FearTheCow.net >> Hardware Notes / Fixes

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Hardware Notes

This page will simply contain solutions to small, random little problems I've run across.

SATA RAID (Sil3112 or Sil3512) not working on GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 1

The error is:

The BIOS for the SATA raid will not show or display at boot, allowing you to configure the SATA drives. Nor will windows detect the drives or the RAID array. Sometimes the SATA RAID BIOS will load but only intermittantly or occasionally. The problem was on the GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 1 motherboard with 2x200GB Seagate ST3200822AS drives.

Solution:

While to all intents and purposes I had a Revision 1 GA-7N400 Pro2, and loading the wrong BIOS on a motherboard is generally considered A Bad Thing™. In any case, I was frustrated. I loaded the Rev2, version FK BIOS, and it immediately worked. So far, I haven't noticed any problems.

SATA RAID (Sil3112 or Sil3512) on GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 1 complains about an invalid RAID set after the above:

The error is:

Some flashing text that I can't remember correctly right now, but will update this page with later.

Solution:

I deleted the RAID set, then recreated one identically. All my data was kept safe, and the RAID array appears to still be working perfectly (with data being in sync on both drives).

SATA RAID (Sil3112 or Sil3512) on GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 1 causes random hangs / freezes while writing to disk:

The error is:

While writing files, after writing about 200mb, the computer freezes for approximately 1 minute, and sometimes recovers.

Solution:

If you're using Base mode, change it to RAID even though you do not wish to use RAID. Delete any RAID volumes you have in the SATA BIOS (again, no data will be damaged). This has so-far fixed my problems with SATA write hangs.

See the comment below: Giga-byte make cheap rubbish. This is a terrible motherboard, and I would never buy any Giga-byte or Silicon Image stuff again.

Netgear WG311v2 54mbps Wireless PCI Adapter Drops Out, etc:

Symptoms:

* Continual dropouts
* Inability to connect to nearby networks
* Poor range
* Poor performance
* Low throughput

Solution:

Possibly, the only company with worse drivers than Silicon Image would be Netgear. Fortunately, since Netgear doesn't actually have the competence to make their own product, they use a chipset that's used in quite a few other drivers too. In both Windows XP and Linux (with NDISWrapper), I have found that using the USR11g, or US Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo Adapter driver gives far better results. Either search for usr11gv40q.zip or download the driver here.

 

 

 

 

Comments:

Subject: sata
Posted by jason on 2006-12-10 23:39:17
the n74oo pro2 i considered a grerat board as ALL other gigabyte boards but since the introduction of sata ive had nothing but problems. origionaly i pluged the sata in with the primary hd on ide and hey presto no problems.

6 months later doing the same process the board recognises sata in the opening sata menu but will not be seen any where else, this really sucks, not even in win management, any help
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Subject: ga-7n400 pro 2
Posted by ross on 2007-04-06 08:59:59
I have a problem with this board in the raid depatment , so far 2 segate sata hdd failed my fault for getting the first ones (only came with 12 month waranty) however continualy the raid says that it has a problem and need to be rebuilt , it dosent work live only before windows xp starts up in the sata bios , i,ve changed from the sil raid to the nvidia raid and it is just as flakey, nearas I can tell the on board raid chips are crap ,anless i want to format again, I have to get a low time second hand one to be able to just swap it over , when I changed the first failed hard drive and try to rebuild , it failed and i lost every thing , bugger .
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Subject: Raid works great on the GA7N400 pro 2
Posted by SiliconDoc on 2008-02-04 07:56:04
I have the very same motherboard, and flashed the main of the dual bios to FK quite a while back. Have never had a single issue with the sata 1.5 raid on this motherboard. I have 2 80 gig UNMATCHED maxtors, one is a 1.5 the other a 3.0, in raid 0, and I believe one has 2 meg cache and the better sata2 an 8 meg ram cache. Besides all this, one of the two drives came ups from a friend in Kansas who is known to discombobulate harddrives something terrible with his unconventional drive manipulation in windows. Somehow he had about 8-12 gigs of the drive locked up in windows SAM files or some other such hidden system crud, and I never got the darn thing cleaned out.
I installed anayway and haven't had an issue. Win2000 pro initially, and upgraded to winxp pro, with everything in tact. I used the f6 method with floppy both times, and after that in windows, whenever, I found some driver that installed there, and gives this little blue pic management deal by the clock. It's pretty, I look at it, open it, and make sure all the email and alerts are shutoff every now and then.
HD TACH free showed 98mb down to 60mb on the larger files, with 114mb burst, 13.2ms acess, 19cpu util( Barton 3000/400), just last night when I first found and ran it.
They've been running in here for a few years, all day and all night, nary a hiccup. A few days ago I did a surface scan for the first time and it found 24k bad sectors, not sure where it didn't tell me which drive etc.
Been running anyway with em, no problems.
I noticed a HUGE increase in load and gamespeed when I got the second 80 gig for like 47 bucks at some obscure online resale site a few years ago. DEFINITELY use raid 0.
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