My motherboard is sick!

November 11, 2006 12:05 PM

A couple months ago I got a new motherboard, but earlier today it crashed with a hardware error and the built-in soundcard no longer works, and I'm worried that other things might go as well. The complication is that my main system drive is actually a RAID-1 array using the motherboard's built in RAID controller. So the first question is: how easy would it be for me to recover the data if the motherboard dies? and the second question is whether or not I could get the board replaced under warranty, and if so would I just be able to swap it in without reinstalling XP?

My computer had been crashing (blue-screening) once or twice a month for a while now, and while annoying it wasn't killing me. But today it crashed and when it came back up the sound no longer worked. I tried re-installing the drivers, but that didn't do anything. The chip didn't even show up in device manager. Find new hardware didn't do anything

So, I scavenged an old SB-Live card from the corpse of my old machine. It works, but I'm worried about this board. Could something else go? As I said, my main system drive is a mirrored raid array using the built-in raid controller. Will it be easy for me to rebuild the array using another motherboard or controller?

The other thing I'm wondering: would it be possible for me to simply replace the motherboard with another of the same model (I really like this board) either through a warranty process or buying a replacement, and then just pop out the old board and put this in without reinstalling XP? I know you could do that with 95, but since 2000 you couldn't just go from one board to another, but what about using the same model? Would it work?

It may be that I can just keep using this board with the old soundcard until I next need to upgrade.

posted by Paris Hilton to computers & internet (10 comments total)

Yes, something else could go at any time. Including the raid controller. Once one component fails, there's a good chance that the part that actually broke will affect everything else...

The data would not be recoverable in the event of a raid failure except by another identical RAID1 controller. (This is why you should always use a raid controller card vs. the motherboard's "fake raid"...)
posted by SpecialK at 12:10 PM on November 11, 2006

Isn't RAID 1 full mirroring? If so, wouldn't you be able to just take one of the surviving disks and use that in another machine without a RAID controller?
posted by aberrant at 12:57 PM on November 11, 2006

Yes, but... the raid controller, to maintain parity between the two, doesn't just put the information down the way that a tape recorder puts sound on a tape. It puts it's own interpretation, for lack of a better way to put it, on the data.

So, at least with the hardware-based fake-raid that I've used, it's like if a tape recored recoreded in it's own proprietary method and other tape players couldn't read it.
posted by SpecialK at 1:21 PM on November 11, 2006

Wow, this is strange. I was listening to music again, using headphones (this time through the sound blaster) and when I stood up (thus yanking on the cable) I got all kinds of feedback and then a lot of static. The first crash also happened when I stood up (yanking on the cable) I wonder if there was some weird static buildup or something on the line which killed the audio circuit.

I'd been using an audio cable extension, and the connection was bad -- I would sometimes lose sterio. I wonder if this is what caused it.

*sigh* I'm running a backup job now. Anyone know how well the windows backup restore actually works?
posted by Paris Hilton at 2:34 PM on November 11, 2006

You can almost certainly just take one of the two drives, put it in another machine and use it. I don't know what kind of RAID-1 SpecialK's been using.

What make and model of motherboard is it?
posted by joegester at 3:40 PM on November 11, 2006

No offense intended, Mr K. sir.
posted by joegester at 3:41 PM on November 11, 2006

You can simply swap out the same motherboard and have problems.

Like joegster said, you can remove a drive from your raid set and it will work perfectly. However, you may have problems if you want to hot swap a new drive in.

I don't know why speciaK calls it "fake-raid" either, it's software-raid. And with raid-1, onboard is fine, unless what you do with your machine requires a lot of disk activity.
posted by mphuie at 3:56 PM on November 11, 2006

You can almost certainly just take one of the two drives, put it in another machine and use it. I don't know what kind of RAID-1 SpecialK's been using.

That's reassuring.

What make and model of motherboard is it?

The motherboard is a Epox 9NPA. It has a Nvidia nForce chipset, and the RAID controller part of it. According to device manager it's an "NVIDIA nForce(tm) RAID Class Controller."

You can simply swap out the same motherboard and have problems.

Er, I'm assuming you meant without problems? having problems is what I'm trying to avoid :)
posted by Paris Hilton at 4:26 PM on November 11, 2006

A disk in RAID-1 will generally be identical to a disk not in RAID-1, just with the last block containing the RAID metadata. Another chipset probably won't understand the metadata, but any system will see the data.
posted by Freaky at 5:08 PM on November 11, 2006

I can't speak for the RAID stuff, but I replaced a motherboard that I managed to brick with a completely different brand and didn't have to reinstall XP (though I had to boot into safe mode once).
posted by dirigibleman at 9:17 PM on November 11, 2006