XP home and SI 3112a raid problem on a WD3200se

Nik

Hi guys,
Although i went through the listings on the site regarding this issue im still not sure how to solve my problem.

Here it is..
6 months ago i bought a PCI Si 3112a SATAraid card and a WD3200se HD. I formated the hard drive using windows and i can see the full HD size. XP is running from IDE0 on a maxtor 120gb HD.
It all started happening about 3 months ago..(hard to say exactly when since my PC is always on)
The system would go through the POST part and when it gets to the part where XP is supposed to show the logon screen all i get is a black screen with the mouse pointer to play with (not fun i know).
After a couple of cold resets it would eventually boot into windows with the HD present etc. But everytime when i reset i get the same black screen.

Now i cant get XP to boot at all if WD3200 is connected, if i disconnect it its fine. But if i disable the si3112a driver in device mgr i can boot XP normaly less the SATA drive. What i do then is enable the SATA driver so that i can see the drive..
Im not sure if a bios update is needed or not but i dont want to make a bigger mess than it already is.

I know that this problem was explained before but so many people were talking about different mobo's and bios versions that im not sure how to fix this.
What puzzles me is why did that start happening only recently..

Any help or hint would be appreciated and sorry if this has already been disscussed.

Cheers.
Nik.

Nik

Hi guys,
Although i went through the listings on the site regarding this issue im still not sure how to solve my problem.

Here it is..
6 months ago i bought a PCI Si 3112a SATAraid card and a WD3200se HD. I formated the hard drive using windows and i can see the full HD size. XP is running from IDE0 on a maxtor 120gb HD.
It all started happening about 3 months ago..(hard to say exactly when since my PC is always on)
The system would go through the POST part and when it gets to the part where XP is supposed to show the logon screen all i get is a black screen with the mouse pointer to play with (not fun i know).
After a couple of cold resets it would eventually boot into windows with the HD present etc. But everytime when i reset i get the same black screen.

Now i cant get XP to boot at all if WD3200 is connected, if i disconnect it its fine. But if i disable the si3112a driver in device mgr i can boot XP normaly less the SATA drive. What i do then is enable the SATA driver so that i can see the drive..
Im not sure if a bios update is needed or not but i dont want to make a bigger mess than it already is.

I know that this problem was explained before but so many people were talking about different mobo's and bios versions that im not sure how to fix this.
What puzzles me is why did that start happening only recently..

Any help or hint would be appreciated and sorry if this has already been disscussed.

Cheers.
Nik.

Nik

Bump due to no reply.
I still havent figured out how to fix this..
Im thinking about getting a new SATA pci controller but i would like to avoid that if possible.
Thanks,
Nik.

Mt_Goat

Lets start by getting your full system specs of all the hardware in your system including make and size of power supply.

Does the system boot fine with the PCI controller card instaled but no drive attached and enabled in Windows?

Did it all work fine before, correct?

Nik

Correct, everything was fine before as far as i can remeber.
The PCI sata card and windows XP both boot fine when i disconnect the drive from the card.
Im at work now, ill get the specs when i get home around 17h.
thank you for you reply.
NiK.

Nik

Bump.
I guess no one has a single clue then?

Do i have to buy a new HD? A new PCI controller? Suicide?
Seriously though can someone at least point me in the right direction please.
Regards
Nik

profdlp

Give us a detailed list of all of the hardware in your computer, including the make and model of your PSU. Include driver versions for the card in question and which BIOS revision you have for both the card and the MB.

The Belarc Advisor is handy for things like that, but make sure you edit out personal info like your XP CD Key, etc.

Nik

Hi there, thanks for your reply.
here is the list of my setup:

PSU-enlight 300w hpc-300-202
AMD Athlon Xp 3000+ (2166/333mhz)
nForce A7N8X000 Y2KC BIOS 3.07, 08.00.08 CORE
pny 2x 512mb DDR 333mhz ram (1024/pc2700)
PCI Silicon Image SATARaid 3112a BIOS 4.2.12 driver ver. 1.0.56.1
ATI radeon 9600 dualhead driver ver. 6.14.10.6451
EM-U 0404
Channel one:
master IDE WD1200bb UDMA5 where XP home is installed
slave IDE maxtor 6Y120Lo UDMA5
Channel two:
master Philips PBRW52321 UDMA2
slave HP DVDRW 300c UDMA2

And WD3200 SATA HD.
if i disable the PCI 3112 driver in XP and connect the WD3200 and then enable the driver back in xp i can see and use the hard drive but if i restart i get the blank only with mouse cursor screen just before the login.

PLease let me know if you need more info.
Thanks
Nik.

Nik

ok, here is the list of my setup:

PSU-enlight 300w hpc-300-202
AMD Athlon Xp 3000+ (2166/333mhz)
nForce A7N8X000 Y2KC BIOS 3.07, 08.00.08 CORE
pny 2x 512mb DDR 333mhz ram (1024/pc2700)
PCI Silicon Image SATARaid 3112a BIOS 4.2.12 driver ver. 1.0.56.1
ATI radeon 9600 dualhead driver ver. 6.14.10.6451
EM-U 0404
Channel one:
master IDE WD1200bb UDMA5 where XP home is installed
slave IDE maxtor 6Y120Lo UDMA5
Channel two:
master Philips PBRW52321 UDMA2
slave HP DVDRW 300c UDMA2

And WD3200 SATA HD.
if i disable the PCI 3112 driver in XP and connect the WD3200 and then enable the driver back in xp i can see and use the hard drive but if i restart i get the blank only with mouse cursor screen just before the login.

PLease let me know if you need more info.
Thanks
Nik.

profdlp

A 300W PSU is pretty weak for the number of drives you have going. I always hate to recommend that someone run out and spend money on something when I'm not sure that it will solve their problem, but this is the place I would start. Do you know anyone who would loan you one in the 400W+ range which you could use for troubleshooting purposes? Another alternative would be to buy one from a local shop which had a very clear and customer-friendly return policy.

You especially want to pay attention to the Amp rating on the 12V+ and 5V+ rails, since not all 400W PSU's are created equal.

Nik

What you are saying is 100% right BUT..eveything worked fine a while ago (same PSU) and thats whats puzzling me.
And those PSU units are not cheap (especially 400w+) so i would leave that as one of the last resort things..
The puzzle is that everything was working before.
thanks for the reply again.
Nik.

profdlp

I have at least four PSU's sitting on my parts shelf which in the not-too-distant past were able to power anything I threw their way. They seemed to lose some oomph after a while and are now used when I test old rigs with extremely low power demands. (Such as an XP 1700+, one HD, no cdrom, etc.)

If you knew for sure that it would solve your problem, would you go for it then? That's why I'm suggesting that you try to borrow one, or get one which can be returned for a full refund if it doesn't solve the problem.

Also, do you have a multimeter you could throw on there to see what the actual voltages you're getting are? MB readouts can be quite inaccurate. What are the amp ratings for the 12V+ and 5V+ on your current PSU?

Nik

Well in that case i better take you advice (man with the experience :bigggrin: )
+12v | +5v
13A | 25A
156W | 180W

profdlp

I'm even more inclined to think that a better PSU is likely to be the answer. Look for one with at least 18A on the 12V+ rail.

It need not be horribly expensive, get something such as this one.

As I said before, if you can try before you buy (or at least get a refund), you're covered either way.

Nik

Well you seem to know your PSU's
Ill try to get one tomorrow, if not then on Monday.
I think you might be right because my pc is always on and that might be the reason for what you said the 'oopmh' to drop
Will see.
Thanks
Nik.

profdlp

Good luck.

Mt_Goat

What PCI slot is the card in? Sorry I forgot to ask this earlier. Drop it down to the 3rd slot and see ifit works there. before you move it make sure to go into the device manager and remove it. Your power supply could be another possibility.

Nik

I found out the problem by changing slots and moving card around.
I have tried a different slot with no change.
The PSU is 300w and the specs are:
+12v | +5v
13A | 25A
156W | 180W
Thanks for your reply
Nik.

profdlp

Sorry that I didn't notice the duplicate thread before this...

Combined.

Nik

Well its not the PSU.
I tried a different one with only my system HD and the SATA drive. Same thing, black screen just before the welcome screen in XP.
There has to be a reason for this..i dont care about the solution but i need to pinpoint the issue in order to replace or fix whatever needs fixing or repairing...
Back to you guys (again).
Thanks
Nik

winactive

Nik wrote:

Well its not the PSU.
I tried a different one with only my system HD and the SATA drive. Same thing, black screen just before the welcome screen in XP.
There has to be a reason for this..i dont care about the solution but i need to pinpoint the issue in order to replace or fix whatever needs fixing or repairing...
Back to you guys (again).
Thanks
Nik

Did you solve this?

If not I'd suggest testing the memory (MEMTEST),deleting the Sil driver, updating the card BIOS, zero (low level format) the HDD, run a utility to check fitness, then use Windows Update to load the correct driver and carry out a full repartition and format in XP Disk Administrator.

Nik

Thanks for your reply.
I solved the problem by reinstaling XP.
Regards,
Nil