| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 4/3 |
| 2005/1/12 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35672 Activity:very high |
1/11 Using SATA (serial ATA) as the one and only primary HD, any
problem with boot up? How about with motherboards built in say,
2002? Any problem with that? Pros/cons with SATA? Comments?
\_ You expecting to install Windoze on SATA and have it boot?
\_ I had to get a special driver floppy to install Win XP on a recent
box w/ onboard SATA. It wasn't too hard, though. YMMV. --dbushong
\_ Does post SP2 work? If so, why can't you just slipstream
in SP2 into the base Windows and burn a CD? A lot of newer
desktop comps don't come with floppies. -williamc
\_ slipstreaming worx theoretically but i'm lazy
\_ adding to this, you need to keep around a spare floppy drive
even if you don't intend to leave it in the system just for
this reason (unless you have a bootable Windows XP SP2 CD
with working CD key). WinXP won't accept the SATA drivers on CD.
\_ uh, painful. Why in hell would anyone upgrade to SATA? It
seems more trouble than it's worth.
\_ I just built a new PC with SATA disk. I didn't have to go
through all that when installing XP (pre-SP1). It was
quite flawless.
\_ you mean you didn't need a driver floppy?
also, somewhat related, the link below says both serial
and parallel ATA drives will have problems formatting
to a full 160GB using pre-SP1
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html
okay, here's an article that says a Soltek mobo didn't
need a floppy
http://www.3dxtreme.net/index.php?id=asusa8vdeluxe7
\_ No. And I don't have 160GB. Mine is 80GB from
Western Digital.
\_ yeah, after some research, it looks like your
mobo is doing some emulation that pre-SP1 is happy
with. Even some of the newest mobos require a
floppy, though, like the Asus A8V (90nm Athlon 64)
\_ No, get an Mac Mini.
\_ it's not practical as a router unless you want to go wireless
only for all your equipment since mini comes with only one
network port.
\_ I'm not recommending doing this, but I believe one could
add USB network adaptors to supplement the internal
ethernet port.
\_ ifconfig en0 alias ...
\_ I was hoping that Apple would include a PCI slot so that
I could drop in a dual or quad port PCI 10/100 card and
get a fast firewall. The usb 2.0 10/100 adapter is an
option that is probably okay for dsl firewalling but not
for other stuff.
\_ Yeah I personally don't see why having it quite that tiny
is useful. I think most people would find a larger size
with an extra DIMM slot, AGP slot, and 1 PCI slot more
practical than the "OMG it's tiny!" factor. But that's
marketing for you. I'm not in the target market.
\_ The extra dimm slot isn't a huge issue for me b/c
my firewalls don't need more than 512 MB ram. The
AGP slot is also not an issue b/c I have a separate
system to play games and the builtin video is enough
for TV output (DVD/AVI). I can see how having an AGP
slot would make it easier to upgrade but this would
also increase the size and perhaps make it harder to
cool w/ a tiny laptop fan. The lack of a PCI slot is
my biggest gripe, but I bought one anyway. |
| 4/3 |
|
| www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html Windows XP on a PCI Controller Card Windows XP on a Traditional Motherboard Windows XP manufactured prior to August 2002 has a native limitation of 1 37GB supporting ATA interface disc drives. In this configuration WinXP w ill not create partitions greater than 137GB until after the Service Pac k is installed and registry bit EnableBigLBA is set to 1 For the purposes of this discussion, both the original Parallel ATA (PATA ) and the new Serial ATA (SATA) interface disc drives will have the same operating system requirements when attached to the motherboard and usin g the native Windows drivers. As of January 2003, new copies of Windows XP Full Versions have incorpora ted 48-bit Addressing for ATA interface disc drives. You can confirm tha t your copy has this support by inspecting the installation CD artwork. Windows XP has a feature called System Restore that records an d tracks changes to the system settings and files. If a restore point ex ists you can undo harmful changes to the previous settings. It is highly recommended that you create new system restore points prior to making s ignificant changes to your system. New System Considerations If your system BIOS sees the full capacity of the drive and your Windows XP CD says " Including Service Pack 1" you are completely ready to util ize ATA interface disc drives greater than 137GB. Also, if you prefer to have a single partition, third party applications such as Partition Comm ander from VCom or Partition Magic from Powerquest may be able to stretc h the partition to annex the newly found capacity. Microsoft does provide a method of merging the Service Pack into an older copy of Windows XP. This process is called "Slipstreaming" and is very complicated. This process requires that you be able to burn a new Window s XP OS installation CD. You can search the Internet for "slipstreaming Windows XP" to find instructions on this process. Seagate does not assis t in preparing slipstream installation CDs. Adding a Drive to an Existing System If Windows XP is already up and running then check MyComputer Properties to determine if your version has SP1. If not, you should install the Ser vice Pack before working with the new hard drive. If SP1 is installed an d the Disk Administrator tools show 137GB on your new drive, then Enable BigLBA is not yet on. DiscWizard for Windows disc installation software for Windo ws is designed to make adding a new drive to a system as easy as possibl e For your convenience, Seagate's DiscWizard installation software can set the EnableBigLBA bit in the registry and prepare the drive to full c apacity if service pack support is active in the operating system. Reg48bitLBA uti lity to set or confirm if the setting is enabled. Windows XP on a PCI Controller Card Controller cards support ATA interface disc drives through onboard BIOS a nd custom Windows device drivers. Since the drives are supported by driv ers that emulate the SCSI driver approach, the native Windows 137GB ATA limitation does not apply since those drivers are not in use. If your disc drives are recognized by the controller BIOS when the system is first powered on but later the drives are not seen by Windows then t he device drivers for the controller card need to be installed. As a matter of system maintenance, Microsoft recommends that you keep you r system updated with the latest Windows XP Service Pack. Windows XP has a feature called System Restore that records an d tracks changes to the system settings and files. If a restore point ex ists you can undo harmful changes to the previous settings. It is highly recommended that you create new system restore points prior to making s ignificant changes to your system. DiscWizard Starter Edition disc installation software is de signed to make building a new system as easy as possible. When building a new system, if you are using an ATA/133 PCI controller ca rd which includes new ATA or ATAPI disk device drivers, the Windows XP o perating system installation will pause briefly and ask for you to inser t an OEM floppy diskette. This pause for new "adapter" drivers happens s oon after the boot near the beginning of the installation. IIf your Windows XP CD does not indicate SP1, then your boot drive partit ion will have a maximum size of 137GB. Also, if you prefer to have a single partition, third party applications such as Partition Com mander from VCom or Partition Magic from Powerquest may be able to stret ch the partition to annex the newly found capacity. Microsoft does provide a method of merging the Service Pack into an older copy of Windows XP. This process is called "Slipstreaming" and is very complicated. This process requires that you be able to burn a new Window s XP OS installation CD. You can search the Internet for "slipstreaming Windows XP" to find instructions on this process. Seagate does not assis t in preparing slipstream installation CDs. Adding a Drive to an Existing System The installation procedure is relatively easy if your original boot drive is attached to the motherboard and your new drive is attached to the co ntroller card as additional storage. If you want your new drive to becom e the boot drive, your system BIOS must have an option to control the bo ot device or to release boot control from the Primary Master to the cont roller card. Windows XP ma y require re-registration of the operating system if the boot device is changed after the original installation. Se agate references third parties and third party products as an informatio nal service only, it is not an endorsement or recommendation - implied o r otherwise - of any of the listed companies. Seagate makes no warranty - implied or otherwise - regarding the performance or reliability of the se companies or products. Each company listed is independent from Seagat e and is not under the control of Seagate; therefore, Seagate accepts no responsibility for and disclaims any liability from the actions or prod ucts of the listed companies. You should make your own independent evalu ation before conducting business with any company. To obtain product spe cifications and warranty information, please contact the respective vend or directly. There are links in this document that will permit you to co nnect to third-party web sites over which Seagate has no control. These links are provided for your convenience only and your use of them is at your own risk. Seagate makes no representations whatsoever about the con tent of any of these web sites. Seagate does not endorse or accept any r esponsibility for the content, or use, of any such web sites. |
| www.3dxtreme.net/index.php?id=asusa8vdeluxe7 Price: $132 USD Issues There werent really any issues with this motherboard as far as stock setu p goes, but a couple items did stand out and well mention them here. First item is the fact that for installing windows we needed to have a fl oppy drive connected in order to install drivers at the time of setup fo r windows to see the SATA controllers. While this may seem like a minor issue, we have to remember that our reliance on the floppy drive has dec reased steadily to a point where we pretty nearly never use it anymore. Some of us dont even install a floppy in our systems anymore. On top of this, early versions of Athlon64 boards required this, later versions ha ve not required this as the board has supported the SATA natively. Our S oltek K8TPro-939 which is based on the same chipset did not require a fl oppy which makes us wonder why the Asus A8V does. Asus also does not act ually provide individual floppies for these drivers, the user must have their own disks. A utility on the Asus driver CD can be run to create th e needed floppies. This just added to the frustration as we had to go lo oking for available disks that were still good in stacks of old floppies in the closet. Another issue we found was with overclocking, while some other boards hav e recovered from settings that failed by allowing the BIOS to reboot and reset to stock values, the A8V pretty much required a BIOS jumper reset on the board itself. This required us to go back into the BIOS and set all the values again. If you have a version 1xx board you will not be able to benefit from wor king AGP/PCI locks. Our board is version 200 which has working AGP/PCI locks with BIOS 1009 final. Even though this should be the case with ver sion 2, the jury is still out on whether the locks are completely workin g or not. With some of the stability issues we saw overclocking we may n ot have total locks, however, when looking at different utilities like C lockgen, they show AGP/PCI apparently at 66/33MHz A closer look at this with an Oscilloscope will prove otherwise, but we have a feeling that t he locks are actually working. All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners. All conten t on this site is Copyright 1998 - 3DXtreme, all rights reserved. Layout/Graphical Design And Programming By Minhaz Mohammad - Copyright XL Corp. |