[RndTbl] RAID controller trouble

Robert Dyck rbdyck2 at shaw.ca
Sun Mar 14 07:29:38 CDT 2010


According to the ASUS website that motherboard has VIA VT8237R southbridge.

I did visually examine the caps the last two times she called me about this.
I didn't see any bulging caps. I worked as PC technician at a retail store
from October 2008 through November 2009. We all have to do grunt jobs
sometimes. I was a computer programmer or systems admin since February 1981,
but when you're unemployed you take what you can get. I saw more damaged
computers each week at that job than I had previously seen in my life. The
manager didn't like us to replace bad caps, because that might not fix it
and customers at a retail store got pissed off at even slightly high bills.
The point is I have seen enough bulging capacitors now to recognise them.

I have so many diagnostic programs now that I can pin-point just about
anything. But nothing for RAID. Is there any RAID diagnostic out there?

Thanks for the tip about RAID rebuild times. I haven't used RAID myself on a
PC. Slowly puttering away with a server at home, but that's a new install
and I'm trying to make it minimal. I have no way of knowing how long a RAID
resync is supposed to take. She has 2 drives shadowed.

I did ask her about shutdown procedures, and she did claim she always shuts
down properly. She's been using computers long enough that she should know
that. But then again I'm reminded of a customer I wrote a system for in the
mid 1980s. She complained about database damage. She also claimed she always
shutdown the application properly. Back then Windows didn't buffer writes,
so all she had to do was exit the application then shut off the power. After
repairing the database by hand 3 times, I "updated" her application to flush
all write buffers after each transaction. I did warn both her and the
manager who hired me that this would slow the application somewhat, but
after having to repair the database 3 times it was necessary. The database
damage mysteriously went away after that change.

Before I start making nasty accusations, is it possible her mobo RAID
controller isn't flushing during the Windows shutdown procedure?

Rob Dyck





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