Problems with P6T Deluxe V2 startup

[mastervodo]

Hello All,

I have just recently gotten 2 OCZ 120 GB SSD's for my computer. I have a Western Digital 1 TB HDD as well, and a BDU 10XS Blu-ray optical drive.
I am running a corei7 920 on an Asus p6t Deluxe V2 mobo. I have been able to set up the 2 SSD's in RAID 0

I have my 2 SSD's plugged into SATA 1-2, the HDD plugged into SATA 3, and my Optical drive plugged into SATA 4.

I'm having 2 problems (so far) with startup. When BIOS is starting up, when it starts autodetecting the SATA's, it hangs up on SATA 4 and stalls for a bit. It says "not detected" eventually, but once VISTA is all going, the drive looks fine. In fact, if I set the BIOS to boot from the optical drive, it will recognize it. The reason I'm wondering what the deal is, is because when I re-boot from shutdown, it's taking forever for this system to re-boot.

The other problem I'm having is that I have a Logitech g15 keyboard, and when starting up, it's not recognizing the keyboard. Therefore, I can't even use it to hit "DEL" to get into the BIOS. The keyboard won't be active until VISTA64 is about up and running.

Thanks for the help, folks.

 

[spinny]

I'm no help for the SATA problem other than to say, can't you just leave the optical drive as first boot so it won't hang?

As for the keyboard, I have a G11 with a P6T so I imagine it should be the same. The keyboard doesn't work until after the USB drivers are loaded. This is one of the first things you see happening during the POST, and right after it says it is done, you can hit DEL to enter BIOS. But you have to hit DEL between the time it's finished loading the drivers and it moves on past the first screen, which is only a few seconds. Generally I'm lazy and just mash the DEL button repeatedly when I'm trying to get BIOS though.

 

[mastervodo]

I've actually tried putting it in different sata ports, and it does the same thing each time. I have the BIOS set to RAID, but if I set it to IDE, it works fine. I just worry that if I don't set it to RAID, then I'll have problems with my SSD's.

 

[MRFS]

When you installed your OS, what was the BIOS setting
for your SATA ports -- Standard IDE, AHCI or RAID?

If you installed your OS with either Standard IDE or AHCI
you'll need to re-install your OS with the BIOS set to RAID.

Running Windows Setup for XP/Pro, one also needs to
elect F6 in order to load device drivers. I don't have
experience with VISTA, but I am told that it comes
with the necessary drivers.

You'll also need to enable the RAID Option ROM in your
BIOS, in order to initialize a RAID array and its
component devices e.g. with CTRL-I during POST.

With Intel chipsets e.g. ICH10R, you can't simply
change the BIOS from either AHCI or Standard IDE
to RAID, because RAID mode requires device drivers
and the Option ROM must initialize each component
device before the device drivers can do any I/O.


Intel recommends that an OS be installed with
the BIOS set to RAID, even if all drives end up
being JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). I agree
with this recommendation, because it makes
subsequent changes like adding RAID arrays
and additional JBOD drives much easier.


That is my diagnosis of your problem, fwiw.


MRFS

 

[sminlal]

it hangs up on SATA 4 and stalls for a bit. It says "not detected" eventually, but once VISTA is all going, the drive looks fine.

This isn't the message you get because it's looking for a bootable disk and not finding it, is it? Do you get the same symptoms if you exclude the CD/DVD drive from your list of boot devices?

 

[mastervodo]

This isn't the message you get because it's looking for a bootable disk and not finding it, is it? Do you get the same symptoms if you exclude the CD/DVD drive from your list of boot devices?

In my BIOS setup, I actually only have the SDD RAID 0 as a startup. And I get the same result.

 

[mastervodo]

When you installed your OS, what was the BIOS setting
for your SATA ports -- Standard IDE, AHCI or RAID?

I'm not quite sure actually what I had it set up as when I installed. I had a little bit of a problem once it was all installed, because I had not partitioned the RAID 0 drives as one drive - and I had to re-install it. BIOS is set up for RAID now though.

If you installed your OS with either Standard IDE or AHCI
you'll need to re-install your OS with the BIOS set to RAID.

Hmmmmm... How bored am I? How much do I want this to work flawlessly? I've gone and wiped everything and re-installed my programs. I could re-install everything I suppose... wouldn't take an incredible amount of time.

Running Windows Setup for XP/Pro, one also needs to
elect F6 in order to load device drivers. I don't have
experience with VISTA, but I am told that it comes
with the necessary drivers.

You'll also need to enable the RAID Option ROM in your
BIOS, in order to initialize a RAID array and its
component devices e.g. with CTRL-I during POST.

I've got these 2 things done correctly

With Intel chipsets e.g. ICH10R, you can't simply
change the BIOS from either AHCI or Standard IDE
to RAID, because RAID mode requires device drivers
and the Option ROM must initialize each component
device before the device drivers can do any I/O.

Hmmm... I didnt' know this. When I was dinking around with my BIOS, I've been switching it from IDE to RAID back and forth. I'm not sure exactly when the device drivers are loaded -but, my system seems to work. The RAID disks are functioning. How do I test to see if they are preforming the way they should?

Intel recommends that an OS be installed with
the BIOS set to RAID, even if all drives end up
being JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). I agree
with this recommendation, because it makes
subsequent changes like adding RAID arrays
and additional JBOD drives much easier.

I think that I did end up installing VISTA with the BIOS set to RAID - but I could always do it again to be sure.

That is my diagnosis of your problem, fwiw.


Thank you very much for taking the time to look at this and give me a detailed analysis.

MRFS

 

[N@n0]

What version BIOS are you running? I had the same trouble with my G15, did a BIOS update, then disabled usb support, restarted and re-enabled. Worked perfectly ever since.

As for the boot delay, Have you unpluged the drive on port 4 and tried to boot? If it still takes long there might be a problem with the Mobo(I doubt it seriously).

might be a compatibility issue.

 

[mastervodo]

In the BIOS POST, it specifically hangs up a bit when trying to auto-detect the drive. I'm using the most recent bios for the motherboard from ASUS currently.

How do you disable usb support?