Topic: New Motherboard - Vista - Couple of problems!

[Sandra]

According to the Crucial site your mobo will take :
Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-5300,DDR2 PC2-4200,DDR2 PC2-6400,DDR2 PC2-8000 with a maximum of 2GB per slot.*

DDR2 SDRAM Frequencies:   PC2-4200

Kingston say that these models wil work with your mobo :

KVR533D2N4/256 256MB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4/512 512MB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4/1G 1GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4/2G 2GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4K2/512 512MB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM (Kit of 2)  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4K2/1G 1GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM (Kit of 2)  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4K2/2G 2GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM (Kit of 2)  Get Price 
KVR533D2N4K2/4G 4GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM (Kit of 2) 

So its hard to say really but DDR and DDr2 seems to be less fussy than SDRAM used to be so the best thing to do is try it, if it wont boot up or if it reports less than 1 gig then its not compatable.

[Moreno]

Ok, I managed to sort out which ram was for what, so all good there.

All was booting up nice and quickly with one drive connected and one dvd drive...so i started one by one to connect new Hard drives. I got to the thrid hard drive which happens to be a SATA drive and then booted up...saw it in bios...but it took ages again to boot up to windows!!! Mmmmmmm what is happening?

[Sandra]

Thats got to be a setting in the bios for the SATA controller/drive.

Theres often something to say treat as IDE, if you are not using SATA in a raid setup, but as its too early in the morning for me I cant think of the exacy term.

[Moreno]

Haha...Come on Sandra....I was up at 5am for work!!!

SO you think its the BIOS setting for the SATA?

Machine still won't turn off!!! Click shutdown and it restarts! Didn't do it when I had XP installed!

Thats got to be a setting in the bios for the SATA controller/drive.

Theres often something to say treat as IDE, if you are not using SATA in a raid setup, but as its too early in the morning for me I cant think of the exacy term.

[Sandra]

I bet you were in bed before 3am though 

You have messed around in the bios since you had XP on havent you ?

Maybe setting the bios to its defaults may help, until I can find the setting that I am thinking of.

[Moreno]

Ok, I was in bed for 11pm.....you won that one! 

I may have to set it to default and try that. Do you think it could be something i'd get from the motherboard driver CD?

I bet you were in bed before 3am though 

You have messed around in the bios since you had XP on havent you ?

Maybe setting the bios to its defaults may help, until I can find the setting that I am thinking of.

[Sandra]

Ok I have downloaded your mobo manual and skimmed through it.

Go to the options for your SATA drives in the Onboard Devices Configuration menu.

SATA Controller Mode [IDE] should be set to IDE.

See if that sorts it.

[Moreno]

Ok, is that within bios or the software that comes with the motherboard?

[Sandra]

Its in the BIOS.

[Moreno]

Right, it was already set to that in the bios...Still doin the same though! Anything else I can try?

Its in the BIOS.

[Sandra]

Have you tried connecting the SATA drive to a different SATA connector ?

There are 2 different types ones SATA 1 @ 150mb/s the other is SATA 2 @ 300mb/s, which speed is your drive ?

[Moreno]

I think it is 300mb/s.

Its a Seagate 400gb 7200.10 SATA - Part Number 98J144 - 300

This seems to be the drive.....

Hard Drive

Which connection on the motherboard should I connect this too. I have SATA 1/2 at the bottom right of the board and another middle left of the board. I have tried all of them, and have even taken the jumper off of the actual hard drive which seems to limit it to 1.5gb/s, and makes it 3gb. SHould I do this? Is there anything I should change in the bios? I think we def have narrowed the problem down to this drive.

Look forward to hearing from you

Have you tried connecting the SATA drive to a different SATA connector ?

There are 2 different types ones SATA 1 @ 150mb/s the other is SATA 2 @ 300mb/s, which speed is your drive ?

[Sandra]

To run at SATA 2 it needs the jumper to be off and you need to use the single connector near the audio connectors of the back panel.

To run at SATA 1 use the jumper and connect it to either of the 2 connectors near to the BIOS chip and battery.

Try it in both postions and see if it works better on one than the other, dont forget to use the jumper if its on the SATA 1 connector.

[Moreno]

To run at SATA 2 it needs the jumper to be off and you need to use the single connector near the audio connectors of the back panel.

To run at SATA 1 use the jumper and connect it to either of the 2 connectors near to the BIOS chip and battery.

Try it in both postions and see if it works better on one than the other, dont forget to use the jumper if its on the SATA 1 connector.

I have tried both positions, and neither seems to make a difference. In either position, do I have to change anything in the bios?

[Sandra]

Shouldnt need to do.
One thing you could try is to check that the boot sequence is set to boot from your OS hard drive as the first device, it may be set to boot from the SATA drive when its fitted and as it hasnt got a bootable OS on it and its a large drive it may be hanging on that as it looks for the MBR before it moves onto the next bootable device.