IEGD 10.4 / 945GME / Windows 7 SP1 / Rapid Storage Technology driver

[Nassbirne]

I'm currently testing IEGD 10.4 on Windows 7 Ultimate SP1. I was able to install the driver and it appears to be working fine. The platform has the 945GME chipset and uses two SiL1362 DVI transmitters to create two DVI outputs. Display mode is 'Extended' with two identical displays. So far so good.

Now, the system also has a Matrix Storage RAID-1 (ICH7MDH) and uses the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver (iata_enu_10.6.0.1022.exe). This is where strange things start to happen:

As long as the display mode is anything but 'Extend' ('Single', 'Twin' or 'Clone'), the Rapid Storage Technology application works fine. But in 'Extend' mode, the RST application hangs/crashes as soon as it is started.

The message is 'IAStorUI has stopped working', and you can chose whether to search online for a solution or to close the program. Problem details are as follows:

Description: Stopped working Problem signature: Problem Event Name: CLR20r3 Problem Signature 01: iastorui.exe Problem Signature 02: 10.6.0.1002 Problem Signature 03: 4dd69f61 Problem Signature 04: PresentationCore Problem Signature 05: 3.0.0.0 Problem Signature 06: 4ca2e2dd Problem Signature 07: 3ad4 Problem Signature 08: 39 Problem Signature 09: System.InvalidOperationException OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1 Locale ID: 1033

What might be the problem here?

[Kirk_B_Intel]

My guess would be that you have a system RAM limitation issue. The graphics gets its memory from the system memory pool (i.e. Unified Memory) and my guess is the RST drive needs memory from there also. When you go into extneded mode, all the background frame buffers and texture memory etc, get larger as we need unique information to feed the two unique outputs. This likely takes away from the available pool of memory and RST cannt get the memory it needs. I would hope they would have better error handling if this is the case. You could try upping your system memory or go into setup and reduce the graphics aperature (this may impact graphics throughput), or see if the RST has a memory size setting in its config and set it smaller to see.

There may also be a resource conflict. RST could be trying to use resources (MMIO regions or other I/O) that are reserved for graphics but would not be used unless the second graphics pipe for the extended mode is enabled. If that is the case you definitely need to get in touch with the RST team to get help. You might want to do that anyway so they can start working with us to resolve whatever conflict is occuring.

Hope this helps!

Kirk

[Nassbirne]

Thanks for your reply Kirk.

I do not think it's a resource conflict since it's only the UI application that crashes. The driver and RST service itself appear to be running fine: Reporting the RAID status, rebuilding the RAID, all are working OK as far as I can see or test.

I also did a test using the standard Intel graphics driver that comes with Windows Update, and since this one does not support two DVI-D outputs, I had to use a LVDS display and a DVI-D monitor to create the Extended Desktop scenario. Result: The UI application works fine with this driver.

Anyway, how would I get in touch with the RST team?

[Nassbirne]

UPDATE:

I downgraded RST to previous versions in order to find one that works, but all exhibited the same behavior and error.

Then I installed Matrix Storage Manager 8.9, and behold, the application (Intel Matrix Storage Console) runs fine!

So my guess is that it has something to do with the new UI that was introduced with the switch to 'Rapid Storage Technology'.