Help - GFTI4600 + Promise Raid

[Guest]

The problem - When the GF4 is installed the Raid controller will not display it's BIOS, hence the raid isn't functional. If it does post it's bios (which I got it to do after updating my MB bios) It hangs after the raid detection, never displaying the status screen (Raid Functional etc.).

I've e-mailed Promise and I quote:

"Here it is plane and simple. Currently there is a known issue with the G-Force 4 video card suppressing the bios. From what we know so far, this problem has to do with amount of bios space the G-Force 4 uses in conventional ram. What is happening is that the Promise controller, video, adapters not to mention the Nick use bios space. Usually motherboards have 128K of bios space for other devices to expand there BIOS's. This is a known issue and we are working with NVIDIA to see what we can do to alleviate the issue." Then a bit further down, "I don't have an ETA for a fix for the GForce4 issue how ever it is being looked into."

I can't believe I'm the only person with this issue so I'm hoping one of you may have experienced it and can give me some input. Perhaps suggest an alternate raid controller, or a MB this won't happen on.

System Specs -

MSI GF4 TI4600
MSI 6341 MB (AMD761)
|
IBM 60 GB (Drive C
IBM 45 GB (Drive D
Promise Fastrack TX 2
|
Raid 0 IBM 60 GB X 2 - 1 master per channel (Drive E
Hercules GT XP Sound
AMD TBird 1333 @ 1466
512 MB Micron DDR @ CL 2.5
3Com Etherlink XL (10/100)
Realtek 10/100

I've done several things to try to address this.
OC/UC the system
PCI/PNP in the Bios - Manually blocking IRQs via Legacy
Pulled the Realtek
Updated MB Bios
Updated Promise Bios

Basically I always reach the same place. I previously had a GF2 in the system which worked fine.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to shelf the GF4 until a fix is available. I could break down the raid I just need to dump all that data and that would take hours, not to mention picking up a straight controller card to get the drives back online. GAH.

Thanks again,

Jason

 

[tlaughrey]

The subject of your post caught my eye, since I have a GF4 Ti 4600 and a Promise FastTrak100 RAID controller. Unfortunately, I don't have a suggestion off the top of my head on how to fix your problem. I have a Shuttle AK-31A motherboard (KT266A) and haven't experienced any problems such as the one you report. I know that's not much help, but perhaps it indicates a problem with your particular motherboard. Good luck, I hope you figure out the problem.

<i>Money talks. Mine always likes to say "goodbye." </i>