to use it. It wont be too difficult. Knoppix will automatically recognize common hardware and boot to a graphical environment. But to have the full power of Linux you will need to learn to use commandline tools. Infact smartctl and other useful tools are commandline. There exist guis for some but they are not always available. (Not in knoppix anyway) So if you decide to take this course you will probably need to dedicate some time for it.

One option would certainly be to get the freedos bootdisk from http://www.freedos.org/ With that you should be able to get the Samsung utility to work. I have actually never used the Samsung utility so I can't really comment on its ability.

Curtis · Post by **Curtis** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:32 am

There is absolutely no problems associated with booting an XP based computer with a plain vanilla DOS bootdisk. There are plenty of sites that offer bootdisks based on various versions of DOS from ME to DOS6. It doesn't matter if your HD is NTFS formatted, unless you need to access files from that drive. Even then, you can get the NTFSDOS utility and work it into a custom boot disk without problem.

I find it diffcult to believe that the Samsung utility would require more than one floppy. Actually I find it had to believe that it isn't a self booting disk that you just insert into the drive and turn the computer on. Segate's comparible utility works like this, but then I've never used a Samsung drive...

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:12 am

Curtis wrote:There is absolutely no problems associated with booting an XP based computer with a plain vanilla DOS bootdisk. There are plenty of sites that offer bootdisks based on various versions of DOS from ME to DOS6. It doesn't matter if your HD is NTFS formatted, unless you need to access files from that drive. Even then, you can get the NTFSDOS utility and work it into a custom boot disk without problem.

I find it diffcult to believe that the Samsung utility would require more than one floppy. Actually I find it had to believe that it isn't a self booting disk that you just insert into the drive and turn the computer on. Segate's comparible utility works like this, but then I've never used a Samsung drive...

I don't know why, but the Samsung utility is supposed to be just for their PATA drives. I tried using it via a floppy disc but it didn't work and I called Samsung and they helped get me into real trouble to where XP got corrupted and I couldn't boot into Windows. I had to do a complete restore with reinstalling XP.

I will probably try the Hitachi tool.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:19 am

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 depending upon load. Using Win2K SP4 and I've confirmed the results with HDDHealth and Drive Health utilites.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:23 am

Bar81 wrote:I have 3 SATA drives and they all work fine. Mobo is the Asus P4S800D-E (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 depending upon load. Using Win2K SP4 and I've confirmed the results with HDDHealth and Drive Health utilites.

I guess the problem is SMART has to be enabled in the Samsung SATA HDD?

I just can't believe the DTemp reading of 16-18C

Where did you get those HDD temp utilities? And have you used DTemp?

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:30 am

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

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:04 am

Bar81 wrote: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

The thing is DTemp says SMART Supported, but reported - no, disabled

The BIOS does not show SMART enabled because that's for PATA drives. So, is SMART in the HDD? I mean, do you have to change it in the HDD if it is disabled? And use some utility like the Hitachi feature tool to change it?

DTemp: http://private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 12:24 pm

I checked it with the Hitachi Feature Tool and it said SMART is Enabled.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:17 pm

DTemp works fine although I prefer the other programs

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 7:46 pm

mas92264 wrote:
Is the fact I get temps like 13C to 18C mean DTemp is reading the drive correctly?
These look like nonsense numbers to me. How can a drive temp be less than or equal to ambient? Can't. Heck, the air inside the box is almost for sure > ambient.

Try Speedfan. I'll bet 5 cents that it shows the same thing or nothing. Have you contacted Samsung?

M

Samsung? Yep. No help there. When I told him 18C, he said wow that is cool.

My HDD is mounted in a Zalman cooler and in a 5.25" bay. I used the Hitachi Feature Tool and SMART is enabled but the Hitachi Tool was unable to read the temperature.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:01 am

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.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:10 am

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.

Do the other SMART values change?

Cheers,

Jan

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:25 am

Jan Kivar wrote:
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.
Do the other SMART values change?

Cheers,

Jan

Other SMART values? I don't know what you mean?

By the way, I used the Hitachi Feature Tool and SMART is enabled in my HDD but the Hitachi Feature Tool was unable to give me a temperature reading. This whole thing is very confusing to me.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:42 am

JVM wrote:Other SMART values? I don't know what you mean?

DTemp lists whole lot of other values, like Power-on hours, number of start-ups, etc.

What I mean is that You should look if these values change while You are doing what You normally do (surf, play etc.). If none of the values changes while in Windows (don't boot/shutdown), it would show that the VIA SATA controller/motherboard isn't quite capable of SMART.

Cheers,

Jan

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:07 am

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.

Schroinx · Post by **Schroinx** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 7:06 am

I have the P1614C version of Spinpoint and have the same problem. Ontrack Datarecovery does not detect smart on this drive. In speedfan it reports 14C and fitness to be worse than my old 120GB 540 maxtor which worries me a bit.

HDD Health sees it but reports temp to be around 14C. I'm not a penguin living in a freezer so unless this drive have a build in cooling system that I do not know of, it's way of. I have searched Samsungs website to find a utility for this version, but to no avail. Could anyone post some linkage to the Hitachi Disk Tool?

Could it be a problem with the SATA controller? The spinpoint is on SATA controller on the southbridge ICH5R of my mobo. I have not installed any drivers for this as it should not be nessecary.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 7:39 am

Schroinx wrote:I have the P1614C version of Spinpoint and have the same problem. Ontrack Datarecovery does not detect smart on this drive. In speedfan it reports 14C and fitness to be worse than my old 120GB 540 maxtor which worries me a bit.

HDD Health sees it but reports temp to be around 14C. I'm not a penguin living in a freezer so unless this drive have a build in cooling system that I do not know of, it's way of. I have searched Samsungs website to find a utility for this version, but to no avail. Could anyone post some linkage to the Hitachi Disk Tool?

Could it be a problem with the SATA controller? The spinpoint is on SATA controller on the southbridge ICH5R of my mobo. I have not installed any drivers for this as it should not be nessecary.

I have the Hitachi Feature Tool and it could not read the temperature of my SP0812C. Someone said you can use it to change AAM setting which is set for Performance by default but I don't find the SP0812C noisy by any means - I find it very quiet.

I contacted Samsung and inquired about the hutil_creator.exe utility on their website because it lists the PATA drives but not the SATA drives. An email said that utility is drive specific and is not for my SP0812C. When I called on the phone, I was told they don't know if it would work. There is another utility called Disk Manager but that is an entirely different matter.

The link to Samsung utilities:

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDis ... /hutil.htm

Here is the link to the Hitachi Feature Tool:

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 1:39 pm

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

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 3:15 pm

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.

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 3:51 pm

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 system can be: the damn Samsung is vibrating the case to bits. Not too bad if I remove the panels but ... Wanted to get some baseline numbers/stability before I implement silence mods: the bungee for the Samsung will be first!

Oh well: running Prime for another 23 hours then will put in Linux after I do the bungee.

Schroinx · Post by **Schroinx** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 4:38 pm

Jan Kivar wrote:Do the other SMART values change?

I have just installed HDD Health and being away a few hours made the damn thing go crazy. I had to "ok" about 20 dialog boxes, not stating what drive, but something about CRC error and changing value. So I think you could say that. Reason to be nervous?

Schroinx · Post by **Schroinx** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 4:50 pm

dukla2000 wrote: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 system can be: the damn Samsung is vibrating the case to bits. Not too bad if I remove the panels but ... Wanted to get some baseline numbers/stability before I implement silence mods: the bungee for the Samsung will be first!

1) Well, Win98 was not made for SATA since the tech did not even exists at that time and win98 is no longer supported in many drivers, so who wonders? Stop whining and get real before you complaint. That is a lot more than anyone can expect of MS software that old. If your where runnning 2K or Xp then maybe I could understand that you have a problem.

2) Mine is attached normally to the my case with standart screws. Works like a charm. Wonder what the big diference is between the SP1614C and 0812. Maybe you have a problem with the drive emitting the frequency thats your case's "resonans" frequency. Sorry about my Danish but I lack the right words tonight.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 5:26 pm

dukla2000 wrote: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 system can be: the damn Samsung is vibrating the case to bits. Not too bad if I remove the panels but ... Wanted to get some baseline numbers/stability before I implement silence mods: the bungee for the Samsung will be first!

Oh well: running Prime for another 23 hours then will put in Linux after I do the bungee.

What case do you have? I have the Sonata and mounted the SP0812C with a Zalman ZM-2HC in a 5.25" bay and the drive is very quiet.

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 5:57 pm

dukla2000 wrote: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.

Dukla,

Make sure you load the via 4 in 1 driver (best to get the current one from the via site.) That'll take care of your ide channels for cdrom and pata drive, if any.

On my 8237 box, the sata disk shows up as a scsi drive and you should have a scsi thingie show up in device manager (Win 2k, tho.) That's your sata drive. SpeedFan can't find my Seagate 'Cuda V sata disk, but it does find my Maxtor (in a 8237 box) and Hitachi sata disks (intel sata.)

M

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 6:18 pm

Schroinx wrote: 1) Well, Win98 was not made for SATA since the tech did not even exists at that time and win98 is no longer supported in many drivers, so who wonders? Stop whining and get real before you complaint. That is a lot more than anyone can expect of MS software that old. If your where runnning 2K or Xp then maybe I could understand that you have a problem..

From the Via web site:

"VIA VT8237 & VT6420 Serial ATA RAID Controller Driver

Supports: DOS, Windows NT4.0,98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Server 2003
HTTP Download.....................FTP Download

VIA_serialata_v.220e.zip VIA_serialata_v.220e.zip"

M

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 10:19 pm

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.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 10:26 pm

JVM wrote:
dukla2000 wrote: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 system can be: the damn Samsung is vibrating the case to bits. Not too bad if I remove the panels but ... Wanted to get some baseline numbers/stability before I implement silence mods: the bungee for the Samsung will be first!

Oh well: running Prime for another 23 hours then will put in Linux after I do the bungee.
What case do you have? I have the Sonata and mounted the SP0812C with a Zalman ZM-2HC in a 5.25" bay and the drive is very quiet.

You *must* isolate the SP80 from your case b/c as you've seen it vibrates. I also have my SP80 in a Zalman ZM-2HC and it's quiet with no vibration issues.