Sil 680 refuses to enter BIOS

[morlok]

I recently purchased a Sil 680-based RAID ctlr.
Yes, it's a low end ctlr, but I purchased it to get experience with RAID, and learn a little.

The problem:

The boot process proceeds notmally, and the ctlr prints out the msg:

Sil 680 ATA/133 medley RAID controller
BIOS Version 3.2.10 Press F3 to enter RAID utility.

(That's all on one line, to be precise)

HOWEVER, pressing F3 does nothing!
(I verified that F3 works, by the way ;-)

The supplied documentation for the ctlr was sparse, which is to be expected thes days - a fold-out broadsheet and a CD, along with cryptic instructions.
I had to search the CD for the correct driver for it.

The documentation does refer to various jumpers, however they do not match the ones on my card.

F'rinstance, the manual that (I think :-( ) is for the card lists the following jumpers:
<snip>
JP Jumper Setting Description for 680. Default
JP0 In BAR5 Disable Out Out BAR5 Enable
JP1 In Device always RAID class In Out
<snip>

Whereas the card itself only has 3 stake jumpers, labelled:
JP1
D1
D2

OK...
What's a BAR5?
In addition, reading between the lines, shouldn't the default be to RAID, which the document shows as defaulting to not RAID?
My best guess is that F3 doesn't work because the RAID ctlr is being told by jumeprs that it ISN'T a RAID ctlr, but I can't prove this because the jumper descriptions and the actual jumpers dont match.

Any help appreciated
Bob S

[Tex]

You still needing help? Have you tried it in a differant slot? You could well have other devices jacking with its address space also.

Try going to their website and see if you can get a newer manual that matchs your card. They may of been stuffing old documentation in the box.

Tex

[morlok]

>You still needing help?
Yep
>Have you tried it in a differant slot?
Yep
> You could well have other devices jacking with its address space also.
It's in a test bed, no other devices

>Try going to their website and see if you can get a newer manual that matchs your card.
Did that, been there, no T-shirt :-(

I finally determined that:
The ctlr needs at least a pair of drives connected inorder to enter the BIOS with the F3 hot key
Th drives must be fully functional, nto some old rejects that were sittign on the shelf.
That's as far as I got.
Right now, with two brand new drives coonected, it enters the BIOS, I can configure a RAID array, buit then:
With th testbed configured to boot from floppy, it runs throught POST, will enter the ctlr' BIOS, but then locks up without booting to tfloppy.
I dont' have time to waste on this, but my next idea is to partition and format the drives on the std IDE channels on the mobo before switching them over to the RAID ctlr.

thanks for nudging me back to looking at the problem.

[alexagr]

Did you make any progress on this?
I'm experiencing exactly the same problem on K7S5A motherboard and ST-Lab SIL 680 ATA/133 IDE RAID controller - when nothing is connected to RAID my PC boots fine, but when I connect HDD to the RAID controller, PC goes through BIOS POST, shows IDE controller BIOS number, displays detected HDD and stucks there (doesn't proceed to OS boot). I've tried all PCI slots in my system and nothing is changed... My K7S5A's firmware is one of the latest ones (02/26/2002), so there shouldn't be problem with it... Any idea on what's wrong?