GA-K8N Pro & Sil3512 problems

Daiz

Hi all, this looks like a great forum. I can't beleive i havn't found it earlier.

Anyhow, I'm after some advice:
Building a PC for my brother with these specs:

Specs:
Athlon64 3200+
Gigabyte K8N Pro (Nforce3) Bios: F11
1 GB corsair DDR400 C2 twinx
2 x Maxtor 80GB SATA 8MB cache (DiamondMax Plus 9)
GeCube ATI 9800Pro
LiteOn DVD/CDRW
Antec 380Watt TruePower

Both drives are on the Silicon Image Sil3512 on-board chip in a base (non-RAID configuration)
BIOS: 4.3.43
Driver: 1.0.0.44 (dated 07/02/2003)

trying to install WinXP Pro (non 64-bit) and get random slowdowns/lockups and boot failures.
The slowdowns/lockups occur totally randomly when booting/loading/installing the OS.
I have managed once to install the OS once and apply SP1 and that seemed to remedy the issue for the most part but i'd stuffed around with it so much I wanted to do a clean install.


Tests I have done:

- PSU voltages are 11.98 & 4.96
- Using either stick of RAM alone produces seemingly similar problems
- Remove any non-essential power consuming components
- OS installs fine on a PATA drive using the PATA connectors on the board.
- RAM/CPU are not O/C'd and I have deactivated any non-essential features in the MB BIOS.

I've seen some similar issues on the forums but the fixes seem to involve a windows update but I can't install windows.
Would imaging the successful install of WinXP on the PATA HDD to the SATA drive work?

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

Daiz

Just an update.
I installed WinXP on a PATA drive and ran updates etc including the Silicon Image update that it found. I then tried to image the drive onto one of the SATA drives and it gives me the same slowdowns and lockups.

Funny thing is that the SATA drives seem happy to work as storage just not as boot/OS drives.

WANTING TO HURT GIGABYTE right now

MediaMan

I'll send a note off to my contact at Gigabyte for you. It looks like there may have been some issues with the SATA booting due to the note on the F11 bios.

Here are some possible solutions and sorry for the delay:

Try using the si3112r drivers for a raid configuration with your bios set to "raid function as base" if you only have one hard drive. Contrary to what the manual says about using the 3112 driver for only one hd.

most RAID cards can be forced to accept drives singularly if you just plug them in one at a time.

Allegedly, and I do doubt this, oem versions of xp have a bug in them where they cant take certain s-ata hard drives. The fix for this is to use a retail version of XP.

Also...make sure your XP disk is clean (as in no crud on it from fingerprints etc.)

The fact that it installs fine onto a PATA drive means that your optical drive isn't the problem.

Hope this helps and welcome to Short-Media.

Daiz

thanks for the tip, i'll give that a go tomorrow.

MarioRama

I also created a machine using the same mother board.
I was blue screens about xp shutting down to save damage to my comp.
I tracked it down to the controller driver, Downloaded the new driver (64 bit) from Silicon Images website and the damn things are corrupt. Sigh. I can't play EQ on two machines hehe! I'm lookin for the download section here at short-media but haven't found it yet. I'm trying to reinstall using the MB cd once again, and see if it works but I doubt it will, using all suggestions from the gigabyte sil3512 threads. Anyone got good working drivers and/or bios or anyone fix the same problem yet?

Opinion: I wont buy gigabyte again. I hate when there are mass problems, they boast of great stable products. I'm disapointed. I stick to Abit and Asus. Any other suggestions on MB with AMD XP 64 3200+? I want a good board. If I'm going to change it.


TY

MarioRama

MarioRama

Spinner Since you have been fimiliar with the 3512, have the same problem.
Mine used to hang up after xp splash screen shows and loads for a sec,
upon restart and start windows in safe mode or anything else it shows the freeze after a system file called Mup.sys ALWAYS I just installed the driver in windows after a fresh install using the updated driver from Short-Media, and same problem now.
Only this time it freezes when xp screen is at 50% opacity. I am going to check my version of BIOS and SATA BIOS as well to see if they are the same versions you have

OK Bios 4.3.24 - 1.0.0.47 for the driver AHHHHH I hate this ...

BTW I have a Giga GA-K8N Pro

Spinner

MarioRama wrote:

I also created a machine using the same mother board.
I was blue screens about xp shutting down to save damage to my comp.
I tracked it down to the controller driver, Downloaded the new driver (64 bit) from Silicon Images website and the damn things are corrupt. Sigh. I can't play EQ on two machines hehe! I'm lookin for the download section here at short-media but haven't found it yet. I'm trying to reinstall using the MB cd once again, and see if it works but I doubt it will, using all suggestions from the gigabyte sil3512 threads. Anyone got good working drivers and/or bios or anyone fix the same problem yet?

Opinion: I wont buy gigabyte again. I hate when there are mass problems, they boast of great stable products. I'm disapointed. I stick to Abit and Asus. Any other suggestions on MB with AMD XP 64 3200+? I want a good board. If I'm going to change it.

TY

MarioRama

Are you running a 64 bit OS then? Because the 64-Bit drivers are only for a 64-bit version of Windows XP. If you try and use them on a 32-Bit OS, then of course they won't work. But if you are in fact running Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, then you won't get the drivers on the motherboard CD to work either because they will only be 32-Bit. And if you are in fact using say Windows XP 64-Bit Edition after all, then that OS itself is still only in development and the Silicon Image drivers also will only be Beta, so you can hardly complain.

Just because you have a 64-bit capable CPU doesn't mean it's running in 64-bit mode. You have to have an OS to support that ability, and currently Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, like I said is still in development.

The latest Silicon Image 3x12 RAID drivers (32-Bit) can be found in the downloads section. These drivers are for the standard, 32-Bit version of Windows XP. The latest version of the drivers is v1.0.0.47. Whether you are using RAID or not, if your SI chip is RAID supportive then you should use the RAID drivers.

Hope that's cleared a few things up for ya.

http://www.short-media.com/download.php <-- Downloads

Also, I couldn't really make out from what you said, what the problem is you're experiencing. Could you clarify for us? Thanks.:)
Cheers

Spinner

MarioRama wrote:

Spinner Since you have been fimiliar with the 3512, have the same problem.
Mine used to hang up after xp splash screen shows and loads for a sec,
upon restart and start windows in safe mode or anything else it shows the freeze after a system file called Mup.sys ALWAYS I just installed the driver in windows after a fresh install using the updated driver from Short-Media, and same problem now.
Only this time it freezes when xp screen is at 50% opacity. I am going to check my version of BIOS and SATA BIOS as well to see if they are the same versions you have

OK Bios 4.3.24 - 1.0.0.47 for the driver AHHHHH I hate this ...

BTW I have a Giga GA-K8N Pro

I've copied the above quoted post into this thread, as this thread more suits your query because you're both using the same motherboard.

Well, you're now using the correct drivers. Which is good. That is presuming you are in fact running the normal 32-Bit version of Windows XP. Please confirm this. The SATA BIOS you are using however, is not the latest. Before we can go any further though please post your full specs and any other relevant information you feel would be helpfull, including what motherboard BIOS revision you have currently flashed. e.g F10, F11.

Thanks.

Spinner

Daiz

G'day spinner.

I have tried the drivers in the download section but they are the ones I already had from the SI site. Have tried both the base and RAID ones and both have the same symptoms.
The drives seem to work OK if used simply as storage drives i.e. booting from a PATA drive however I bought SATA drives and should be able to use them in any configuration. Will probably return the drive for a VIA based one to get SATA 'on-chip'.

Spinner

Daiz wrote:

G'day spinner.

I have tried the drivers in the download section but they are the ones I already had from the SI site. Have tried both the base and RAID ones and both have the same symptoms.
The drives seem to work OK if used simply as storage drives i.e. booting from a PATA drive however I bought SATA drives and should be able to use them in any configuration. Will probably return the drive for a VIA based one to get SATA 'on-chip'.

I find it a little bit suspicious that a lot of the problems surrounding SATA seem to be for the most part originating from systems running Gigabyte boards. Nevertheless... I shall not jump to conclusions just yet. All though I know I really should.

Anyways. Daiz, if you could post me a link (I find Gigabytes website trying at times) to where I can download the latest BIOS for yours and MarioRama's board, and I will make you a modded one up with the latest SATA controller BIOS. I honestly doubt it will help, but it is one thing we can quite easily try. So post me a link and I'll post you back a modded BIOS. The latest SATA controller BIOS for your SATA controller is v4.3.47.

Cheers

Daiz

here you go:

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-K8N%20Pro.htm

I had that thought about gigabyte boards too but then a mate of mine said he had the same problem with a abit nforce2 board....using the same SATA controller so i know where my blame is being pointed....SI

Spinner

There you go. Try that and let me know how you get on. Also have you tried the non-RAID drivers?

I use and have worked on a lot of machines with the SI controllers onboard and as of yet haven't experienced any problems.

Also just out of interest - you didn't download any driver updates for your controller off Windows Update did you?

Daiz

Spinner wrote:

There you go. Try that and let me know how you get on. Also have you tried the non-RAID drivers?

I use and have worked on a lot of machines with the SI controllers onboard and as of yet haven't experienced any problems.

Also just out of interest - you didn't download any driver updates for your controller off Windows Update did you?

Thanks for that. I'll try them out.
I've tried the latest drivers from the SI site for RAID and non-RAID. Windows only ever let me finish installation once and was too unstable to open IE to get to Windows Update. When I installed windows to a PATA drive I ran windows update and yes, I tried downloading the drivers. They're probably old though...right?

Daiz

P.S.
I think it's a problem with Nvidia chipsets and the SI controllers since older Nforce2 with SI SATA controllers also have this problem I hear.

Spinner

The SATA drivers on Windows Update are fully up to date (v1.0.0.47) except last time I checked they don't install properly and can cause some problems with the controller. See here: http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11196

What you need to try doing is this:

1) Uninstall the SATA controller driver (right click on the device in device manager and click uninstall).

2) Then reboot into safe mode.

3) Clean out the C:\Windows\Temp directory.

4) Go to the C:Windows\system32 directory, make sure you are in detail view and right click on the header (where name, file type, date modified...is) and select more and check the box for Company. Then double click on the Company header and then delete all of the Silicon Image files in there. Do the same for the C:Windows\system32\drivers directory.

5) Go to the C:\Windows\inf directory and delete any file that starts with Silicon Image (open the inf files in notepad). Then go down to each file named oemxx.inf and open it, delete any that refer to Silicon Image. Make sure that you delete the corresponding .pnf file as well.

6) Run Regcleaner (you can get it from the downloads section). Delete any Silicon Image entries.

7) Empty the Recycle Bin.

8) Restart

9) Manually install the v1.0.0.47 SATA RAID drivers when prompted. (You can get them from the downloads section here at Short-Media.)

That will have clensed you system of all Silicon Image related material and drivers, allowing you to start over with the right drivers. I'm not saying the drivers off Windows Update are responsible for your trouble, but the drivers on Windows Update, last time I checked, do not work!

Let me know how you get on.

Also, where did you hear there were problems with the SI controllers and earlier nForce chipsets? linky?

Daiz

no link mate, just word of mouth. but since you are using a board that fits the decription (NF7-s) you would be more in the know.

lje777

I have the GA-k8n Pro w/Xp3200+/ 64 bit. Have IDE and 250 gig Maxtor Sata drive that I also cannot boot.

I do NOT have amanual for the sil3512 -- anyone have or know where I can get the manual in .pdf?

Is there a key to let you into the setup menu? If so, which one?

Spinner

lje777 wrote:

I have the GA-k8n Pro w/Xp3200+/ 64 bit. Have IDE and 250 gig Maxtor Sata drive that I also cannot boot.

I do NOT have amanual for the sil3512 -- anyone have or know where I can get the manual in .pdf?

Is there a key to let you into the setup menu? If so, which one?

Here's where you can download the mobo manual for that board: http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/Manual/Manual_GA-K8N%20Pro.htm The only .pdf document on the SI 3512 controller I could find quickly was this: http://www.siimage.com/documents/SiI-PB-3512.pdf But it is hardly that relevant to onboard solutions.

I'm not sure they make a manual as such for the SI controller specifically, as with onboard solutions, it is the motherboard manufacturers job to include any relevant information in their component manuals over that of including a direct from the manufacturer guide to each onboard chip.

Any key, or key combination necessary to enter either the motherboard BIOS itself or any of the other setup architectures installed, should be clearly available to you on the screen just before it is necessary to input them. With the 3512 controller in RAID mode, you should be able to have access to this information, as well as being able to see the controller BIOS info upon post, in BASE mode however, you may not be able to neither see the controller BIOS info pop up, or gain access to it (not a 100% on this though). So try setting the SATA controller (SI) mode to RAID instead of BASE if it isn't already.

lje777

Right now I only have one SATA drive - a 250 Gig Maxtor. This may be why the code does not come up as you say. Got board w/o manuals from a builder -- could second guess the decision not to pay full retail. After taking your advice about deleting and re-installing drivers, I got system up.

I originally loaded everything to a 100 gig -- 100 ATA Western Digital. Then after it was set -- I used GHOST to get everything onto the SATA. Now the SATA boots just fine.

What annoys me, is I am not seeing any performance gain over my Athlon XP 2000+ -- in fact it seemed slow at times -- at least until I got to 512 mb ddr. BUT I am still running 32-bit since I had trouble even booting to Safe-mode on the Free--for 360 day -Beta version of XP-64 that MS mailed me (same as the downloadable).

When I have time, I may try again -- right now have to focus more on getting my students thru exams!

If any of you manage to get this or very similar board running on 64 -- would like to know.

Thanks for the info --

BTW -- there is a 'help function' within the "SataRaid" management software that I just discovered.

Spinner

lje777 wrote:

Right now I only have one SATA drive - a 250 Gig Maxtor. This may be why the code does not come up as you say.

You can still run a single drive in RAID mode, it just pipes it through a different way than to when the controller is set to BASE mode.

lje777 wrote:

After taking your advice about deleting and re-installing drivers, I got system up... ...Now the SATA boots just fine.

Glad you got that sorted.

lje777 wrote:

What annoys me, is I am not seeing any performance gain over my Athlon XP 2000+ -- in fact it seemed slow at times -- at least until I got to 512 mb ddr.

CPU power isn't the most dominant force in sprucing up desktop performance, there are a lot of other things that could be causing your system to bottle neck. You could however just double check your CPU and FSB are running at the speeds they are capable of.

lje777 wrote:

If any of you manage to get this or very similar board running on 64 -- would like to know.

Well, the main thing holding back XP-64 is the driver support, I wouldn't get yourself in too much of a flap if you can't get it to work. It still isn't a finished OS and sadly like I said, driver quality and/or support is pretty shaker still. You shouldn't have any problems though once the OS is completed and bundled with a whole load of fully working drivers.

lje777

Spinner -- appreciate all your help.


ALL -- Having found some misc 64 bit drivers, I may try again loading it again since I have IDE drives to play with. I can always Ghost any drive to my USB 160 gig and get it restored if it screws up -- but need to have time to tinker.

I started another thread specific to the Gigabyte K8N Pro at 64bit. I want to talk to someone running the 64 beta on that board. If it is not yet possible due to lack of drivers, I will not waste time on the attempt. If you have it going, would like to know how to avoid any pitfalls.

Thanx!
Larry

C-Man

Ok I have been trying to fix the 3112r problem for a friend of mine, btw I am by NO means a computer guru, and to no avail. I used the 3112r & 3512r drivers off of the mobo cd as well as the ones off of the gigabyte website and neither work. Same deal, it hangs on the winxp load screen. Yes this is standard winxp pro no 64 or anything. If I don't mess with it the board seems to be just fine. But won't finish booting up with the raid controller drivers installed. Also, this board comes with an optional usb\firewire plug in that sits in on of your unused slots in the back of your case giving you 2 more usb's, one firewire, and a tiny usb plug. If any of you are familiar with this it comes with two plugs that go on pins on your mobo, grey and yellow. If the yellow plug is plugged in the mobo wont even post. I suspect that's a defective mobo but was hoping someone knew of a simpler fix rather than RMA'ing the stupid thing. Other than these two probs the system seems fine and stable. Anyone have ideas for a fix? Sorry if it's here and I'm missing it.

My friends specs:

Athlon 64 3000+
2 512's corsair xms pc 2700 2.3.2.5.
Gigabyte k8n pro mobo
Onboard Lan\sound
WD Caviar 120gig SATA
Tyan Tachyon g9800 pro
samsung dvd\cd-rw
350w power supply
No o\c'ing of any kind

Spinner

C-Man wrote:

Ok I have been trying to fix the 3112r problem for a friend of mine, btw I am by NO means a computer guru, and to no avail. I used the 3112r & 3512r drivers off of the mobo cd as well as the ones off of the gigabyte website and neither work. Same deal, it hangs on the winxp load screen. Yes this is standard winxp pro no 64 or anything. If I don't mess with it the board seems to be just fine. But won't finish booting up with the raid controller drivers installed. Also, this board comes with an optional usb\firewire plug in that sits in on of your unused slots in the back of your case giving you 2 more usb's, one firewire, and a tiny usb plug. If any of you are familiar with this it comes with two plugs that go on pins on your mobo, grey and yellow. If the yellow plug is plugged in the mobo wont even post. I suspect that's a defective mobo but was hoping someone knew of a simpler fix rather than RMA'ing the stupid thing. Other than these two probs the system seems fine and stable. Anyone have ideas for a fix? Sorry if it's here and I'm missing it.

My friends specs:

Athlon 64 3000+
2 512's corsair xms pc 2700 2.3.2.5.
Gigabyte k8n pro mobo
Onboard Lan\sound
WD Caviar 120gig SATA
Tyan Tachyon g9800 pro
samsung dvd\cd-rw
350w power supply
No o\c'ing of any kind

USB issues are apparently quite common with regard to the SI 3x12 controller, but under normal circumstances having the headers plugged in shouldn't stop the PC in question from POSTing.

However, before I start guessing as to what the problem might be, first let's just run over some basics:

1) Make sure the mobo BIOS is up-to-date. A newer revision may also come with an updated SATA Bios version as well, which is of course a good thing.

2) Use the latest drivers for the controller. I suggest running the controller in RAID mode (i.e it's fully enabled where you see info about it flash up just before Windows starts to load), with of course the RAID drivers. You can get them from the SM-Downloads section here. Some new ones have just been released. You want the 3x12 SATA RAID v1.0.0.50 set.

3) Disable all but the standard USB controllers on the mobo. (e.g disable the ones which require the back plate)

4) Query the integrity of the PSU being used.

5) Make sure your mobo BIOS and mobo BIOS HD controller boot order are setup correctly. e.g the HD you're booting from is first boot, and the controller you are booting from is also first boot. If you're not using the SATA controller to boot with, then make sure it isn't set that way in the mobo BIOS. (They're may not be an option for controller boot order, so if you can't find it don't worry. Have a quick read of the manual though to make sure).

Try all of the above and then post back.

Cheers

C-Man

Ok spinner, thx for the info man. I have had enough of this fugging board tho! I disabled gigaraid in the bios and set the sata controller to base instead of raid and booted up (before trying your fix). I d\l'd the drivers from your sight and reset the bios to normal (gigaraid enabled and sata set to raid) so I could start with everything standard and try reinstalling the updated raid drivers. NOW THE BOARD WON'T EVEN GET INTO WINDOWS. Just restarts then asks to go back to last working cofig, safe mode blah blah blah. No matter what I pick it just continually reboots and prompts me to select over again. I am so frustrated but I know Gigabyte is a good company and am just going to RMA the board and try again. First problem I've had with them and am not going to condemn them for a first time hassle. Oh I also updated the bios to the latest version which also had a SATA update and still no luck. :bawling: Oh well.

Spinner

C-Man wrote:

Ok spinner, thx for the info man. I have had enough of this fugging board tho! I disabled gigaraid in the bios and set the sata controller to base instead of raid and booted up (before trying your fix). I d\l'd the drivers from your sight and reset the bios to normal (gigaraid enabled and sata set to raid) so I could start with everything standard and try reinstalling the updated raid drivers. NOW THE BOARD WON'T EVEN GET INTO WINDOWS. Just restarts then asks to go back to last working cofig, safe mode blah blah blah. No matter what I pick it just continually reboots and prompts me to select over again. I am so frustrated but I know Gigabyte is a good company and am just going to RMA the board and try again. First problem I've had with them and am not going to condemn them for a first time hassle. Oh I also updated the bios to the latest version which also had a SATA update and still no luck. :bawling: Oh well.

You should run the SATA controller in RAID mode if you can. That basically means that the SI 3x12 chip is turned on fully. I suggest you just reset the BIOS, set it up the way you want (using my above suggestions) and then try re-installing Windows. Can't hurt. You need to do that anyways when you get the new board just out of principal.

In my opinion, GIGABYTE aren't a very reliable mobo manufacturer. Just look around all the threads in 'Drivers and BIOS' and 'Storage and Controllers', 99% of the SATA issues people are having are when using GIGABYTE boards. I don't say this lightly about them, I own two GIGABYTE boards myself, they really do however in my opinion produce some rubbish.

My of the cuff advice would be to get a refund for your board and buy something better. MSI perhaps? MSI also share GIGABYTE's flare for selling boards with loads of features at good prices, MSI however seem to know how to make it all work, GIGABYTE don't.

Nevertheless, post back after you've taken the next step, whether that's after you've got a replacement or whatever, and if you have any further problems we'll try to help you out, GIGABYTE or otherwise.

Cheers

lje777

I like Gigabyte. My old board was Also a Gigabyte Athlon 32bit Raid -- GA-7VAXP. It never gave me any troube and is sitting around waiting for me to finish this 64-bit upgrade. I have all my stuff still on it. Eventually it will go to wife and her Epox will be sold.

But I basically took SPinner's earlier advice -- but I think it was NOT the lastest driver that worked -- anyway, lastest or not I am using Version 1.1.0.52 for the Sil3512 from 1-21-04. 32-bit Xp of course.

I did load XP to IDE FIRST -- loaded the above driver and needed others then Ghosted it to the SATA -- re-configured booting and -- Presto -- it worked fince since! This is the board I am using now!

I think it was Spinner who suggested that all thiese disappointments will be gone when the Retail version of XP-64 is released (and de-bugged!). Sorry you seem down on Gigabyte -- having made this investment, I hope you are wrong in the long run -- NO offense. I just hope it is frustration speaking.

This is new technology -- I have to assume the Hardware is sound -- sure seems that way here. I have to trust they will work out the drivers eventually.

I admit my previous experience with MSI was back in in the days of sub-1000 mhz chips -- but I have not touched an MSI since. If they have improved -- it is nice to know for future reference.

I only have 1 SATA drive on it at 250 gig. Will Raid it when I the time is right.

Actually -- I like the way this thing is working now. It is stable and fully functional at 32bit! The problem is I bought it for 64-bit and the supposed advantage thereof (plus the learning experience of course). I suppose it works about equal to my other Gigabyte mentioned above. I have to benchmark it to tell. If I actually do this -- will let you know.

So C_man -- if you haven't returned board yet -- then try the driver version I am using and see if it helps. If you already tried it - sorry.

Spinner

lje777 wrote:

I like Gigabyte. My old board was Also a Gigabyte Athlon 32bit Raid -- GA-7VAXP. It never gave me any troube and is sitting around waiting for me to finish this 64-bit upgrade. I have all my stuff still on it. Eventually it will go to wife and her Epox will be sold.

But I basically took SPinner's earlier advice -- but I think it was NOT the lastest driver that worked -- anyway, lastest or not I am using Version 1.1.0.52 for the Sil3512 from 1-21-04. 32-bit Xp of course.

I did load XP to IDE FIRST -- loaded the above driver and needed others then Ghosted it to the SATA -- re-configured booting and -- Presto -- it worked fince since! This is the board I am using now!

I think it was Spinner who suggested that all thiese disappointments will be gone when the Retail version of XP-64 is released (and de-bugged!). Sorry you seem down on Gigabyte -- having made this investment, I hope you are wrong in the long run -- NO offense. I just hope it is frustration speaking.

This is new technology -- I have to assume the Hardware is sound -- sure seems that way here. I have to trust they will work out the drivers eventually.

I admit my previous experience with MSI was back in in the days of sub-1000 mhz chips -- but I have not touched an MSI since. If they have improved -- it is nice to know for future reference.

I only have 1 SATA drive on it at 250 gig. Will Raid it when I the time is right.

Actually -- I like the way this thing is working now. It is stable and fully functional at 32bit! The problem is I bought it for 64-bit and the supposed advantage thereof (plus the learning experience of course). I suppose it works about equal to my other Gigabyte mentioned above. I have to benchmark it to tell. If I actually do this -- will let you know.

So C_man -- if you haven't returned board yet -- then try the driver version I am using and see if it helps. If you already tried it - sorry.

Nice post their lje777. Yes, my current annoyance at GIGABYTE I imagine does stem from frustration, but that frustration itself stems from a recurring problem people seem to be having with modern GIGABYTE boards.

The 64-bit Edition of Windows XP is another matter. C-Man actually said he wasn't using it, just in case you thought he was, so at least in his situation, premature software niggles aren't the issue. However for you, yes, waiting for 64-Bit OS's and 64-Bit applications and games to come along is very tiresome, it will be at least a couple of years till people will really be able to exploit the full power of 64-Bit operations. The Athlon 64 CPU's are currently just another great 32-Bit CPU, the fact that it has full 64-Bit capability is pretty much moot at the moment, at least to the average Joe. The Athlon 64 line of CPU's are essentially just future proof, at the moment they are not really anything more, simply because the software side of things is still playing 64-Bit catch up, at least from a mainstream point of view.

You mentioned your past problem with SATA on your GIGABYTE board. The fact is, you should be able to get any recent driver version working fine without any issues, if you're running the SI controller in BASE mode, you use the standard IDE driver (like you said you got working), or if you use the controller in full RAID mode (i.e fully enabled), for which I recommend, you should be able to use any recent version of the RAID driver as well, regardless of whether it's just one drive or two you are using.

The fact that you weren't able to do this illustrates my point about the problems GIGABYTE seem to have with running the SI controllers on their boards. Or at the very least they make it so hard for anybody but an expert to be able to get the SATA working quickly and easily without issues. Either way, it's bad engineering on the part of them.

The problems you encountered, were not a result of bad drivers. I've been using these controllers for ages, and I haven't encountered a single bad set. Your problems may have manifested themselves to appear like driver issues, but I assure you, it was down to either user malfunction (not that I'm suggesting in this instance you were doing anything wrong) or hardware inadequacies. e.g the motherboard.

My frustration only comes because I hate to see so many people like yourself struggling with the most fundamental and simple parts of setting up a computer system. I honestly believe that most of the time, it is in no way the users fault. This is why I get frustrated.

Nevertheless, you yourself have got everything working fine now, which is great. But there is a reason why this thread along with many others are still active.

Nevertheless, thanks for checking back in mate, it's nice to hear how you're getting on with your systems. It sounds like you've got a nice setup. You keep looking forward with the 64-Bit stuff, you will see a difference over that of 32-Bit, it may not be terribly obvious today, or even tomorrow, but sometime soon, your investment will pay off.

Regards

SPINNER

lje777

You're details are awesome! When things get less busy for me -- will ping you some more!

Cheers from Ronald Reagan Country!

C-Man

Oh lje777, in case you were directing your comment at me I like Gigabyte. I just recently purchased the parts and put together a system for my father:

GA-7VT600 1394 (K7Triton)
2600+ 333fsb
PC2700 512meg corsair XMS 2.3.2.5.
GeforceFX 5500 256mg
80Gig WD Caviar SATA

and from installation of XP to the updating of ALL the drivers I had no problems whatsoever. I just think we got a defective board with the last purchase is all. 80Gig hard drive formatted in 4 FREAKING seconds. I thought something was wrong! lol Thx for the info Spinner I just RMA'd the silly thing. I know it's optional but the back plate with all the usb\firewire plugs shouldn't be causing the mobo no to post and with all the other strange problems that I've never experienced before, I just thought the best option right now is to get a new one and start over. Not to mention with this updated board I was not noticing the speed difference with the SATA hard drive that was SO obvious in my Dad's system. Thought that was a bit strange to start with.
Anyhoo, I'll post back when I get the new board and let you all know if I have the same troubles. lates

Spinner

C-Man wrote:

Not to mention with this updated board I was not noticing the speed difference with the SATA hard drive that was SO obvious in my Dad's system.

With the exception of a small handfull of drives e.g WD Raptors and a few others, SATA drives are currently no faster than PATA HD's. In fact with the exception of Seagate drives, they are exactly the same, just with a PATA to SATA adapter slapped on their ass.

SATA is a faster interface, but currently no SATA hard drive is faster enough to make use of it. Any speed gains your Dad's system seems to be experiencing disk accessing wise, will be down to the drive specs itself and not the fact that it's SATA.

Nevertheless, keep us posted on your progress, and hopefully when you get your replacement board, all shall work as it should.

Cheers

lje777

Anyone running the SUSE Linux or other 64 bit OS on the GA-K8N PRO?

If so, how is it going. If not -- why not?