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I am rebuilding my PC around the A8V and the 3500+ 90nm CPU and 1 GB Corsair DDR 400 Pro memory. I have lots of hard drives. I bought a pair of WD Raptors (36GB) to set up RAID 0 for the boot drive. The first OS load I put only the Raptors in on the Promise SATA controller (used F6 to load drivers at beginning of WIN PX Pro setup). I successfully installed the OS and updates as well as current video drivers (Matrox Parhelia) mouse, keyboard and latest VIA 4in1 drivers (not 64bit version).
I then proceeded to connect several of my digital image storage drives since this is a digital darkroom computer. Well, when I rebooted I received a message that the drive was not bootable. A quick check of the bios showed me that the blasted thing had changed the first boot HDD to one of the drives I had just connected to the VIA regular IDE controller! I installed my mobile rack and anytime I insert a drive in a carrier upon turning the PC on it is that drive the system wants to boot to.
This is driving me crazy!
I reinstalled the OS onto one Raptor on the Via SATA Controller. I set the Promise SATA to regular IDE. The exact same thing happens.
Also, sometimes when I reboot due to drivers being loaded the PC will stall out for minutes after the monitor turns off. I have to manually shut it down. When it comes back up I get a CMOS error and have to go back into setup or load default settings.
I connected an external USB drive while the PC was up and running. It recognized it just fine. I shut the PC down and when I turned it on....you guessed it....the PC switched to that external USB drive for the boot drive!!!!
I took everydrive off of the regular IDE controller except the DVD. I connected the mobil rack to the Promise IDE controller (red). This solved the problem of the PC wanting to boot to whatever drive was in the rack the first time the PC was booted with that particular drive inserted. However, the boot to the USB drive issue is not solved. I also noticed that no matter what I do the HDD activity light on the front of my PC stays on all the time if I have anything plugged into the regular IDE controller. If I disconnect my DVD drive the light functions normally. OF course, I need the DVD drive so I have to have it hooked up.
I installed a pair of Maxtor 250GB SATA drives on the Promise SATA controller. These do not seem to cause a problem. It is only the drives on the VIA regular IDE channels, or external USB, that want to take over the PC when installed the first time.
Another strange thing is that on none of my OS installs has the boot drive turned up as the C drive. The Promise RAID install came up with drive E: for the boot drive. The VIA non RAID SATA install came up with F: as the boot drive. I cannot change this in the Disk Manager.
I am beginning to think this mainboard is messed up. I did replace the CMOS battery with a known fresh one and I have changed out all SATA and IDE connectors at least once! I have this same issue under bios 1007 and the new 1008.003 beta.
I really want to build this system with the two RAPTORS in RAID 0. The short time I had it set up that way the system flew.
This mainboard has lots of potential, but apparently setting up the drives is a bitch as I have read in many other forums. I just find it hard to believe that ASUS would build a mainboard that would change the bios boot drive like it does. I have tried all kinds of configurations in the USB menu as well, turning off auto Legacy support, forcing all USB to be recognized as a HDD, or auto. It does not matter. USB, even plugged in while the PC is operating will result in a change in boot HDD if you ever reboot.
I tried to get help from my vendor, but the only tech I could speak to said this sometimes happens with mainboards. I told this this was not true as I have been building systems for 15 years and I have never had this kind of problem. He says to contact ASUS. I have tried contacting them in the past, but the NEVER answer email. I did try, but the web form I filled out with the details of what was going on could not be sent. I kept getting a server not ready error. So much for help from ASUS.
Any suggesstions would be appreciated. I plan to call Monarch back in the morning and press them for some real technical help, otherwise I will ask to return the entire combo I bought.
I then proceeded to connect several of my digital image storage drives since this is a digital darkroom computer. Well, when I rebooted I received a message that the drive was not bootable. A quick check of the bios showed me that the blasted thing had changed the first boot HDD to one of the drives I had just connected to the VIA regular IDE controller! I installed my mobile rack and anytime I insert a drive in a carrier upon turning the PC on it is that drive the system wants to boot to.
This is driving me crazy!
I reinstalled the OS onto one Raptor on the Via SATA Controller. I set the Promise SATA to regular IDE. The exact same thing happens.
Also, sometimes when I reboot due to drivers being loaded the PC will stall out for minutes after the monitor turns off. I have to manually shut it down. When it comes back up I get a CMOS error and have to go back into setup or load default settings.
I connected an external USB drive while the PC was up and running. It recognized it just fine. I shut the PC down and when I turned it on....you guessed it....the PC switched to that external USB drive for the boot drive!!!!
I took everydrive off of the regular IDE controller except the DVD. I connected the mobil rack to the Promise IDE controller (red). This solved the problem of the PC wanting to boot to whatever drive was in the rack the first time the PC was booted with that particular drive inserted. However, the boot to the USB drive issue is not solved. I also noticed that no matter what I do the HDD activity light on the front of my PC stays on all the time if I have anything plugged into the regular IDE controller. If I disconnect my DVD drive the light functions normally. OF course, I need the DVD drive so I have to have it hooked up.
I installed a pair of Maxtor 250GB SATA drives on the Promise SATA controller. These do not seem to cause a problem. It is only the drives on the VIA regular IDE channels, or external USB, that want to take over the PC when installed the first time.
Another strange thing is that on none of my OS installs has the boot drive turned up as the C drive. The Promise RAID install came up with drive E: for the boot drive. The VIA non RAID SATA install came up with F: as the boot drive. I cannot change this in the Disk Manager.
I am beginning to think this mainboard is messed up. I did replace the CMOS battery with a known fresh one and I have changed out all SATA and IDE connectors at least once! I have this same issue under bios 1007 and the new 1008.003 beta.
I really want to build this system with the two RAPTORS in RAID 0. The short time I had it set up that way the system flew.
This mainboard has lots of potential, but apparently setting up the drives is a bitch as I have read in many other forums. I just find it hard to believe that ASUS would build a mainboard that would change the bios boot drive like it does. I have tried all kinds of configurations in the USB menu as well, turning off auto Legacy support, forcing all USB to be recognized as a HDD, or auto. It does not matter. USB, even plugged in while the PC is operating will result in a change in boot HDD if you ever reboot.
I tried to get help from my vendor, but the only tech I could speak to said this sometimes happens with mainboards. I told this this was not true as I have been building systems for 15 years and I have never had this kind of problem. He says to contact ASUS. I have tried contacting them in the past, but the NEVER answer email. I did try, but the web form I filled out with the details of what was going on could not be sent. I kept getting a server not ready error. So much for help from ASUS.
Any suggesstions would be appreciated. I plan to call Monarch back in the morning and press them for some real technical help, otherwise I will ask to return the entire combo I bought.