asus a7v8x raid help

[Wizard]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

Glad it is dead. If you had gotten a A7N8X, and ruined, I'd cry. :o

There is no reason to have RAID. None is good unless going to 300 bucks plus class raid cards and they DO NOT make storage safer or faster.

Cheers, Wizard

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

i was using raid to make one MASSIVE drive.

it is hardware raid. separate bios for it and everything.

i connected my only sata drive up and it worked. no problem

besides, raid cards don't allow boot off of a raid partition. id have to install my old 2.5gb drive to boot, which would be a pain.

[370forlife]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

Its still software raid, its using the cpu for everything. My brother's asus board has this too.

Real hardware raid is when its a pci/pci-e card that has its own cpu and everything. They are much more reliable and don't slow down your computer.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

whatever. ill use what ive got. i dond have 300 to drop on a card. i barely had the 99 to drop on this. i still think i got a decent deal... see the pics in my next post

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

anyway, time for some pics: (note these are AFTER i started swapping parts)



front of the case. minus the missing usb door and missing drive bay cover, it looks cool? please comment on the looks since ratdude the king if case dors found one without one.



the side of the case. case is nice and roomy (not as much as my chieftec hardwired special but still not too bad)



2 lower hard drive mounts. right in front of fans. speaking of front fans:



notice second fan mount location

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

as for the power supply, some pics of that:



label of power supply. rated for 350 watts



the board. plenty of guts. i think i see a 5v pwm chip



the wire. appears to be same thickness as my delta.

now for some caps:



5 blown caps. jun fu or something like that. bulged and leaking



yc primary with regulator present

is this worth a recap? it has lots of plugs and seems to be good other than the caps.

[momaka]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

Like the others, I think you could have gotten a little more for $99, but it's definitely not a bad deal.
Case is okay, nothing special about it that I can see. The slots for the the hard drive fans are a bit inefficient though since there's no intake vents on the front of the case.
That Allied PSU looks pretty decent. Recap the secondary side, the 5vsb output, as well as any caps that might have these specs: 25v 22uF, 50v 22uF, 25v 47uF, 50v 47uF. You can leave the two primary caps if you want. Everything else looks good as is.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

yes there are vents. the blue side pieces on the front are mesh. frame metal behind that has stamped vents as well:



if i find them, i have 2 nippon chemicon primaries from a dead bestec. same specs, but smaller. can i resuse them or should i buy new? i dont feel good about leaving yc in there.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

better pic of vents (in front of monitor (light source)):

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

what brand/series is recommended for the power supply? i here panny fm is good.

[370forlife]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

Thats a better allied for sure, good sized heatsinks, good transient filter, and a bridge rectifier.

Jonnyguru did a new 500w allied, it went ka-blewy at 350W, but it was based on a different platform. One of the primary switchers blew out. The secondary silicon was all up to snuff with the label.

Interesting with the two small transformers, usually those are used on higher wattage unit with more umph on the 12v. Basically one is for the 5vsb, the other is a small supplementary 12v transformer. Don't know what its used for there.

[momaka]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

Well from the first few shots it sure looked like there are no vents on the case (I blame your camera though ). But I take back my words now, these vents are nice.
One thing you can do to improve the airflow on the hard drive fan(s) is to cut the grille in front of them. Should be easy if you have a dremel.

As for caps on the secondary side of the power supply you can use FC and FM (Panasonic), PW and HE (Nichicon), LXZ, KY and KZE (United Chemicon), and YXG (Rubycon).
If the power supply doesn't make a line-buzzing noise or the fan on it wasn't stalled when you got it, just keep the YC primary caps. But if you do have better caps to replace them with, then why not.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

i only powered the supply once, at the store just to show my mom it worked. if no caps were bulging then she wouldnt let me recap. she doesnt understand working but unsafe.

sorry, i was using my cell phone for pics. lame vga. my good one, some vista quest 7.0 mp crapper, needs new aaa's and i was too lazy to search the house for my stash. my parents moved them because the remote got hungry.

based on the pics, does 350w sound somewhat accurate. once i get around to recapping it i want to put it back in since my compaq-branded delta desnt have the plugs i need. ok, it does-kinda. i dont want to mod it like id did my delta 350-w 20+4 beast... that was fun but im outta zip ties and wire nuts.

and do i need a better cpu cooler? it runs 40-50c but the heatsink feels very warm. i cleaned it out nand flipped the fan so it blows out not sucks in.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

is nichicon rz ok? for a 16v 470uf

[momaka]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

based on the pics, does 350w sound somewhat accurate.

If the primary switchers are in a TO-220 package, expect 250 watts more or less with some amount of heat. Push it anywhere near the 300 watts mark and it will become unsafe and probably too hot to run reliably.
I'd recommend you use it with either only 5v-based systems (such as your Athlon XP) or very light 12v systems.

and do i need a better cpu cooler? it runs 40-50c but the heatsink feels very warm. i cleaned it out nand flipped the fan so it blows out not sucks in.

40-50C is about right and should be fine as is. A bigger heatsink might bring the temperature down in the range of high 30's to mid 40's, but don't expect more than that.
Try the fan both ways and see which way works better. I personally don't like sucking fans (ignore the pun here).

is nichicon rz ok?

No. It doesn't seem to have enough ripple. Probably not low ESR either.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

looks like tc has the caps i need in samxon. mouser didnt have the 3300 uf 16v/10v caps in my size without it being xicon or some other goofy brand. dogokey was too big of a mess.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

i heard sucking fans caused vrm caps to fail. blows hot air on them.

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

was running great... until i tried to upgrade to grub2. it worked on my laptop... but something went ary. must be goofy drive setup or something...

[ratdude747]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

YAY!!!!! Post 700!

soldered the new x/y caps in. the nippon chemicons look pretty in there. no more yc crap. the other caps have yet to be ordered. i also shorted the 115/230v switch since i do not anticipate using it overseas... i assume canada also uses 115v, right? (not that i would be likely moving there).soldered the new x/y caps in. the nippon chemicons look pretty in there. no more yc crap. the other caps have yet to be ordered. i also shorted the 115/230v switch since i do not anticipate using it overseas... i assume canada also uses 115v, right? (not that i would be likely moving there).

[370forlife]

Re: asus a7v8x raid help

You mean secondary caps, X and Y caps are in the transient filter.

I only see one X cap (the yellow rectangle by the AC input) and maybe a Y cap (a little blue disk near the AC input, not by the main caps) but there is a filtering coil too. Sort of complete input filter, should be more x and y caps and maybe another coil.