A7N8X and 200Gb SATA - slow bootup

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dan
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D

Dan

Hello all,

Just wondering if anyone could help me work out why my machine now seems to
take twice as long to boot up.

Originally I was using an 80Gb Seagate IDE HD on the Primary IDE channel.
Having used up most of that I added a 200Gb SATA drive onto the secondary
SATA port. Everything storage-wise seems to be working fine, however, when
the machine is in POST and it gets to the 'RAID' screen, a flashing
underscore appears and seems to take far longer to boot up than it used to.
For some reason, pressing enter *seems* to speed up the process.

It's only a minor niggle, and I'm pleased the HD is working, but it would be
nice to know if I could get rid of it. I've had a look through the BIOS and
through the manual, but neither seem to help.

Many thanks in advance.

Dan
 
"Dan" <[email protected]> said:
Hello all,

Just wondering if anyone could help me work out why my machine now seems to
take twice as long to boot up.

Originally I was using an 80Gb Seagate IDE HD on the Primary IDE channel.
Having used up most of that I added a 200Gb SATA drive onto the secondary
SATA port. Everything storage-wise seems to be working fine, however, when
the machine is in POST and it gets to the 'RAID' screen, a flashing
underscore appears and seems to take far longer to boot up than it used to.
For some reason, pressing enter *seems* to speed up the process.

It's only a minor niggle, and I'm pleased the HD is working, but it would be
nice to know if I could get rid of it. I've had a look through the BIOS and
through the manual, but neither seem to help.

Many thanks in advance.

Dan
Click to expand...

Imagine the job of the SIL3112 RAID BIOS. To run a RAID array,
it wants to detect two disks. If it finds one disk connected,
it sits there, waiting and waiting, for the second disk to
say "ready". Eventually, the RAID BIOS times out, and unloads
itself, as I believe that RAID BIOS is only supposed to stay
around, in the presence of two disks.

That could be the delay you are seeing. Maybe when you add
another SATA disk to the SIL3112 some day, it'll go through
that stage a tiny bit faster ? (As then both disks will say
"ready", and the RAID BIOS won't have to wait until the
timeout expires.)

Just a guess,
Paul
 
Imagine the job of the SIL3112 RAID BIOS. To run a RAID array,
it wants to detect two disks. If it finds one disk connected,
it sits there, waiting and waiting, for the second disk to
say "ready". Eventually, the RAID BIOS times out, and unloads
itself, as I believe that RAID BIOS is only supposed to stay
around, in the presence of two disks.

That could be the delay you are seeing. Maybe when you add
another SATA disk to the SIL3112 some day, it'll go through
that stage a tiny bit faster ? (As then both disks will say
"ready", and the RAID BIOS won't have to wait until the
timeout expires.)

Just a guess,
Paul
Click to expand...

I don't think so! I currently have two SATA drives on that MB, not in
RAID configuration, but I have run with a single one in the past, and
the POST only pauses transiently (just about long enough to read the
text) at the RAID screen in either configuration. In addition, the
RAID firmware should be able to distinguish virtually instantaneously
between there being no drive on the second connection and there being
a drive which is not ready.

Please respond to the Newsgroup, so that others may benefit from the exchange.
Peter R. Fletcher
 
Dan said:
Hello all,

Just wondering if anyone could help me work out why my machine now seems to
take twice as long to boot up.

Originally I was using an 80Gb Seagate IDE HD on the Primary IDE channel.
Having used up most of that I added a 200Gb SATA drive onto the secondary
SATA port. Everything storage-wise seems to be working fine, however, when
the machine is in POST and it gets to the 'RAID' screen, a flashing
underscore appears and seems to take far longer to boot up than it used to.
For some reason, pressing enter *seems* to speed up the process.

It's only a minor niggle, and I'm pleased the HD is working, but it would be
nice to know if I could get rid of it. I've had a look through the BIOS and
through the manual, but neither seem to help.

Many thanks in advance.

Dan
Click to expand...
Dan,

If I'm reading your post correctly, the slowness might be from the SATA
drive being hooked on the Secondary Connector instead of the Primary
one. Booting should move along smoothly with a single drive hooked to
the Primary. Mine pauses a bit if something goes screwy in the file
system or if I've mis-hooked the SATA drive to the Secondary when
there's no Primary is installed!
Rob
 
By flashing underscore do you mean going from \ to / ?
If so seems very like the syncing process when raid is being configured.
If so when you set up, did you enter the raid utility and attempt to set it
up?
 
No, it's definately an underscore. It appears when the board seems to search
for the SATA drives. I've tried switching from Secondary to Primary, but the
same problem occurs. Perhaps I should set up some form of RAID array.

Dan
 
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