Bones
11-02-2004, 11:57 PM
I'm posting this in the hopes that it will help out someone else in the future, if they search the forums for Promise SATA controller boot problems.
**** The Story ****
I have just built a computer with a new ASUS A7N8X-E motherboard and parts scavenged from other machines. One of those used parts is a Promise TX4 SATA controller, which worked fine in the donor box. Everything went together fine, and on initial boot I configured the BIOS. Among other things, I set the mobo to boot from the onboard Silicon Image RAID controller instead of the Promise.
After a reboot, the SI RAID controller autodetected its drives just fine. Then it was the Promise controller's turn... it detected the one drive I had attached to it, then hung after stating it loaded it's BIOS.
Troubleshooting time! At first, I thought that the drive was bad. Turned out, it wasn't. Tried switching the boot drive from the SI controller to the Promise. Still hung after autodetection. Moved the Promise to another box... it booted!! WTF?
After scratching my head a bit, I tried to configure the new machine like the donor box (easily done, they had the same model mobo). The new machine still wouldn't boot... the other one did. The only difference was that I was using a USB keyboard and mouse on the new one, the other was using PS2.
So I connected the PS2 keyboard and mouse to the new machine. It worked!! After trying out a few different things, I came to the conclusion that the Promise controller always hangs after autodetect when A PS2 MOUSE IS NOT ATTACHED. WTF WOULD A DRIVE CONTROLLER CARE IF A PS2 MOUSE IS PRESENT?!!!!!
**** The Workaround ****
Promise does not have a firmware update for the SATA TX series controllers that addresses this problem.
A workaround is to enable USB mouse legacy support in the BIOS.
**** The Story ****
I have just built a computer with a new ASUS A7N8X-E motherboard and parts scavenged from other machines. One of those used parts is a Promise TX4 SATA controller, which worked fine in the donor box. Everything went together fine, and on initial boot I configured the BIOS. Among other things, I set the mobo to boot from the onboard Silicon Image RAID controller instead of the Promise.
After a reboot, the SI RAID controller autodetected its drives just fine. Then it was the Promise controller's turn... it detected the one drive I had attached to it, then hung after stating it loaded it's BIOS.
Troubleshooting time! At first, I thought that the drive was bad. Turned out, it wasn't. Tried switching the boot drive from the SI controller to the Promise. Still hung after autodetection. Moved the Promise to another box... it booted!! WTF?
After scratching my head a bit, I tried to configure the new machine like the donor box (easily done, they had the same model mobo). The new machine still wouldn't boot... the other one did. The only difference was that I was using a USB keyboard and mouse on the new one, the other was using PS2.
So I connected the PS2 keyboard and mouse to the new machine. It worked!! After trying out a few different things, I came to the conclusion that the Promise controller always hangs after autodetect when A PS2 MOUSE IS NOT ATTACHED. WTF WOULD A DRIVE CONTROLLER CARE IF A PS2 MOUSE IS PRESENT?!!!!!
**** The Workaround ****
Promise does not have a firmware update for the SATA TX series controllers that addresses this problem.
A workaround is to enable USB mouse legacy support in the BIOS.