A8N-SLI Owners

[Arvig]

It is garbeled on the startup screen, so much so that I cant install windows, the vid card is not using any drivers because they cant be loaded.
What is the deal with RMA-ing parts? I've never needed to do it before.
The only 4 pin connector on the card is yellow and I have no plug to fit it.

Sorry to do this in two posts, but what motherboard BIOS are you using?

Reason I asked is I just looked at the list of fixes that the current 1003 Final has, one of them is "fix PEG for X850 series cards" or some such. It could be flashing to 1003 Final will fix everything for you.

One warning, if you're using NCQ based harddrives, especially Maxtor NCQ's, you may lose the ability to use them if you flash to anything newer then 1002.

 

[babyjocko]

The EZ Plug is not needed for one video card. But, I would be certain to plug a PS connection onto that X850. If you don't have a plug to fit it, you should look for an adapter.

Also, as Arvig just pointed out, BIOS version 1003 has supposedly fixed something regarding the X850. So, that might be what you need.

 

[Arvig]

The EZ Plug is not needed for one video card. But, I would be certain to plug a PS connection onto that X850. If you don't have a plug to fit it, you should look for an adapter.

Also, as Arvig just pointed out, BIOS version 1003 has supposedly fixed something regarding the X850. So, that might be what you need.

Yeah, I was suggesting the EZ plug just to make sure all his bases are covered so to speak.

But yes, good point, if he doesn't have anything plugged into the six pin power connector on his video card, he needs to do it. Although I think ATI cards won't even do anything but show a warning if they don't have the power plug in, they didn't with the AGP cards, didn't even allow the motherboard to POST if the secondary power plug wasn't plugged in.

 

[Vader]

My A8N-SLI Experience:

Lian Li V1000B w/Antec Trublue 480Watt PS
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
A64 3500 Winchester w/Zalman 7000 AlCu
2 x 512MB Corsair XMS PC3500
1 x 36GB Raptor <----Soon to be Two in RAID 0
NEC 3500a
SB Audigy 2 ZS
WinTV PVR250MCE
eVGA Geforce 6800GT

Software:
Windows XP MCE 2005 SP2
Asus Probe
Ntune
Nvidia Active Armor Firewall
Asus Update
NVDVD
Nero 6.? Ultra Edition
Norton 2003 AV
Steam w/all games
BIOS 1002

Memory Timings: ? <---Need help with this, not sure what is best, set to Auto right now
Memory Speed: DDR433

Installation:

1. BIOS takes a little tinkering to figure everything out.
2. After installing XP MCE 2005, I installed the Nvidia Chipset Drivers and the Storage drivers wouldn't allow my IDE channels to work properly with my NEC 3500a, kept giving me I/O errors. I had to load the Windows drivers, then it gave me like 3 Primary IDE channels, 3 secondary and sees my DVDRW fine.
3. Takes a really long time to boot Windows...it will show the XP splash screen loading..then go black, not signal loss..monitor is still on, then sit there for a while, then Windows will load. Not sure if this is an MCE 2005 thing..since this is my first time loading MCE.
4. Single eVGA 6800 GT Overclocks to 432/1.24 w/Coolbits ran loop all night...completely stable, so thats a plus.
5. Starting Steam, shows multiple Steam windows open in the taskbar, when there are only three windows open.
6. Windows firewall is off, NVIDIA ACTIVE ARMOR is on, however XP asks me to unblock STEAM? That's odd, unless XP sees Active Armor and then asks me?

Did I mention that it is wicked fast? Anyway....really though..the only think i'm concerned about is the BOOT time....it's just too slow. Any thoughts? I still need to run BootVIS as of yet. I'm only bringing the system up for a week then restoring with dual Raptors in RAID 0 next week. Any input on that? So far, i'm pretty happy with it..no stability issues at all, knock on wood.

Thanks!

 

[jacuzz1]

The multiple steam windows is due to the fact that steam is still downloading content in the background.

 

[Shogan191]

My A8N-SLI Experience:

Lian Li V1000B w/Antec Trublue 480Watt PS
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
A64 3500 Winchester w/Zalman 7000 AlCu
2 x 512MB Corsair XMS PC3500
1 x 36GB Raptor <----Soon to be Two in RAID 0
NEC 3500a
SB Audigy 2 ZS
WinTV PVR250MCE
eVGA Geforce 6800GT

Software:
Windows XP MCE 2005 SP2
Asus Probe
Ntune
Nvidia Active Armor Firewall
Asus Update
NVDVD
Nero 6.? Ultra Edition
Norton 2003 AV
Steam w/all games
BIOS 1002

Memory Timings: ? <---Need help with this, not sure what is best, set to Auto right now
Memory Speed: DDR433

Installation:

1. BIOS takes a little tinkering to figure everything out.
2. After installing XP MCE 2005, I installed the Nvidia Chipset Drivers and the Storage drivers wouldn't allow my IDE channels to work properly with my NEC 3500a, kept giving me I/O errors. I had to load the Windows drivers, then it gave me like 3 Primary IDE channels, 3 secondary and sees my DVDRW fine.
3. Takes a really long time to boot Windows...it will show the XP splash screen loading..then go black, not signal loss..monitor is still on, then sit there for a while, then Windows will load. Not sure if this is an MCE 2005 thing..since this is my first time loading MCE.
4. Single eVGA 6800 GT Overclocks to 432/1.24 w/Coolbits ran loop all night...completely stable, so thats a plus.
5. Starting Steam, shows multiple Steam windows open in the taskbar, when there are only three windows open.
6. Windows firewall is off, NVIDIA ACTIVE ARMOR is on, however XP asks me to unblock STEAM? That's odd, unless XP sees Active Armor and then asks me?

Did I mention that it is wicked fast? Anyway....really though..the only think i'm concerned about is the BOOT time....it's just too slow. Any thoughts? I still need to run BootVIS as of yet. I'm only bringing the system up for a week then restoring with dual Raptors in RAID 0 next week. Any input on that? So far, i'm pretty happy with it..no stability issues at all, knock on wood.

Thanks!

If you are planning to use the WD format and parition utility on floppy after you configure raid, you will have to install one of the later bios. You should probably try 1003. I haven't had any problems with it finding the Raptors although I'm using the 74 gig Raptors in Raid 0.

 

[poach]

Yes I have pluged in the ASUS "easy plug" into the psu, no change.
I can flash to a later bios because I cant see enough of the screen to navigate the current bios.
I contacted the retailer, they advised me to try it in another system to isolate either the vid card or mobo as the problem, I am going to do this today.

 

[Arvig]

Yes I have pluged in the ASUS "easy plug" into the psu, no change.
I can flash to a later bios because I cant see enough of the screen to navigate the current bios.
I contacted the retailer, they advised me to try it in another system to isolate either the vid card or mobo as the problem, I am going to do this today.

If you have an old PCI video card that works, you may have to do that to get the board to post, flash it to 1003 then try the video card.

Anyway, good luck. Hopefully it is just something like a flash to 1003 Final to get your card working.

 

[xenon expert]

After flashing to 1003 final I couldn't reboot. There was power to the board but the system wasn't even starting. Tried a bunch of different stuff. Booted once and then started to have that same issue again. I have my RMA number and this board is going back. I always built my own computers but this board feels like it's in testing.....I'm not paying for a beta board.

 

[Tripp17]

After flashing to 1003 final I couldn't reboot. There was power to the board but the system wasn't even starting. Tried a bunch of different stuff. Booted once and then started to have that same issue again. I have my RMA number and this board is going back. I always built my own computers but this board feels like it's in testing.....I'm not paying for a beta board.

I know what the problem is......all you have to do is clear the cmos and you will post again, i bet a hundred bucks on it......if you get a new board and try flashing beta bios, sooner or later the same thing will happen. Then the people you bought the board from arent gonna wanna rma it. Try what i said.....pull the battery out and switch the jumper to pins 2 and 3( its on 1 and 2 now), wait ten seconds then put the jumper back on 1 and 2 and put the battery back in. Then you will post again.

 

[Arvig]

I know what the problem is......all you have to do is clear the cmos and you will post again, i bet a hundred bucks on it......if you get a new board and try flashing beta bios, sooner or later the same thing will happen. Then the people you bought the board from arent gonna wanna rma it. Try what i said.....pull the battery out and switch the jumper to pins 2 and 3( its on 1 and 2 now), wait ten seconds then put the jumper back on 1 and 2 and put the battery back in. Then you will post again.

If he wants to roll forward to 1004.001, since it's kind of hard to find, here's the link:

ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Socket_939/NVIDIA_Chipset/nForce4_SLI/A8N-SLI_Deluxe/

It's marked "1004sd01.zip", this is ASUS German FTP directory.

 

[xenon expert]

I know what the problem is......all you have to do is clear the cmos and you will post again, i bet a hundred bucks on it......if you get a new board and try flashing beta bios, sooner or later the same thing will happen. Then the people you bought the board from arent gonna wanna rma it. Try what i said.....pull the battery out and switch the jumper to pins 2 and 3( its on 1 and 2 now), wait ten seconds then put the jumper back on 1 and 2 and put the battery back in. Then you will post again.

Thanks guys but I've already tried that. Didn't work. Cleared the cmos many times, Tried to boot with one stick of RAM, with the ezplug in, etc....each time clearing the cmos....all it does is that I see the chipset fan spin one complete turn like it just got a little juice and then nothing....I've always had Asus boards but this one I really hate. I know it's a bios problem because before I flashed everything was fine. Since then, the first time I shut the computer down it never restarted.

I wasn't to worried at first because I had heard and read about that problem so I did clear the cmos and thought that I would flash back to another version but no luck. It never booted again.

 

[poach]

Any idear what PEG support for x850 is on bios 1003????

 

[panhead]

Any idear what PEG support for x850 is on bios 1003????

PCI Express Graphics Link Mode
From Asus:
allows users to raise GPU and VGA memory throughput via the motherboard BIOS the same way system bus and memory bus are tweaked. PEG Link Mode enables powerful video performance on DX8 and DX9 applications. ASUS engineers carefully fine-tuned the parameters for every single PCI-Express card to provide system stability during high-speed graphics operation.
Under PEG Link, there are five settings for this unique function: Auto, Slow, Normal, Fast and Faster. The default setting is Auto, which means the motherboard will automatically adjust for the correct frequency according to system configuration. For advanced users who demand more precise overclocking, they can select the other four settings to achieve the most suitable graphics card performance.

 

[TR0GD0RtheBURNiNAT0R]

If he wants to roll forward to 1004.001, since it's kind of hard to find, here's the link:

ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Socket_939/NVIDIA_Chipset/nForce4_SLI/A8N-SLI_Deluxe/

It's marked "1004sd01.zip", this is ASUS German FTP directory.

Just a question. I've been following this thread for a while, since I just bought the board in question. lucky for me, I don't have any NCQ HDs, so it looks like I'll be fine *crosses fingers*
...Anyway, my question is: will the BIOSes I download on the German site work in English? or do I need to wait for them to come out on the American site first?
Thanks!

 

[babyjocko]

Since then, the first time I shut the computer down it never restarted. I wasn't to worried at first because I had heard and read about that problem so I did clear the cmos and thought that I would flash back to another version but no luck. It never booted again.

So, then why don't you just flash back to 1002?

EDIT: Oh, wait, my bad. I see that you can't get past a POST. Oh well, don't know what to tell you other than clearing the CMOS, which you've said you've done.

 

[Arvig]

Just a question. I've been following this thread for a while, since I just bought the board in question. lucky for me, I don't have any NCQ HDs, so it looks like I'll be fine *crosses fingers*
...Anyway, my question is: will the BIOSes I download on the German site work in English? or do I need to wait for them to come out on the American site first?
Thanks!

I hope the BIOSes on the German site work, it's what I flashed my board with.

Seriously yes, they work fine. In fact, if you use the ASUS Update utility to flash the BIOS instead of a floppy, one has the option of picking the German FTP site instead of the USA or Taiwan site for the BIOS download.

Hey, I was going to go into this whole speil about how my speach post reporter now speaks German, and my BIOS is all in German, but I decided not to. For the record, everything is still in English.

Me

EDIT: Hit a new minor problem. Okay, I flashed to BIOS 1004.001 after switching to non-NCQ hard drives. BIOS works well overall, but now sometimes when I first boot up, it tells me the northbridge chipset fan is spinning too slow, and halts. I can still POST if I go into the BIOS or just hit F1 to ignore, if I check the speed of the fan, it's around 4000 RPM at first then slowly climbs after a few minutes to about 7500 RPM, I think 7000 RPM to 8000 RPM is normal for that little tiny chipset fan. Anyway, hopefully this is just a quirk with 1004.001, it's being touchy about the fan speed for the chipset and not that my chipset fan is slowly going out...ugh.

As an aside, 1004.001 did somewhat ironically add an ability to ignore the CPU and Chassis fan RPM's for purposes of reporting an error in the Hardware monitor...maybe it's now being touchy about the one fan it can still monitor...err...

 

[Arseface]

Thanks guys but I've already tried that. Didn't work. Cleared the cmos many times, Tried to boot with one stick of RAM, with the ezplug in, etc....each time clearing the cmos....all it does is that I see the chipset fan spin one complete turn like it just got a little juice and then nothing....I've always had Asus boards but this one I really hate. I know it's a bios problem because before I flashed everything was fine. Since then, the first time I shut the computer down it never restarted.

I wasn't to worried at first because I had heard and read about that problem so I did clear the cmos and thought that I would flash back to another version but no luck. It never booted again.

You can boot bypassing the CPU by loading the BIOS onto a floppy disk (check the manual).

You need 1 stick of memory in (slot 3), and you'll need to press shift+f2 (IIRC).

 

[xenon expert]

You can boot bypassing the CPU by loading the BIOS onto a floppy disk (check the manual).

You need 1 stick of memory in (slot 3), and you'll need to press shift+f2 (IIRC).

That would be cool if the board would actually start.

 

[lentic]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone knew if the northbridge fan could be replaced with a dangerden maze 4 chipset water block. I should be getting my third board in tomarrow and I would like to get rid of that damn fan. So any info as to a watercooling solution would be kewl. Thanks.

 

[Arvig]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone knew if the northbridge fan could be replaced with a dangerden maze 4 chipset water block. I should be getting my third board in tomarrow and I would like to get rid of that damn fan. So any info as to a watercooling solution would be kewl. Thanks.

Maybe, but I know it might halt on posting and report an error if it doesn't see a fan plugged into the Northbridge chipset plug. So...you may have to plug a case fan into that plug that has some pretty high RPM's. It will be real close to the secondary video card if it does fit, figure on wanting to be EXACTLY 40mm square. I just tried to see if an aftermarket heatsink/fan combo would fit on mine, it's something like 43mm square, and I could see that it was going to be just slightly too close to the secondary video card, at least just by placing it on top of the stock fan with everying installed. MAYBE if I put the chipset heatsink in first, then put the video card in very carefully it could do it...but also looks like it would actually be touching it.

Reason I say that it might want a chipset fan or halt on errors is that my stock northbridge fan might already be going out. Could just be a false reading, since I'm using a beta BIOS (1004.001), but if I'm booting my PC for the first time in the day, I get one error report of "Chipset fan missing or too slow" as an error. I can go into the BIOS, see that it's spinning at 4000 RPM but working it's way up to 8000 RPM, it's top speed, then come back out of the BIOS and I'm fine. And no setting (so far) to tell it to ignore the chipset fan RPM's....1004.001 just added setting to tell it to ignore the CPU fan!

One can set it to halt on no errors in the BIOS to work around this though...so I guess if you don't mind that, then it depends on if your chipset waterblock is small enough.

 

[VashTheStampede21]

having just got my gfx card back (first one was DOA), i've just tryed to overclock it in coolbits
i've got it to 440 core, and 1.12 ram - is this good? (leadtek px6800gt)

i was just mainly posting to point out some strange "error" on my configuration

i didnt ask it to overclock.......it seems to have a mind of its own - since i dont know where to start on a a64.

my athlonxp 2700 you just raised the fsb, there are far too many options to know just what to do, since this is basically my first time with a64 and pcie, and well, an nforce mobo

so far....so good

nice one asus - (possibly the only person who is happy with them at the moment, lol)

 

[lentic]

Thanks for the reply. I totally forgot about the fan needing to be plugged in for the board to POST im hoping that is not also the case for the CPU fan otherwise my watercooling dream is going down the tube ... esp since all of my fans draw to much power to be hooked up to my board. Thanks for the reply and suggestions Arvig.

As far as the graphics card goes there is something that ASUS added in and didn't tell anyone about called PEG which basicly overclocks your video card from the BIOS on the motherboard. Supposedly if u set it to slow in the BIOS it does not oc your vid card .... supposedly oohhh and there is no way to totally disable it. Anywho good luck

 

[Voorstryden]

To disable the boot errors pertaining to the chip fan and cpu fan set "halt on no errors" in bios and you don't have to have any fans plugged in...

 

[Arvig]

To disable the boot errors pertaining to the chip fan and cpu fan set "halt on no errors" in bios and you don't have to have any fans plugged in...

True...but also means that could be important will be ignored...maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't like running on that if I don't have to.

1004.001 does have a setting to disable monitoring the CPU fan and the fan plug next to the CPU fan, the one even closer to the CPU proper, just not the chipset fan without setting "Halt on no errors". Maybe in newer BIOSes they will put in a setting to ignore the chipset fan too.

 

[Arvig]

having just got my gfx card back (first one was DOA), i've just tryed to overclock it in coolbits
i've got it to 440 core, and 1.12 ram - is this good? (leadtek px6800gt)

i was just mainly posting to point out some strange "error" on my configuration

i didnt ask it to overclock.......it seems to have a mind of its own - since i dont know where to start on a a64.

my athlonxp 2700 you just raised the fsb, there are far too many options to know just what to do, since this is basically my first time with a64 and pcie, and well, an nforce mobo

so far....so good

nice one asus - (possibly the only person who is happy with them at the moment, lol)

Good OC on the video card, and whatever you just linked to isn't showing up as an image, and when cut and pasted into a browser doesn't seem to work as a link.

 

[Obmas]

I'm not an oc guy so the 1002 dirvers are fine for my purposes. The only issue I've run into is that I can'tget the audio drivers to install for winxp64 even though they are winxp64 drivers.

 

[Arvig]

I'm not an oc guy so the 1002 dirvers are fine for my purposes. The only issue I've run into is that I can'tget the audio drivers to install for winxp64 even though they are winxp64 drivers.

Haven't tried the Windows XP 64 beta, so can't help there. I will be upgrading to Win XP 64 Pro when it comes out as a final release in April so err...I guess I'll see what happens then.

Are you installing drivers for the onboard sound, or for a sound card?

I haven't been here for a very long time...over a year maybe, but I remember these guys had some Win XP 64 drivers:

http://www.planetamd64.com/

 

[lentic]

I got the 64 bit sound drivers to install by updating the sound driver through the device manager. I just specified were it should search and it found it right away and installed it. In fact that was the only way that i could get most of the drivers for winxp 64 to install. but i wiped that install after realizing that Doom 3 was not supported.

 

[Obmas]

I'm trying to install the onboard sound and I find it interesting that you got yours installed. I installed several ways and everytime it says it can't find the proper driver even when I point it ditectly to where the proper driver is. XP64 is beta for a reason still I guess, I couldn't get sli enabled in it though either, the option was just gone.

 

[Voorstryden]

==> Arvig,
I agree with you about the chipset fan...
I just forgot to mention I replaced the tiny, loud, failing Asus cooling excuse with a passive heatsink that does a better job of cooling without any rucus...
I might take some pics and share, was not that hard to make one...

 

[Vader]

I finally got my other Raptor and i'm trying to do a full complete intall again with 2 x 36GB Raptors in a RAID 0 Array and i'm having problems. Here is a rundown:

BIOS 1002
2 x Western Digital Raptors
Windows XP Media Center 2005 SP2
Floppy Driver disk for Nvidia Raid and Sig SATA Controller

BIOS:
NVRAID First and Second SATA channel RAID Enabled

I go into the NVIDIA RAID BIOS no problem and create my Striped Array. When I boot of the XP CD I hit F6 to load the RAID Drivers. I load the NVRAID and the SIG RAID drivers fine, no issues. Then I continue to load XP and when I get to the partitions, it shows 2 Unpartioned Drives? Shouldn't it only show one? I'm confused...why isn't this working? I thought it would show like 72GB Unpartioned space? Does anyone know what i'm doing wrong here? Should I just say screw the NVRAID, which I don't want to do, and just go with the SIG controller? Any input would be great!

Thanks!

 

[Arvig]

I finally got my other Raptor and i'm trying to do a full complete intall again with 2 x 36GB Raptors in a RAID 0 Array and i'm having problems. Here is a rundown:

BIOS 1002
2 x Western Digital Raptors
Windows XP Media Center 2005 SP2
Floppy Driver disk for Nvidia Raid and Sig SATA Controller

BIOS:
NVRAID First and Second SATA channel RAID Enabled

I go into the NVIDIA RAID BIOS no problem and create my Striped Array. When I boot of the XP CD I hit F6 to load the RAID Drivers. I load the NVRAID and the SIG RAID drivers fine, no issues. Then I continue to load XP and when I get to the partitions, it shows 2 Unpartioned Drives? Shouldn't it only show one? I'm confused...why isn't this working? I thought it would show like 72GB Unpartioned space? Does anyone know what i'm doing wrong here? Should I just say screw the NVRAID, which I don't want to do, and just go with the SIG controller? Any input would be great!

Thanks!

SIG raid. Do you mean the Silicon Image drivers? Unless you're also going to use the Silicon Image drivers, you don't need those. What you need are the NVidia RAID drivers and the NVidia SATA drivers to run a RAID 0. Both should be on the ASUS motherboard CD-ROM. I'm suspecting you're only putting on one of the two NVidia RAID drivers, and thus it's seeing them as two disks, which is what it will do with no SATA drivers installed and just plugging SATA drives into the NVIdia SATA ports.

 

[Arvig]

==> Arvig,
I agree with you about the chipset fan...
I just forgot to mention I replaced the tiny, loud, failing Asus cooling excuse with a passive heatsink that does a better job of cooling without any rucus...
I might take some pics and share, was not that hard to make one...

Oh, don't blame you there. I'm hoping my chipset fan will live until my replacement I ordered comes in, it's now when I first boot up starting at 2500 RPM and slowly working it's way up to 7500 RPM, so it's probably dying on my board.

Then again, I also am REALLY close to saying the hell with the ASUS and getting the MSI. Had a MSI Neo 2 Platinum and had good luck with it.

EDIT: Screw it. I'm ordering the MSI. Going to RMA the ASUS, keep the little chipset fan I ordered for good luck I guess since it will be in the way of the video cards on the MSI

 

[Vader]

SIG raid. Do you mean the Silicon Image drivers? Unless you're also going to use the Silicon Image drivers, you don't need those. What you need are the NVidia RAID drivers and the NVidia SATA drivers to run a RAID 0. Both should be on the ASUS motherboard CD-ROM. I'm suspecting you're only putting on one of the two NVidia RAID drivers, and thus it's seeing them as two disks, which is what it will do with no SATA drivers installed and just plugging SATA drives into the NVIdia SATA ports.

Yes..the Silicon Image Drivers...I'm going to need those becuase i'm eventually going to be setting up a RAID 5 storage array. Anyway..if I install the NVRAID and the Nvidia Storage control driver, it won't go to the Partition info at all..after it loads the files and says starting WINDOWS XP, it sits there then it goes to BSOD? Any IDEAS?

 

[Voorstryden]

Don't give up on the Asus...
Give them another 2 weeks to get a bios out with everything fixed...
When I first bought the board it couldn't even do 1T @ 200 with my bh5...
Now, I'm quite happy with the board's stability. I'm going to try 4x512 Mushkin BH-5 this coming week @ 1T-2-2-5-2-7-12-2-2 @ 200x5 HTT... will report back here with findings...
They are using the EXACT same SLI chip as the rest of the motherboard makers (revision has not changed), so if the DFI can do a 350HTT, then the Asus board should be able to achieve similar results. Granted the other motherboard makers implemented thier own designs, but I really do believe a better bios will fix the remaining issues and bring the board up to par. Now everybody email Asus tech support and ask for a better bios, with memory interleave enabled!

 

[babyjocko]

Yes..the Silicon Image Drivers...I'm going to need those becuase i'm eventually going to be setting up a RAID 5 storage array. Anyway..if I install the NVRAID and the Nvidia Storage control driver, it won't go to the Partition info at all..after it loads the files and says starting WINDOWS XP, it sits there then it goes to BSOD? Any IDEAS?

You should NOT F6 the SI drivers if you don't currently have drives on it. Come the day you do have drives on it, THEN you would load the drivers within Windows.

As for the nVidia drivers, you must load BOTH of them. Otherwise, Windows will not see it as a RAID array and instead would show 2 separate drives.

 

[Vader]

I have tried to load both the NVRAID and the Nvidia Storage drivers and when I load both, i'll reiterate, when Windows Files are done copying and it goes to Starting Windows..it will sit there for about 30 seconds, then BSOD? Any ideas?

 

[babyjocko]

I have tried to load both the NVRAID and the Nvidia Storage drivers and when I load both, i'll reiterate, when Windows Files are done copying and it goes to Starting Windows..it will sit there for about 30 seconds, then BSOD? Any ideas?

Nothing other than the obvious. I assume you have:

1) attached a pair of identical drives to the black NV SATA ports 1 and 2 ( or 3,4)
2) enabled all SATA ports and enabled RAID for all ports in the mobo BIOS
3) set up a RAID array with this pair in the NV RAID BIOS
4) then install Windows hitting F6 when instructed
5) load the 2 NV RAID drivers ONLY

 

[Vader]

I've done everything on the list except I only had SATA Ports 1 and 2 RAID enabled...the rest disabled. I'll try that when I get home from work. If all else fails..ill flash it to 1003.