A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » Motherboards » Gigabyte Motherboards
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Anyone tried the F8 bios for 8KNXP?



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #21  
Old November 26th 03, 11:03 PM
Michael Len
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks for the post Timothy. I have just read some posts where people
could not even boot after 'upgrading' to F8! Perhaps we should spam
Gigabyte for being such jerks.
__________________________________________________ _________________________________________________
Gigabyte 8KNXP, P4 2.8C, Corsair TwinX1024-3200C2PT Cas 2-5-3-3
SiSoft Sandra 2003 Unbuffered ALU 2973MB/s, Int Buff 4909MB/s,
Memtest86 2442 MB/s, Zalman CNPS 7000AlCu, WD Raptor, Radeon 8500LL,
WinXP Pro


Timothy Drouillard wrote:
I have a GA-8KNXP I've been running with F6 for some time with everything
working just fine.

Then Gigabyte comes out with a new BIOS, F7, then shortly after, F8.

Now I've been in the business more years than I care to admit, and have
learned many many times, 'if it works, don't f_ck with it!'

But nooooo, something posessed me to go ahead and try F7 and F8.

Some people never learn.

In my system I have 2 WD SATA Raptors in a RAID 0 array on the SII
controller, and two Seagate 160gig SATA drives on the ICH5R controller.

under both F7 and F8, I no longer have an option to boot to the SII Raid
controller.

Both RAID controllers are set 'enabled' in the BIOS and set to RAID, the
POST sees the proper drives on the proper controllers and sees them as RAID
0 setups just fine.

In the Boot order in the BIOS, the only HD options shown are for the Intel
RAID controller and an add-in card.

no sign of the SII RAID controller at all.

tried all kinds of combinations to no avail.

Went back to F6 and all is well again.


"Stephen Williams" wrote in message
...

"Dominic Phoon" wrote in message
...

Anyone? I am still using F5, wondering if I should update.

Thanks



F8 seemed great at first. I installed it after being on F6 for ages.

My setup is 2 SATA drives (no RAID) on the ICH5-R, a DVD-Combo and a


DVD-RW

on the Secondary IDE channel. The extra SATA and IDE controllers are
disabled.

It seems they had finally re-arranged the BIOS so you could boot from an
ICH5R based SATA drive and still retail all standard IDE channels (like


all

other 865/875 boards already could). So I changed the sata channels from
being Primary Master and Slave to Channel 2 and Channel 3 Masters, reset,
went back in to the BIOS and there they were under Hard Drive Boot


Order...

and the machine booted fine.

Then for some reason after i powered it off completely and turned it back
on, the Intel RAID controller decided to enable itself, under Hard Drive
Boot Order i now had 4 drives instead of 2
It went from

Ch2 Master Seagate 80GB
Ch3 Master Seagate 120GB
Add in cards
to
Ch2 Master Seagate 80GB
SCSI 0 Seagate 120GB
Add in cards
Ch3 Master Seagate 120GB
SCSI 1 Seagate 80GB

And the computer either would hang after checking the CD-ROMs for a boot
disc, or it would blue screen before getting to the desktop. The type of
failure depended on which was set to the first boot drive.

Put the SATA drives back to Primary Master and Slave, but the Intel RAID
controller kept coming up and now was complaining about incompatible
hardware. Windows would blue screen before the desktop.

Had to revert back to F6 which was in the backup BIOS, even then no USB
devices worked in windows so i had to get a PS/2 keyboard out, remove all
USB related things from the device manager, restart and let XP find them
again, just to get my USB mouse and keyboard working.

F8 now runs all BIOSes before you can get in to the main BIOS in order to
pick up every possible boot drive. It's a good idea, but seems to me that
it's full of bugs. They should just make it like other mobos, where you


can

choose from any device on the ICH5R or standard IDE channels, or SCSI and
set the SCSI boot order to Silicon Image, ITE or add on card.

Feels like i just wrote a novel!

Steve






  #22  
Old November 27th 03, 03:22 AM
Dominic Phoon
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks for posting.
I guess I'll stick to F5 ("if it ain't broken...") at least for now; I am
waiting for the new set of Raptors 74gig to come. Then I might switch. BTW,
in your opionion, which SATA controller should I use for RAID 0? The ICH5R
or the SIL? I tried searching through the newsgroups, most reports say that
the SIL controller is much faster, which is weird because I thought Intel
designed the ICH5R to skip using the PCI bandwidth; thus making it much
faster.

Oh, have you tried the Intel App Accelerator Raid addition? It might boost
some performance according to what I read.



"Timothy Drouillard" wrote in message
...
I have a GA-8KNXP I've been running with F6 for some time with everything
working just fine.

Then Gigabyte comes out with a new BIOS, F7, then shortly after, F8.

Now I've been in the business more years than I care to admit, and have
learned many many times, 'if it works, don't f_ck with it!'

But nooooo, something posessed me to go ahead and try F7 and F8.

Some people never learn.

In my system I have 2 WD SATA Raptors in a RAID 0 array on the SII
controller, and two Seagate 160gig SATA drives on the ICH5R controller.

under both F7 and F8, I no longer have an option to boot to the SII Raid
controller.

Both RAID controllers are set 'enabled' in the BIOS and set to RAID, the
POST sees the proper drives on the proper controllers and sees them as

RAID
0 setups just fine.

In the Boot order in the BIOS, the only HD options shown are for the Intel
RAID controller and an add-in card.

no sign of the SII RAID controller at all.

tried all kinds of combinations to no avail.

Went back to F6 and all is well again.


"Stephen Williams" wrote in message
...

"Dominic Phoon" wrote in message
...
Anyone? I am still using F5, wondering if I should update.

Thanks



F8 seemed great at first. I installed it after being on F6 for ages.

My setup is 2 SATA drives (no RAID) on the ICH5-R, a DVD-Combo and a

DVD-RW
on the Secondary IDE channel. The extra SATA and IDE controllers are
disabled.

It seems they had finally re-arranged the BIOS so you could boot from an
ICH5R based SATA drive and still retail all standard IDE channels (like

all
other 865/875 boards already could). So I changed the sata channels from
being Primary Master and Slave to Channel 2 and Channel 3 Masters,

reset,
went back in to the BIOS and there they were under Hard Drive Boot

Order...
and the machine booted fine.

Then for some reason after i powered it off completely and turned it

back
on, the Intel RAID controller decided to enable itself, under Hard Drive
Boot Order i now had 4 drives instead of 2
It went from

Ch2 Master Seagate 80GB
Ch3 Master Seagate 120GB
Add in cards
to
Ch2 Master Seagate 80GB
SCSI 0 Seagate 120GB
Add in cards
Ch3 Master Seagate 120GB
SCSI 1 Seagate 80GB

And the computer either would hang after checking the CD-ROMs for a boot
disc, or it would blue screen before getting to the desktop. The type of
failure depended on which was set to the first boot drive.

Put the SATA drives back to Primary Master and Slave, but the Intel RAID
controller kept coming up and now was complaining about incompatible
hardware. Windows would blue screen before the desktop.

Had to revert back to F6 which was in the backup BIOS, even then no USB
devices worked in windows so i had to get a PS/2 keyboard out, remove

all
USB related things from the device manager, restart and let XP find them
again, just to get my USB mouse and keyboard working.

F8 now runs all BIOSes before you can get in to the main BIOS in order

to
pick up every possible boot drive. It's a good idea, but seems to me

that
it's full of bugs. They should just make it like other mobos, where you

can
choose from any device on the ICH5R or standard IDE channels, or SCSI

and
set the SCSI boot order to Silicon Image, ITE or add on card.

Feels like i just wrote a novel!

Steve






  #23  
Old November 29th 03, 08:20 AM
Frank
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:37:42 -0500, "Timothy Drouillard"
wrote:

I have a GA-8KNXP I've been running with F6 for some time with everything
working just fine.

Then Gigabyte comes out with a new BIOS, F7, then shortly after, F8.

Now I've been in the business more years than I care to admit, and have
learned many many times, 'if it works, don't f_ck with it!'

But nooooo, something posessed me to go ahead and try F7 and F8.

Some people never learn.

In my system I have 2 WD SATA Raptors in a RAID 0 array on the SII
controller, and two Seagate 160gig SATA drives on the ICH5R controller.

under both F7 and F8, I no longer have an option to boot to the SII Raid
controller.

Both RAID controllers are set 'enabled' in the BIOS and set to RAID, the
POST sees the proper drives on the proper controllers and sees them as RAID
0 setups just fine.

In the Boot order in the BIOS, the only HD options shown are for the Intel
RAID controller and an add-in card.

no sign of the SII RAID controller at all.

tried all kinds of combinations to no avail.

Went back to F6 and all is well again.


Same experience, a little bit different :

1 WD SATA raptor on Intel
1 DVD on 2nd Standard IDE
1 Maxtor on GigaRaid.

10 Change F6 to F8, reboot and .....

20 an Error Message on bios Intel controler :
Internal Error (9) ISM_HARDWARE_UNSUPPORTED.

30 2 seconds of XP boot image and ..... reboot....

40 GOTO 10


I don't know what means this message...

went back to F6 ( not easy without a floppy drive ..... )and all is
well again.

So If you don't need it, don't do it ( BIOS upgrade rule number1 )

I'm quit sure I will updrade to F10 ( Human default number 1 in Bios
updrade environnement )

:-)

  #24  
Old December 1st 03, 06:58 PM
Old Dude
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I am not running any on-board RAID controllers, though I do have a Promise
SX4000 IDE RAID PCI board.

My PC boots with F8, runs Windows XP Pro off the Promise SX4000, it just
that when I try to get into the BIOS, the keyboard freezes up. Re-flashing
back to F7b makes everything work as expected, including getting into the
BIOS and making changes.

I am in email communications with Gigabyte in Taiwan on my F8 issues. It's
slow going (10 days turn-around) and as soon as they give me a solution,
I'll share it with the NG.

Besides this on-going debacle with BIOSes, I find the GA-8KNXP to be pretty
useful motherboard overall. Once we get beyond the BIOSes issues...

"bdh" wrote in message
...
Are running raid? or just ide controller
"macrog" wrote in message
...
It looks good to me. Finally lets me set RAM to cas2. The only glitch I

can
see is it locks up if you attempt to change boot device 3 in bios. Its
seems really stable in windows though. definately quicker in

benchmarks.


"Bob Davis" wrote in message
news:Xvqvb.104$US3.72@okepread03...

"Old Dude" wrote in message
link.net...

With F8 installed, my PC totally freezes up when I try to enter the

BIOS
menu screen.

I can press the DEL key one or more times at different points during

the
initial boot up process, and until the add-on BIOSes are processed
(GigRAID,
Promise SX4000 RAID controller card), I don't get the BIOS menu

screen.
Then, the PC does not respond to any keyboard input. With F7B, I had

no
problems like this.

Mine doesn't freeze at any point, but waits 'til my SCSI bios is

loaded
before the bios screen will appear. This is the only external bios

that
I
load, and the first time I've ever had the bios screen appear after

that
point.









  #25  
Old December 6th 03, 02:46 AM
Old Dude
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I just received and tried the new F9a BIOS - unfortunately, it did not
resolve the problem as described in my NG posting, below. I have
communicated this to Gigabyte.

Folks, I think Gigabyte is really trying hard to resolve the BIOS issues for
the GA-8KNXP series boards. My motherboard has been useful using the F7b
BIOS in the meantime, I get my work needs done, so I can't complain.

Please don't contact me about obtaining the F9a BIOS due to the problems I
have experienced with it.

"Old Dude" wrote in message
k.net...
I am not running any on-board RAID controllers, though I do have a Promise
SX4000 IDE RAID PCI board.

My PC boots with F8, runs Windows XP Pro off the Promise SX4000, it just
that when I try to get into the BIOS, the keyboard freezes up. Re-flashing
back to F7b makes everything work as expected, including getting into the
BIOS and making changes.

I am in email communications with Gigabyte in Taiwan on my F8 issues. It's
slow going (10 days turn-around) and as soon as they give me a solution,
I'll share it with the NG.

Besides this on-going debacle with BIOSes, I find the GA-8KNXP to be

pretty
useful motherboard overall. Once we get beyond the BIOSes issues...

"bdh" wrote in message
...
Are running raid? or just ide controller
"macrog" wrote in message
...
It looks good to me. Finally lets me set RAM to cas2. The only glitch

I
can
see is it locks up if you attempt to change boot device 3 in bios.

Its
seems really stable in windows though. definately quicker in

benchmarks.


"Bob Davis" wrote in message
news:Xvqvb.104$US3.72@okepread03...

"Old Dude" wrote in message
link.net...

With F8 installed, my PC totally freezes up when I try to enter

the
BIOS
menu screen.

I can press the DEL key one or more times at different points

during
the
initial boot up process, and until the add-on BIOSes are processed
(GigRAID,
Promise SX4000 RAID controller card), I don't get the BIOS menu

screen.
Then, the PC does not respond to any keyboard input. With F7B, I

had
no
problems like this.

Mine doesn't freeze at any point, but waits 'til my SCSI bios is

loaded
before the bios screen will appear. This is the only external bios

that
I
load, and the first time I've ever had the bios screen appear after

that
point.











 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
IDE RAID- Major problem need to save my data MC General 21 December 5th 04 06:38 AM
Flashed BIOS, now no RAID drive Craig Burke Asus Motherboards 3 February 19th 04 04:27 AM
update method BIOS 1014 for P4P800 deluxe Ice D Asus Motherboards 8 February 3rd 04 01:52 PM
Terrible experience in updating bios 1008 in P4P800DX: Pl. HELP!! MikeM Asus Motherboards 3 July 1st 03 01:05 AM
bios hung while flashing mdp General 1 June 23rd 03 11:18 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 10:51 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.