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37470
July 31st, 2003 15:00
Delayed write failure with firewire hard drive
I've been sifting through the myriad of posts which describe the Delayed Write Failure which occurs on several laptops - including Inspiron's 8200 and 8500, and even desktops. The symptoms to the problem happen when transferring files to your firewire hard drive, whatever brand it is (maxtor, acomdata, western digital). The drive stops transferring, the delayed write failure message pops up, and the firewire port becomes disabled.
Every solution, whether GAP SP2, or disabling write caching, doesn't work. The problem isn't that it's third party hardware and it's "their" fault, it's DELL's fault. Why can't DELL fess up to their mistake - at least admit it's a problem, and maybe even do what good customer service should do - and fix the problem?
Every solution, whether GAP SP2, or disabling write caching, doesn't work. The problem isn't that it's third party hardware and it's "their" fault, it's DELL's fault. Why can't DELL fess up to their mistake - at least admit it's a problem, and maybe even do what good customer service should do - and fix the problem?
Entropy42
529 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 16:00
Interestingly enough, I've had this problem once or twice, but NEVER on my Dell. It has (so far) only happened on my homebuilt desktop machine.
It may be a bug with the Oxford OX911 chipset used in most enclosures.
MGillespie
10 Posts
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July 31st, 2003 18:00
Do you know what make of firewire enclosure DOES work? Mine certainly didn't (have now sold it). It was not a Oxford911 based chipset, but one of the others. What laptop you using, where it does work OK, what BIOS version etc...
Need to buy a new one, one that works this time.
Entropy42
529 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 19:00
See my sig for info on the laptop I have. (I8200). Don't remember BIOS revision. 1394 is handled by the OS anyway.
Desktop is a homebuilt Athlon system with a generic VIA chipset 1394 card. (The I8200 has a TI chipset).
I've had rare issues with writing to my Firewire HD (Maxtor 120G drive in a generic USB2/1394 enclosure from NewEgg, ME-720UF) from my desktop machine. No problems with the drive connected to the 8200. The ME-720 is an OX911-based enclosure. Note that I'm running Linux on both machines. I've also used the drive under XP on the desktop and Win2k on the 8200, but far less frequently.
keyboarduy
22 Posts
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July 31st, 2003 21:00
By the way, I have an Inspiron 8200 1.8 GHz, 512 MB RAM Running XP dual boot Pro and Home SP1, all the latest DELL fixes.
Entropy42
529 Posts
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August 1st, 2003 12:00
It may or may not be XP. But it also isn't the laptop, as while I have had the problems you describe, they were NOT encountered on my Inspiron, but on my desktop which has a different 1394 controller in it. (VIA instead of TI).
Versello
13 Posts
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August 1st, 2003 13:00
Land
7 Posts
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August 1st, 2003 14:00
MGillespie
10 Posts
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August 26th, 2003 10:00
Well, my Inspiron 8200 is currently back with Dell. Let see what happens. I doubt that it will be any different when the laptop comes back....
Entropy42
529 Posts
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August 26th, 2003 12:00
It is NOT a Dell-specific problem. It could be a problem specific to a particular OX911 revision - Keep in mind that the OX911 chip does have OEM-customizable firmware (the secret to Wiebetech OX911-based bridges supporting ATA-6 HDs >137 GB when no one else did.), and hence firmware bugs that might be present in some OX911 bridges might not be present in others.
I'm using a generic enclosure from www.newegg.com - ME-720UF, combo USB2/1394 enclosure.
MGillespie
10 Posts
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August 28th, 2003 17:00
My original enclosure was NOT a 911 chipset, and it exhibted the problem. I don't know what chipset it was, but it certainly wan't a Oxford 911.
I am looking for another enclosure to try when the laptop comes back from Dell.
Anyone know any UK sellers of Firewire enclosures?
Versello
13 Posts
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August 30th, 2003 05:00
My Inspiron has that problem, along with my friend's Toshiba satellite. I believe it is a problem with Windows XP and certain firewire controller chipsets. If you do a search on google, you'll find responses saying it has something to do with Windows XP's caching...
After 4 months of this problem I finally got fed up and bought a USB 2.0 PC card. My external HD has been up for days with no problems now.
dogmanky
33 Posts
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August 31st, 2003 03:00
You might be onto something here. Does the problem persist with nothing shared on the FW drive? (check in Comp mgmt to be sure no hidden$ shares either).. ? There is a caching setting in the share tab of a shared folder. Maybe turn caching off on shared folders would help... ??
Entropy42
529 Posts
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September 2nd, 2003 11:00
My 1394 drive is never shared.
This could explain why the problem exists on my desktop but never on my I8200 - The 8200 is running Windows 2000. (I will NEVER reinstall XP on my 8200 - XP's power management functionality is FUBAR.)
I8KOwner
2 Posts
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September 3rd, 2003 23:00
Hi, all,
I have had the "Delayed Write Failure" problem since Win 2K Pro, and now with Win XP Pro, on my Inspiron 8100 and external firewire hard drive. It seemed to be increasing in frequency, so I finally decided to call the tech support people at Dell to see if they had discovered anything new.
I was connected to a low-level tech support rep in India named "Vincent," who had little or no idea what I was talking about. Before he hung up on me, however, he suggested that I try to increase the page file size. (Right click My Computer, select Properties, Advanced Tab, Settings Button under Performance, Advanced Tab under Perfomance Options, Change button under virtual memory) Click on the Custom Size option, and multiply both the Initial and Maximum size values by 1.5. (For my system with 384 MB RAM, the new values became 576 and 1152.)
I told him that it was ridiculous to think that this would have any effect, and that he should keep searching through his tech support notes to find another solution. He never got back to me after he put me on hold.
I tried his suggestion, and, lo and behold, it seems to be working. I haven't been able to re-create the "Delayed Write Failed" error when moving files to my external Firewire HD (APS Tech enclosure, USB 2.0/IEEE1394 interfaces w/Oxford 911 chipset).
Go figure. I'll let you know if the solution fails. Until then, give it a try and pass it along to the other forums.
cheers,
I8KOwner
ghostdunks
33 Posts
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September 5th, 2003 10:00
I too have an Inspiron 8100 with more or less the same specs as you(difference being it's a 1.2ghz and I have 512mb ram). I bought a NewMotion Combo(USB2/Firewire) enclosure with Oxford 911 chipset end of last year and put a Seagate V 120gig harddrive in there. I was originally running Win98SE when I first got external setup working and I was running that for about a month, and I don't recall ever getting any errors with the drive. Then I figured I might as well catch up to the rest of the world and go to XP(don't trust SP1 yet). Since then I've been getting intermittent "Delayed Write Failure"s cropping up, usually when I'm copying a big file(>500 mb) from my internal hd to the external hd. After research in quite a few forums and sites, I've come up with the following titbits why the error is happening:
1) Only happens with Win2000 and WinXP(regardless of service pack). Doesn't happen when running another OS, ie. Linux, 98, 98SE etc..
2) Usually happens when doing a lot of I/O to the external drive
3) If you have a desktop and you have an ATI video card, this seems to cause the problem as well, but not in the same circumstances. So the "Delayed write failure" seems to be a very generic error indeed, which could be caused by a variety of sources(eg. a bad internal hard disk can also cause this error).
4) Don't believe it's a problem with the chipset(Oxford or otherwise), as it doesn't seem limited to them
5) On the Inspirons, some people have had success with connecting the drive to a PCMCIA firewire card, rather than the inbuilt firewire port
6) Some people have put the reason down to tweaking the cache settings(IOPAGELOCKLIMIT, optimised for system cache, etc), and virtual memory settings
7) Some people have had success when changing the filesystem type and size. I originally had the the whole 120gig formatted as one big FAT32 partition. Have tried changing to two smaller FAT32 partitions, but errors still happen. Haven't tried to make it a NTFS partition, but since people with NTFS partitions still have the problem, I'm not pinning much hope on that solution.
8) Could be an IRQ problem, as it looks like on the 8000 series at least, the firewire controller is sharing an IRQ with several other components, namely the USB controller and video card controller. Seeing as I connect to the internet through a USB ADSL modem, this may be be causing conflicts with the firewire. As I am almost always connected to the internet, this might be a possible reason.
As I have tried a few methods of resolving this problem, I'm willing to try anything. I initially had set my virtual memory setting as one custom sized file(both initial and maximum size set to 984 mb). Have tried different sizes(with both initial and maximum set to the same). Haven't tried with initial and maximum set differently. Have just set the setting to "system managed" on a particular drive with tons of space. Will see if this makes any difference. Hopefully, either I8KOwner or me will have some success with this. If this doesn't work, might have to try a PCMCIA firewire card to see if that solves the problem.
I8KOwner, when you get the error, can you check the Event viewer to see what type of events appear? It would be interesting to check our setups and try and narrow the problem down. I usually get Event types 51 and 9. I think 51 is accompanied with a message saying something about an error occured on the hd during a paging operation, and event 9 is some error about the device having a timeout.