mobo cause no display with AGP card?

Hold it - the BIOS file and the Highpoint drivers I gave you are wrong if its a KT400, they were for a KT333 . I'll post those (KT400) in just a minute.

 

Bios is KVX42_AA6
Link is
http://www.soyousa.com/downloads/filedesc.php?id=2020

Highpoint drivers are hpt372_2341.exe
link is
http://www.soyousa.com/downloads/filedesc.php?id=2033

Note: you have to download this driver file to a floppy and then run the executable from the floppy (can be done in another machine) before it will be recognizable or functional during an install. Same instructions as before re: Flashing.

We're going to get the puppy running because no one in Georgia hangs on to a dog that won't hunt.



Edit - just fixed for Dragon Ultra Platinum vs Dragon Ultra

 

Side bar comment - run your memory in slots 1&3 and note - even with PC3200, this board will only recognize memory at PC2700 speed - 166 or 333 doubled before overclocking.

 

I've got a dog that can't figure out where the squirrel went when the squirrel runs up a tree. But she's still hunting.

Well, hang on now, don't get upset. I was able to flash the BIOS. I couldn't get 2aa6 to load, got 2aa8 flashed in. It is Soyo's latest for this board. I hope it is ok.

Now, about those drivers. Currently have Highpoint 2.342 loaded which is part of the download package. Also contains 2.341 which is an earlier driver.

From Soyo's website to use channels 3 & 4 as IDE controller:
___________________________________________
For motherboards with Highpoint controller.
1. boot in to BIOS by pressing Delete at startup.
2. go to SOYO Combo Feature, and Enable Onboard IDE RAID, then Save and Exit from BIOS.
3. boot to windows and after windows prompts, that it has found a new device, install "High Point 372" drivers in SOYO CD. this folder can be located on the SOYO CD in \Raid\HPT372.
_________________________________________________

Since flashing BIOS, I shut down, disconnected power, both from machine and MOBO, cleard CMOS, reset BIOS to "optimized defaults" on 1st boot and here I am.

Now what? Connect some drives to 3 & 4 and see what happens?

I guess I should be happy, but I don't seem to be any closer to the setup I want. I should quit complaining.

Martin

Edit: have memory sticks in 1 & 3. in 1 & 2, board did not recognize 2nd stick.

 

Congratulations. I almost ******* up bigtime with the KT333 stuff - glad you corrected to KT400. Personally, I don't think there is going to be a big difference between the 2.341 & 2.342 but I'd use the one from the SOYO website. I have noticed a difference between 2.31, 2.32 & 2.34 that ABIT has on their board vs 2.31, 2.32 & 2.34 that SOYO has on their board. Don't ask me what the difference is but there is definately a difference on all three versions. (found this as a result of trap errors in a Windows 2000 Server installation)

Now for the next step - if you use old drives, I'd delete and rebuild partitions then format from the XP disk unless you get hung up because of that MaxBlast (assumes you use old drives). Again you may have to put them in another machine, slave them, FDISK and then put them back in your Soyo box. If you use the new drives - there shouldn't be a problem - just partition and format right from the XP setup.

Keep plugging - good luck & congratulations again. Will check back later - building a couple of boxes myself tonight - going to be a late one.

 

Do not wish to upset the train of proceedings here (Martin, you are getting some great tuition, hope you're taking notes ).

A word of warning: don't let those Maxtor drives anywhere near this new setup. I fear they may corrupt the MBR's on the new drives. If you get to a stage where you want to work on them, either take the other (non maxtor) drives out, or put them in another computer (by themselves).

Matt

 

A very wise piece of advice. Might also be a good idea to destroy all those MaxBlast CD's so no one else can ever use them either.

 

Rockster, your file at Maxtor is growing ever lager and has a GIGANTIC red X on it now .

Seriously, I have found Maxblast to be a very good progam, it is THE Maxtor hard drive utility and the one to use for serious trouble. I find that it is EZ BIOS that creates all the problems (at least from my experience). Great after initial setup, change configuration and you're stuffed!!

Matt

 

Very well put - I wouldn't dispute anything you say. Maxtor makes very good drives and is a very responsive company. Regretfully, its the "hosing" or "stuffing" you reference that provides a platform for my X comment. I'm going to step aside and let Martin be the chief spokesman once he recovers those drives.

 

Good Grief, it never stops!!!! AARRGH!! MSFT is making me feel like a victim, being persecuted for no good reason.

So, here's what happens next after my last post:

Boot to XP from IDE 1 with old drives attached to 2, 3 & 4. Everything AOK, machine responding like a champ, all drives recognized. Maybe I can run like this without using kids new drives. That is until.....

XP message that there have been "significant" hardware changes since Windows install. "You must reactivate windows within 3 days." "Do you want to reactivate now? Yes/no. "

Since I was about to make additional "significant" hardware changes I clicked no. Don't want to have to reactivate twice. MSFT has made me reactivate at least a dozen times already, Make me use the phone, make me talk to clerk who tries but can't reactivate, make me talk to supervisor and endure 3rd degree questioning. So, like I said, I click "no"

Notice instant furious DSL modem activity. Something "significant" going on online.

I know that XP can comunicate with MSFT over the internet, as I have seen this happen before and opening task manager have seen the service running (don't remember the name).

Well, I don't want my machine to be talking to MSFT so I shut down.

Wait 60 seconds and reboot.

Boot drive on IDE 1 is DEAD!!!!!!!!.

New IBM 80 gig drive. Dead as a stone!!!!

I cannot get this drive recognized by Windows either as master or slave on any channel. Cable OK. AARRGH!!!

And, I think MSFT killed it.

They keep a record of how many times any one copy of XP has been activated.

They think I'm a pirate.

I believe MSFT deliberatly somehow sabotaged that drive using the internet.

I cannot believe the drive failure was coincidence.

This is the third hard drive failure in as many months, all while reconfiguring drive layouts and having to reactivate. On several occasions, after getting the 3 day deadline, clicking no, XP immediately killed ability to logon.

Required immediate reactivation to continue using machine.

It looks to me that MSFT has developed the ability to remotely fry a drive over the net.

I have no idea as to what to do next. Maybe surrender to MSFT, acknowledge their suprememecy, send in my taxes by buying a new copy of XP. (I already own 3, all legally bought and paid for).

Martin

 

To this turn of events, I have no answer. If you know a local tech, he or she may help you with the loan of a multi- user version and sell you a certificate and legitimate key at a considerable cost savings.

In light of these events, I'll refrain from asking what the drives were doing on 1 & 2 ?????????????

Good Luck

 

Rockster: Drives on 1 & 2, 3 & 4, boot drive on 1. Reason: Manual says board cannot run CD drives on 3 & 4. Crash recovery backup software boots from CD. Prior experience with PCI IDE card, neither Windows, Drive Image, nor Acronis True Image could see drives on 3 & 4 after booting from CD or floppy.

After MSFT shut down my 80 gig drive, was able to boot from Drive Image 7 CD and restore XP to 40 gig drive on IDE 1 from previous backup copy stored on HDD on slave IDE 2. I did not attempt to restore to 3. Maybe I could have, but as you know, must install raid drivers during Drive Image CD boot & with old board was never able to get PCI IDE drives recognized and had no stomach to go through that routine again.

That said, my original goal was just to have lots of space for imaging and video. Nothing very sinister. Just add two or three more drives dedicated to video and digital image storage. One AVI file from DV camera eats over 10 gigs. I have 22 DVI tapes waiting for good setup on machine so I can transfer, edit, burn DVDs.

I had an excellent setup with XP and all the programs installed that were needed to do that. Even edited some DVI and burned a couple of DVDs that played beautifully on my DVD player & TV.. I was thrilled. When I saw I needed more storage to keep going, I tried to add drives. That's when everything went down the drain. Continual problems with PCI IDE drives led me to buy this board. From there, things just got worse. If MSFT would just keep their nose out of my machine, life would be a lot simpler for me. MSFT just keeps the frustration building.

There is legislation, "The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act" that has been adopted by Virgina and Maryland making it legal for software vendors to remotely turn off your software if they percieve a breach of contract. (source: Scientific American, November issue, Page 40, "Shrink-Wrapping the World ")

The article goes on to say that the adoption of this legislation in other states was derailed by consumer groups. At least for now.
A quote from the article: "Software companies could choose Virgina's or Maryland's as the state law that goverens a particular software contract and attempt to make it binding throughout most of the U.S. .... "

I have no proof, but it appears that MSFT has the ability to remotely shut down your copy of XP and they are using it. Maybe I'm out of touch, is this common knowledge?

I think they have done this to me a couple of times, and I thought it was machine problems.

I was able to get access to the drive as "slave ". XP is there. Plugged in as boot drive, it will not run. On a brighter note, at least I'll be able to format and use that drive.

Later today, maybe tonight, I'm going to set up machine with all
drives attached where I want them and see if it will run. If I get it running and get an "activate Windows within 3 days" message, you can bet I'll click "yes" I just hate that routine. I'm hoping that MSFT's supervisor will let me continue to use my copy of Windows. By the way, the "clerk" I referred to in an earlier post is a machine.

Edit: I just reread this post and I think the tone of it fails to express my thankfullness that this board is here in the first place. Just that the constant aggrevations gets to me. Now I'm having trouble backing up Quicken to CD. Frustration again. But I'm still thankful, and appreciate Rockster's and Mattman's help and support more than they can know.

Martin

 

Rockster's suggestion sounds like it may be one of the only ways out.

Another I would put to you is to set up your system using Win98 or 2000 and when happy with the configuration then format and install WinXP.

If you keep adding/changing then you will keep running out of activations.

Matt

PS: See what information/suggestions you can get from the MS supervisor when you next talk(chat?) with them.
OR
put your situation into an email at their Support Contact.

 

Hey Mattman: Well, I was able to get up and running, again with DI 7. I am on hold with MSFT as we speak. Or as I write this, whichever is more correct.

I have 3 hard drives running right now, need to add two more. Will talk about re-activating.

In the meantime, with this restored copy, Boot time is about 12 minutes. Like I said before, it never stops. Presenting challenges that is.

I've listened to MSFTs recording on installing security bulletin so many times, I will do it if they stop the recording.

I got my chin up. Hope you do too.

Thanks,

Martin

 

Rockster, Mattman, and anybody else. Hi.

MSFT says slow boot time due to bad memory, had me remove memory from slot 3. (256mb DDR), reboot, no help. Remove memory from slot 1 (SAME) and replace with memory from slot 3.

Machine boots instantly. Congratulations on finding problem, bad memory stick.

Hang up. Notice RAID Bios reports no master drive in RAID 3 slot. Bumped cable out while changing memory. (its tight in there)

Plug cable back in. Reboot, takes 20 minutes. Put memory back in.

I think XP is looking at every file on every drive to find boot sector. Yes Rockster I'm not being stubborn, know you think I should boot from 3, but then there is that backup/restore problem.

Work around: Leave machine on forever.

Martin

 

Hey all: The machine as set up gives me no choice, boot from RAID controller, that is unless I want to wait 20 minutes on each boot. Then I can boot from IDE 0. Should have listened to Rockster!

I now have 4 HDDs on RAID controller, booting from RAID 3 (0).
It still is taking a long time to boot, the XP splash screen comes up OK, then the progress bar runs across the screen, last count before boot it ran 30 times. Thats a lot less than the 20 minutes it took to boot when booting from IDE 0, but I'd sure like to improve on it.

I have tried to set boot options in BIOS where OS is immediatly apparent, but it is very confusing.

There are the three BIOS screens with boot choices. The first one is the board normal bios, possible relevant boot choices are "HDD 0" and "SCSI"

Then there is the RAID BIOS screen (accessed with Ctrl + H), with boot choice of "0, 1, 2, 3 "

After closing the RAID BIOS screen, (esc + y) get another menu that has the boot choices all over again.

I have tried different combinations of these boot choices but have not yet been able to improve the boot time.

Rockster, I know you are familiar with this board, and if the 30 runs of the progress bar before boot is normal I guess it will be acceptable. But I don't have to like it.

Will greatly appreciate any help.

PS: Having problem with scanner, will start new post.

 

I tried to tell you ..............

OK, certainly not going to rub your nose in it. I'm pretty stubborn too and the best way to learn is sometimes the hardest. No, this isn't normal.

In the Bios, set floppy, CDROM and RAID/ATA & SCSI as order

In the Ctrl H you can set HDD 1 (or was it 0) - #3 Master

You can skip the other menu as its just to make a change for the current boot.

As to your boot time - I'll time mine on the KT400 but its less than a minute from start-up to full load and I've probably got a little more going on than you do.

Will get back with more once I reread this thread and try to accurately figure out where you've been with this system in the last few days (yes, it can be confusing). Doing installs again tonight (this morning) so will be back and forth - more later.

Just don't give up.

 

Hey Rockster, you're begining to sound like my wife. Seems I've been getting a lot of nose rubbing and "I told you so" lately. I'm not being stubborn, (my opinion) just influenced by experience with PCI IDE card.

I was convinced I could not do restore from backup created by DI 7 or Acronis. As with IDE card, even when drivers were loaded at the F6 prompt, no startup CD, including DI 7, Acronis and XP could see drives on IDE PCI card. On that board, for backup and restore, boot drive and backup storage drive/partition had to be on board IDE controller or all was lost.

On this board, when I switched to boot from RAID chanel 3,
HDD 0, (see, I did follow your advice, well, some of it) all CD boot programs could see all drives.

Only choices besides Floppy and CDROM for 3rd boot device in this machine's BIOS are:

HDD 0
HDD1
HDD2
HDD3
LS120
SCSI

And can enable/disable "Other Boot Device "

I don't even know what LS120 is.

I cannot choose RAID\ATA\SCSI as boot device, only reverse the order to SCSI\RAID\ATA

Have BIOS in RAID set to boot from HDD "0 "

Machine will boot with third device set as either HDD 0 or SCSI with no appreciable difference between boot times. Splash screen progress bar runs 28 to 30 times.

If I disable onboard RAID, progress bar runs twice before welcome page comes up.

Other than scanner problem (subject of another post and unsolved) where machine won't run through full BIOS when USB scanner plugged in, once booted, machine runs as advertised.

I'm going to put the clock on the boot time and will post as edit.

Thanks for staying with this one.

Martin

Edit: Boot time 102 seconds. Progress bar=27 runs. Another slight improvement. Getting shorter with each boot??

 

Thanks Pete: Another bit of obscure information. Will it ever lead to total knowledge??

Like, where in the world did I put the Phillips screwdriver which has dissapeard this morning?

Martin