Anyone ever had an SATA cable cause data corruption?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zeno
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Zeno

ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi/AP
2GB PC6400 Giel RAM
1x 8800GTS 320MB
3x 500GB HDD
Other drives 2x300GB and 1x320GB


Is there a chance a SATA cable could be at the cause of data corruption?
I've never heard of SATA cables causing problems, they either work or
not in my experience. Let me explain...

Currently got 3 SATA drives installed on the above system and am
experiencing very occasional file corruption issues on whatever drive is
connected to the 3rd port (tried 3 different drives) on there. The
other 2 ports/drives seem to suffer no corruption.

At first I thought it was maybe down to faulty RAM (I had to replace the
RAM about a week or so before the corruption started occuring), but
numerous long 48hr+ MEMEST86+ session give it the all clear.

The corruption seems VERY subtle and mainly when large files are
involved, it occurs (or atleast I can detect it) maybe once every 1 or 2
days.

I'm using the standard SATA cables that ASUS provide.

Any ideas how to pin this down?
 
Zeno said:
ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi/AP
2GB PC6400 Giel RAM
1x 8800GTS 320MB
3x 500GB HDD
Other drives 2x300GB and 1x320GB


Is there a chance a SATA cable could be at the cause of data
corruption? I've never heard of SATA cables causing problems, they
either work or not in my experience. Let me explain...

Currently got 3 SATA drives installed on the above system and am
experiencing very occasional file corruption issues on whatever drive
is connected to the 3rd port (tried 3 different drives) on there. The
other 2 ports/drives seem to suffer no corruption.

At first I thought it was maybe down to faulty RAM (I had to replace
the RAM about a week or so before the corruption started occuring),
but numerous long 48hr+ MEMEST86+ session give it the all clear.
Click to expand...
The corruption seems VERY subtle and mainly when large files are involved,
Click to expand...

What do you mean by that exactly ? Is that only seen when you
copy large files or is it also seen when you read just them, and is the
corruption permanent when it happens or variable from read to read ?
it occurs (or atleast I can detect it) maybe once every 1 or 2 days.
Click to expand...

How are you deciding that you are seeing corruption ?
I'm using the standard SATA cables that ASUS provide.
Click to expand...
Any ideas how to pin this down?
Click to expand...

The obvious way to do that is to automate a CRC etc of the file etc.
 
Previously Zeno said:
ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi/AP
2GB PC6400 Giel RAM
1x 8800GTS 320MB
3x 500GB HDD
Other drives 2x300GB and 1x320GB

Is there a chance a SATA cable could be at the cause of data corruption?
Click to expand...

Not really.
I've never heard of SATA cables causing problems, they either work or
not in my experience. Let me explain...
Click to expand...
Currently got 3 SATA drives installed on the above system and am
experiencing very occasional file corruption issues on whatever drive is
connected to the 3rd port (tried 3 different drives) on there. The
other 2 ports/drives seem to suffer no corruption.
Click to expand...
At first I thought it was maybe down to faulty RAM (I had to replace the
RAM about a week or so before the corruption started occuring), but
numerous long 48hr+ MEMEST86+ session give it the all clear.
Click to expand...

I have had bit-errors in RAMs that memtest86+ did not find.
I had to run an unserspace memterster under Linux....
The corruption seems VERY subtle and mainly when large files are
involved, it occurs (or atleast I can detect it) maybe once every 1 or 2
days.
Click to expand...

Can you determine the exact nature of the corruption, i.e. can
you compare a corrupted file with an uncorrupted version?
I'm using the standard SATA cables that ASUS provide.
Click to expand...
Any ideas how to pin this down?
Click to expand...

First, SATA uses checksums ion all transfers, uncaught corruption
is extremely unlikely.

The suspects are:

- RAM (memtest86+ seems npt to do a good job anymore today, unfortunately)
- CPU (bus/cache)
- System bus
- Chipset, especially SATA controller

Since you have corruption only on one port, I would say the most
likely candidate (almost certain) is the SATA controller. All other
candidates should cause corruption on the other disks as well. It is
possible thet the SATA controller causes some corruption on its 3rd
port internally, before the data gets fitted with checksums.

Advice: RMA the board.

Arno
 
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