ASUS A7V

[doebuns]

I've got this motherboard working with a Duron 600 right now and am expecting a new IBM 75 GXP 30 Gig hard drive to arrive sometime this week. I'm a bit confused about the Promise ATA 100 interface built onto the motherboard. With four IDE connectors is it possible to run 8 drives on this system so long as they meet the separate requirements?
I expect to run 2 Hard drives and 2 CD's.
Here's the list
Boot drive: IBM 75 GXP (ATA 100) 30 Gig
Secondary drive: Maxtor (ATA 66) 20 GIG
HP CDRW 8200 Series
CD ROM 18 speed
What's the best arrangement for these drives on this board?

[blubomber]

I am getting the same board soon. There have been a couple of posts here about people using all four IDE ports on the board. Just hook up the IBM to the ATA/100 ports and then your other devices to the ATA/66 ports.
Just make sure you have the power to run it all. At least a 300W PS and maybe a 350W!! Good luck and please post your results for i am going to have a similar setup.

[blubomber]

Yes, the first A7V boards that came out did not have dip switches but did have onboard audio. Then the next version, 1.01, had the dip switches but no audio. I am not too sure but i think that there are two versions of each board(with and without audio). So, if you buy a board with onboard audio, it will have no dips. The ones without audio, have the dips. But, if you happen to get or have a board with no dips, tomshardware did a piece on how to add the second set of dips plus a couple of other things to make your multiplyer adjustable. Good soldering skills are needed though.

[AuraEdge]

Ya got it....The bus can only read one device on each channel at any given time, so if they are all on seperate channels, you wont run into any data 'collisions'
You should put the ATA100 HDD on the Third channel (first ATA-100 channel), and the res on thier own channel in any order.

[thekingofpain]

I dont get it, do some A7V's have dipswitches and some not????

[gyoung]

Remember the dipswitchs won't do a thing if you get an AMD CPU that is locked.

Check out this link... http://www.insanehardware.com/reviews/asus/a7v/index3.htm

It shows a picture of what to look for on your CPU. If the bridges are connected you can adjust the multiplier, if not then you have to use "different" measures.