A7N8X Deluxe V 2.0 SATA Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter R. Fletcher
  • Start date Start date
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Peter R. Fletcher

My 120 Gb Seagate SATA Drive works fine as the boot drive of an
upgraded XP Pro system, EXCEPT (you knew there was oing to be one)
that I cannot do a warm reboot. The system boots up happily into
Windows 100% of the time when powered on (whether truly from cold or
just after it has been switched off). When I reboot from Windows,
everything proceeds normally through the POST until after the RAID
BIOS has initialised, when it hangs with the normal boot device
listing visible. I don't know whether something would happen if I left
it long enough, but I have left it for 3-4 minutes befre powering off
and on again.

Scanning posts here and elsewhere suggests that this is a reasonably
well known problem and also suggests that installing the latest Uber
BIOS (1007) and SI Raid drivers (10029) should fix it. I have done
this, as well as following the other consistent suggestion (boot
device set to SCSI) but unfortunately the problem persists. Does
anyone have any other ideas?

The only slightly unusual thing in the system is a parallel IDE drive
being run as serial through an ABIT Serillel adapter, but the hang
also occurred with this removed.
 
Peter said:
My 120 Gb Seagate SATA Drive works fine as the boot drive of an
upgraded XP Pro system, EXCEPT (you knew there was oing to be one)
that I cannot do a warm reboot. The system boots up happily into
Windows 100% of the time when powered on (whether truly from cold or
just after it has been switched off). When I reboot from Windows,
everything proceeds normally through the POST until after the RAID
BIOS has initialised, when it hangs with the normal boot device
listing visible. I don't know whether something would happen if I left
it long enough, but I have left it for 3-4 minutes befre powering off
and on again.
Click to expand...

Can safely say that you have a problem if it sits there for 4 minutes doing
nothing.
Scanning posts here and elsewhere suggests that this is a reasonably
well known problem and also suggests that installing the latest Uber
BIOS (1007) and SI Raid drivers (10029) should fix it.
Click to expand...

Can't say I recall seeing the problem. A similar problem is with the SW IDE
drivers prior to those in the Forceware 3.13s - they spin down the drive,
causing a delay on startup.

The 1007 Uber is exactly the same as the normal 1007, but has a few more
options enabled. The SATA BIOS in the 1007 is the latest known version so
the Uber keeps it, I would not expect the Uber to make any difference
whatsoever.
I have done
this, as well as following the other consistent suggestion (boot
device set to SCSI) but unfortunately the problem persists. Does
anyone have any other ideas?
Click to expand...

Well I've always used the .32s or the .40s along with 4.2.12 or later of the
SATA BIOS and had no problems, somehow I don't think the newer drivers will
change your problem but might be worth a go. (Check my sig for the drivers
I recommend)
The only slightly unusual thing in the system is a parallel IDE drive
being run as serial through an ABIT Serillel adapter, but the hang
also occurred with this removed.
Click to expand...

Can safely ignore that then.

Ben
 
Amazingly fast response!

Thanks! I will try the .40 drivers. I did see a problem like this in a
DEC mini some years ago, where the driver for some slightly strange
hardware put it into an "actively" non-responsive state on shutdown -
I wondered if the XP drivers were doing something analogous to the
SATA hardware.
 
Peter said:
Amazingly fast response!

Thanks! I will try the .40 drivers. I did see a problem like this in a
DEC mini some years ago, where the driver for some slightly strange
hardware put it into an "actively" non-responsive state on shutdown -
I wondered if the XP drivers were doing something analogous to the
SATA hardware.
Click to expand...

Agreed... it's totally possible. I just have a feeling that your problem
lies elsewhere. Let us know how it goes.

Ben
 
The .40 drivers from your link are not recognised by XP as newer than
the ones I am using (which say in Device Manager that they are .32
rather than .29, btw), and I was not inclined to force the issue,
particularly since you don't seem to think they are the problem. Any
other specific ideas?
 
Peter said:
The .40 drivers from your link are not recognised by XP as newer than
the ones I am using (which say in Device Manager that they are .32
rather than .29, btw), and I was not inclined to force the issue,
particularly since you don't seem to think they are the problem. Any
other specific ideas?
Click to expand...

Thats odd, I can assure you they are newer (based on the time they surfaced
and their version number) it could be a US/UK date issue.

As to other reasons... can't think of anything.

Have you searched nForcersHQ? I would search the whole forum as other
nForce2 motherboards use the 3112A controller...

Ben
 
A brief follow-up: the problem persisted, and I decided to ignore it,
since it wasn't really causing me too much trouble. However, the left
audio channel on the on-board audio started progressively to crackle
and fade, which I wasn't prepared to tolerate in a new MB. The
application of standard elimination techniques confirmed that the
problem really was on the MB, so I got a replacement from the supplier
on this basis. This installed without problems, I updated the BIOS to
Uber 1007, and not only was the audio problem fixed but the hang on
warm boot problem was, too. It may be that the flaw that was causing
the audio trouble was somehow also affect the SATA controller, though
why it should only have caused problems on a warm boot God alone
knows.
 
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