A7N8X-E Deluxe, Promise SX4000 RAID Controller and SiL 3112A RAID Controller

[tjernagel]

Sorry this is so long, but I had a lot to say!

I recently upgraded from the A7V333 to the A7N8X-E motherboard. I read all the reviews and it appeared the A7N8X-E was the motherboard to purchase.

PRIOR to upgrading I contacted both ASUS and Promise to ENSURE I would have NO problems with my Promise SX4000 RAID Controller. Both ASUS and Promise assured me the A7N8X-E and the SX4000 were compatible.

The FIRST A7N8X-E motherboard was DOA from NewEgg so I had to PAY to have it shipped back to NewEgg for RMA. About 2 weeks later the SECOND A7N8X-E arrives. I get it installed, plug in my RAID SX4000 controller and the system hangs when trying to load the bios for the SX4000.

I talk to Promise, they don't have a clue why the Bios on the SX4000 is conflicting with the Bios on the A7N8X-E although they are starting to get numerous reports from ASUS users about this issue. They are still researching this issue.

I contact ASUS technical support, by email, and get some really STUPID answers back. They were almost as stupid as the Tech telling me to turn my computer on. ASUS technical support was worthless. I tried to phone in but could never get through because they were so busy.

I gave up on ASUS helping since it was obvious they did not have people who were knowledgeable on computers and troubleshooting.

I had to get my RAID back up so I gave up on the SX4000 and purchased 2 new SATA 150 Maxtor 250gb Hard drives and new DDR PC3200 memory from NewEgg. Total additional cost was around $700.00. I figured I would use the onboard Silicon Image RAID controller and run the two drives as a mirrored array. I was running PC2700 memory and wanted to make sure I didn't have any memory problems and bought the PC3200. I wanted to cover all bases and ensure I would have no further problems with this upgrade.

The software that came with the A7N8X-E were not compatible with each other. The RAID drivers worked fine in Windows XP Pro but the SATARAID utility did not see the RAID array. I found newer drivers on Silicon Images website and that got both the Raid drivers and the SATARAID utility working together.

I installed a Fresh copy of WinXpPro onto the array and started coping about 130gb of files over to it from two other Maxtor 80gb drives I have. During the copy process I got the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH and the machine rebooted. Now I can't access either of the 250gb Maxtor drives.

Upon boot I receive this error:

Press <Ctrl+S> or F4 to enter RAID utility
0 7Y250MO 250000
1 7Y250MO 250000

Incomplete Raid Set! Please press <Ctrl+S> or F4 to enter Raid Utility

>>>here, I hit Ctrl+S or F4 and I get....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incomplete Raid Set! Please press <Ctrl+S> or F4 to enter Raid Utility
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>I hit F4 again and I get

No device detected, Utility disabled!
Press any key to continue....

So basically, now I'm locked out of my hard drives. My RAID utility seems to see the two drives, but refuses to detect them... I started to low level format one of the drives but after 10 hours and it was only about a third of the way complete, I gave up and started writing this.

It's not just me. Do a search on the internet for the words "Incomplete Raid Set" and you'll find all kinds of users out there having the same identical problem. It doesn't seem to make any difference if it's an ASUS or ABIT board, it's a SiL 3112A Controller problem. I feel as if I have been sold a product which isn't compatible with even it's own hardware/software, much less other companies hardware and software.

I don't know what to do now. ASUS technical support is worthless, I can only assume Silicon Image is going to steer me right back to ASUS for help, Promise is at least trying to help. I would go back to my old tried and true A7V333, but what do I now do with two new SATA150 250gb drives and the A7VN8-E motherboard? And the million dollar question is: "How can I ever trust the SiL 3112A onboard RAID controller?" Or will everything be going just fine and all of a sudden I will get the Blue Screen of Death and loss everything? That's why I run a mirrored array, to ENSURE I don't have any data loss!

Just once I would like to see a company put out a product that is "as advertised".

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[BipolarBill]

Every time I try to dissuade people from purchasing the Asus A7N8X Deluxe, someone shoots me down. We get more SATA and IDE issues with that motherboard than any other here at SysOpt. If someone naysays me in this thread, I'm gonna get really mad.

This may be the solution to your Promise issues:

1. Disable onboard SATA completely.

2. Disable onboard RAID completely.

3. Disable all LAN boot ROMs. Not the adapter - just the boot ROM.

Try the card again. I assume that you've updated the BIOS.


On the onboard SATA issue, all I can recommend is a BIOS update.

[tjernagel]

When I was first troubleshotting the Promise SX4000 issue if it could be disabled, it was disabled and nothing helped. I even tried old BIOS updates as well as new, nothing helped.

When the SX4000 booted, it would start it's search for the attached drives, then all of a sudden the cursor would jump over to the right hand side of the screen and that was that. It would hang the machine.

I tried every PCI slot, nothing helped. Had some other memory for the SX4000, plugged it in, still same thing.

Thanks for offering the help. Promise says they are getting a lot of calls on this board, they thought they had it fixed, then something changed.

I thought I had researched which board to upgrade too, obviously I was wrong.

[BipolarBill]

Send it back for one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...alog=22&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...alog=22&depa=0

The second has Firewire if you need it.

The VIA KT600 is much more compatible and accepts Promise cards without issue. SATA is built into the southbridge. They overclock pretty well too.

[Ammok]

My asus a7n8x deluxe is still running fifteen seconds an hour fast, and I am too scared to buy any SATA drives cos I've got the original board. (that will teach to be a launch customer or early adopter)

Perversly, now everyone has these sata probs, I'm really tempted to buy them now, there is plenty of experience here trying to get them work.

Asus tech support are useless, I've given up reporting errors to them, you only get nonsense back. But I got on better on their forums, although you need to register everything to get on them.

[tjernagel]

These drives don't have jumpers and yes, the power and data cables are fine.

A little bit of background. On the A7V333 I was running:

Primary IDE Master Maxtor 80gb
Primary IDE Slave Maxtor 80gb
Secondary IDE Master CDRom RW
Secondary IDE Slave Maxtor 80gb
Promise SX4000 RAID 0+1 4*Maxtor 80gb
Promise Ultra TX100 2* Maxtor 60GB
CPU AMD XP2700+
Memory PC2700 2*512
CPU/Video/Northbridge Cooling Water cooled Koolance EXOS
Video ATI Radeon All in Wonder 8500DV

So…my original configuration was running 9 hard drives and the A7V333 is really not compatible with the XP2700+ even though it worked just fine for me. They are all still real good drives but it was time for me to start cleaning the PC up by moving to the 2 Maxtor SATA150 250gb drives. I’ll still keep 2 of the 80gb drives and sell the rest. Everybody was running just great. My power supply is upgraded to handle the load.

Back to today!

This morning I was able to find an Adaptec SATA controller at CompUSA. I installed it and LORD HAVE MERCY, this ASUS board didn't conflict with it! Miracles never cease to exist!

Anyway, both drives are fine. One of them contains the mirrored image of what i was doing yesterday and the other one is not partitioned because I was doing the low level format on it.

I tried to boot off the damaged hard drive and was unable to get WinXpPro to start normally or in safe mode, so it’s been damaged. What’s new!

Even though I do not like embedded RAID controllers I thought I’d give the Silicon Image one a try, it failed.

So now I have to make a decision. I have to have RAID Mirroring. Either I find an add-on RAID SATA150 controller or try another motherboard and it’s embedded RAID. Either way it’s time for me to think about this mess I got myself into.

I can deal with the mess, but I am tired of motherboard manufacturers who put out products with these types of problems and then don’t provide good support when the user runs up against a wall.

As far as I’m concerned Silicon Image’s RAID controller, whether it’s embedded or not is out of the question. They have already proven their products with this mess and from all the forums I’ve been reading this RAID problem is not isolated to a ASUS motherboard, it goes across the board and seems to be a Silicon Image problem.

Thanks a bunch for the feedback!

------------------------------------
Current Configuration
UNKNOWN!

[Ammok]

I was just abouit to mention the problem could be an Si prob and so appear on more than asus boards, but your right, if people pay good money for this stuff least that can be expected is a decent tech support response.

[Imperion1]

Dang BpB, don't you know how good that Asus board is? They're so good I actually have Epox motherboards.

In reality though, I've heard more problems about the Asus boards than any other board. I like my Epox 8rda3+, but, I'm with BpB. Go for either of the boards that he provided links to.
Nforce2 boards do have some problems with either ram incompatibilities or Sata. Mine for example: No problems using Kingston value ram, but, the only time I can use both Sata ports is if I do run a Raid Array. Which I don't. So I can only use 1 Sata port.

[TweakerXP]

I have an ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe and it is one of the best boards I have ever owned, but my question is Why do you want "RAID"?

I have tried both "RAID 0" and non-raid configurations and I can't tell the difference in preformance. So why go through all the pain, especially if you ever want to take raid out!

[dajogejr]

Originally posted by TweakerXP
I have an ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe and it is one of the best boards I have ever owned, but my question is Why do you want "RAID"?

I have tried both "RAID 0" and non-raid configurations and I can't tell the difference in preformance. So why go through all the pain, especially if you ever want to take raid out!

I agree...love mine, and 2 others I've built with it...
Other two are IDE based though.

I'd have to disagree, Tweaker. I notice a big difference with my RAID 0 setup when writing to my hard disks, or reading from them.

But...if someone expected blazing fast net browsing or email from a RAID setup, uh uh...not gonna happen.

I had my board up and running with a single raptor and XP Pro in less than 45 minutes...first go around. Added my second raptor a week or so ago, for the 0, created the RAID 0 array in a few seconds, and...then ghosted the image back to the raid drives....

I have a revision 2.0 board, with 1007 BIOS...BTW....

[tjernagel]

I run RAID for protection. How else am I going to backup 250gb of data? On Cd's? Mirroring is my main concern.

RAID Stripping is wonderful if I was willing to give up the Mirroring. Benchmarking these SATA150 Maxtor drives in Sandra with RAID stripping the benchmark comes out around 70,000 kps, not RAID stripping it's 38,000 kps. Big difference!

The biggest bottleneck I have on this computer is hard drive access times. I had thought about going with the WDC Raptor drives, but need more than 76 gb and for now, that's their biggest drives.

Just what I think!

[sknobs]

I am so glad that someone else is having the same problem I am having. I have the same setup and have got past the flashing cursor by altering some bios settings. OS still will not boot though, just freezes just before the loading screen. Anyone know if this SX4000 incompatibity is ASUS specific or will a ABIT NF7-s solve this issue??

Thanks

[BipolarBill]

Promise incompatibilities are common to all nForce2 chipsets. I would get a KT600.

[tjernagel]

None of you are ever going to believe what I found!

I found these reviews on newegg.com. This is the same problem I'm having.

http://secure.newegg.com/app/Custrat...tem=16-102-023

I run a Logitech cordless USB mouse so...I ran next door, borrowed a neighbors PS2 mouse, plugged it in, reinstalled the SX4000 and booted the computer. The SX4000 works just fine!

Never in a million years, who would have thought that by plugging a PS2 mouse into this motherboard, the SX4000 would work, but it does.

Go Figure!

Of course I have still not heard a word from ASUS or Silicon Image on how I can reset the metadata on my two S150 250gb drives. Such horrible customer support!

I went ahead and RMA's the A7N8X-E Deluxe with newegg. I decided to go the ABIT route but...decided I would still rather try the nForce2 chipset so I went with the NF7-S V2.

My only concern wtih this board is that I run the Koolance Exos External Water Cooling (love it!) and the cpu cooler is fairly large. It doesn't look like ABIT left much room around the cpu for a large heatsink. I'll just have to wait and see.

Unfortuntely it has the same Silicon Image RAID controller. Now I have to decide what RAID controller to purchase. For now, I'm thinking about the Adaptec 2410SA, buying two more Maxtor S150 250gb drives and setting up a RAID 10 array. If nothing else, I sure would like to set up a RAID 10 to see how the performance with it is.

Thanks for all the feedback!

[TweakerXP]

WELCOME to SYSOPT ....Sknobs!!