slow game installs with Raptor HDD

[bill1971]

Just built a gaming rig for a friend:

ABIT IP35 Pro (BIOS v17)
Raptor 150 GB HDD
4 x 1GB Corsair XMS2 PC-6400 DDR2 (Memtest 86 v3.4a, 1 pass, no errors)
E8400 CPU
MSI NX8800GT Vid card (175.19 drivers)
500 watt Antec Earthwatts PSU
Antec 900 case
Win XP Pro SP2 (now SP3)
Pioneer DV-15R(?) IDE burner

Upgraded the BIOS, XP install was great. All drivers installed without a hitch. Had to talk to India to activate OS, (what a PITA!). The drivers/proggies I had dwnlded on my laptop and transferred to the Raptor via thumb drive. Everthing installed quickly from the Raptor. Also installed Nero, etc. via CD - all went relatively quickly.

I wanted to try out a game or two, so I went to install Jade Empire, and then Need For Speed - Carbon(?) that my son had picked up for a buck and a half.

Well, the file extraction process for these 8 GB and 6 GB games was excruciatingly slow. It took over an hour to extract the Jade Empire files, and right at one hour to extract the NFS files. What could be causing this? It seemed like the Raptor was just "coasting," waiting for data, as the Pioneer burner was reading, (trying to read?) the install DVDs.

Once the games were installed, they both ran beautifully. I'm going to use a SATA burner and see if that has any effect, just to rule out the optical drive/IDE as the culprit. Now, the Pioneer ran at a constant speed during the extraction process, i.e., it didn't speedup and slowdown, like it was having trouble reading the discs.

What can be causing this?? What processes are involved?

Then I look at the Pro XE model of this MB on Newegg, and someone who had talked to ABIT support said that there were compatibility issues with Raptors(?) Now, in the BIOS, the Raptor is not listed under "SATA1," (as it should), but it is listed as the boot device elsewhere in the BIOS. Also, during the XP install, I installed the AHCI drivers only, (not the RAID drivers). Also, after the XP install, I installed the JMicron drivers which are supposed to control the eSATA and IDE controllers.
That all seemed to go without a hitch.

As I said, the system runs great, except for these large game extractions/installs.

Ran Aquamark benchmarks with stock system (180,000), 3Dmark 03 (40,000) and 3DMark05 (19,250). So compared to my old AMD FX-55 7800GT system, I was pretty well pleased.

As always, any info/guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

- Bill

[BipolarBill]

If these disks were "home-burned", that might explain it.

[bill1971]

Thanks for the response, Bill.

No, the games were retail disks. I did subsequently install a Sony SATA burner to compare. After uninstalling Need For Speed Carbon, I tried re-installing it using the Sony. It installed in about 4 minutes. Installed Bioshock which is an 8 gigger, and it installed in about 5 minutes.

So it looks like it's something with the IDE controller, although Device Mangler says everything is working properly, and when I installed XP Pro using the Pioneer (IDE), all went smoothly. Now, I did install the Intel chipset drivers, but not the Intel Application Accelerator software, but I thought XP didn't need that software?

Thanks again for the input.

- Bill