SATA setup on 8KNXP rev. 2.0

OK, i have no doubt this question has been asked before. I am soon gonna
have an 8KNXP rev. 2 board and will be using a single WD Raptor 74GB.

I also have a Plextor burner and DVD drive. So how should i set them all
up?, should i use the Intel IDE 1 for the optical drives + the Raptor on the
ICH5R?

Does anyone know the exact BIOS setup and boot order nesscary?
And if i wanted to RAID two Raptors in future....how would i do it?

I have google and been reading this NG for ages, but information on what
exactly to do within the BIOS is sketchy at best. Also note i will be using
the latest BIOS from Gigabyte.

LOL...about 4 posts up, find my question about "hd configuration". I have
my cd burner and dvd on ide 2.

Np's at all:-) thanks to Tim...hehe

Don

"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...
OK, i have no doubt this question has been asked before. I am soon gonna
have an 8KNXP rev. 2 board and will be using a single WD Raptor 74GB.

I also have a Plextor burner and DVD drive. So how should i set them all
up?, should i use the Intel IDE 1 for the optical drives + the Raptor on
the
ICH5R?

Does anyone know the exact BIOS setup and boot order nesscary?
And if i wanted to RAID two Raptors in future....how would i do it?

I have google and been reading this NG for ages, but information on what
exactly to do within the BIOS is sketchy at best. Also note i will be
using
the latest BIOS from Gigabyte.

Right....but consider i want to disable as much as possible in the BIOS.
Disable the Sil2113A + GigaRAID controller.

Now, i just want to use the ICH5R for IDE drives and either a single SATA
drive or RAID setup.

How does that change the picture?....i have been reading, but i hear folks
talk about remapping drives over the IDE channel.

Surely this defeats the purpose of running SATA devices over the ICH5R, as
it's faster and is not linked to the PCI bus.


"MTech" wrote in message
...
LOL...about 4 posts up, find my question about "hd configuration". I have
my cd burner and dvd on ide 2.

Np's at all:-) thanks to Tim...hehe

Don

"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...
OK, i have no doubt this question has been asked before. I am soon gonna
have an 8KNXP rev. 2 board and will be using a single WD Raptor 74GB.

I also have a Plextor burner and DVD drive. So how should i set them all
up?, should i use the Intel IDE 1 for the optical drives + the Raptor on
the
ICH5R?

Does anyone know the exact BIOS setup and boot order nesscary?
And if i wanted to RAID two Raptors in future....how would i do it?

I have google and been reading this NG for ages, but information on what
exactly to do within the BIOS is sketchy at best. Also note i will be
using
the latest BIOS from Gigabyte.

"ICH5R = On Chip SATA controller. ("On Board" is the Silicon image), Manual
(not Auto) Config, Sata as Sata. Raid Enabled - even if you have only 1
disc, this is called RAID Ready and enables you to activate RAID at run time
when ready after adding another disc of course."

Why set the On Chip SATA Controller to "manual", what happens if you set it
to "auto"?

Why enable RAID?...why can't you enable BASE when using a single drive?

Boot order...Floppy, CD-ROM, SCSI....correct?
Can you use both PATA and SATA device at once over the ICH5R?

Why were people previously talking about remapping the SATA controller over
the PATA?

Richard,

See inline.....

"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...
"ICH5R = On Chip SATA controller. ("On Board" is the Silicon image),
Manual
(not Auto) Config, Sata as Sata. Raid Enabled - even if you have only 1
disc, this is called RAID Ready and enables you to activate RAID at run
time
when ready after adding another disc of course."

Why set the On Chip SATA Controller to "manual", what happens if you set
it
to "auto"?

What happens? It doesn't work. This is one of the 'secret' settings that if
omitted causes people to rip hair out and scream. Set the controller To
Manual and ensure that SATA is SATA not mapped to IDE. If you want, try it
on Auto and watch what happens.

Why enable RAID?...why can't you enable BASE when using a single drive?

'Base' = Non Raid is for the Silicon Image controller. If you are not using
this controller, then disable it.
If you are not using the ITE (aka Gigaraid) controller then disable it - it
will elongate your boot time by about 22 seconds otherwise. Common opinion
is that the ICH5R is the preferred controller as it does not run via PCI bus
and so reduces PCI bus loading.

For ICH5R, a single SATA drive will run as an ordinary non RAID disc, but is
ready for RAID. See Intel's documentation - they call it Raid Ready. When
you
are in this state, you can just add another SATA disc and at run time
(supposedly) go into IAA and create your Raid 0 or 1 volume with the new
drive. The IAA / drivers aren't perfect yet & the documentation is not too
hot, but others have been less chicken than I and ignored the warning about
loss of data and completed a Raid Ready single drive to RAID 1 online while
Windows XP is running.

I suggest you review what I said about BIOS and driver versions. If you had
a rev 1 board and an old bios, then things get a lot worse.

If you have an old bios and / or old drivers, then you will have something
less than described. The mobo bios contains the ICH5R RAID bios and
integrates with the F6 installed driver determining what you can do at run
time. EG the original bios and drivers supported only RAID 0 - striped. The
latest RAID 0 or 1 and onine RAID rebuilds along with builds.

Boot order...Floppy, CD-ROM, SCSI....correct?

Boot Order: In Advanced Bios Features (yip I rebooted just 4 u):

HD boot priority = SCSI-0 : Intel System

First Boot Device = HDD (there is no SCSI in the list in F10).

In Integrated Periperals

On Chip SATA = Manual
SATA Port 0 as Sata Port 0

Note: this is with bios F10 - it is clear, correct and works. I would expect
a rev 2 board with the most recent bios to be the same. Prior to this the HD
boot priority menu was highly likely to get garbled and in F5 it was so bad
that it was including a randomising feature along with duplicates and
aliens!

Can you use both PATA and SATA device at once over the ICH5R?

Yes.

If SATA is SATA then IDE works as you would expect.
(If SATA is mapped to IDE then IDE is replaced by SATA and SATA is that IDE
device -
you lose the IDE channel).
The only issue you might ever have is if you put a bootable disc on IDE.
Refrain from doing XP installs if you have disc drives plugged into IDE and
do not have any form of 'Disc Drive' other than the installed HDD connected
during install EG Secure Digital and other card drive adapter devices as
they map disc drive letters and your C drive may end up being F: or
something odd. Remove them during install...

Why were people previously talking about remapping the SATA controller
over
the PATA?

You would only ever remap SATA to PATA (IE it replaces one of the IDE ports)
if

a) you had devices that would not work when connected as SATA (EG a IDE CD
Rewriter via a PATA SATA converter, but I think that would be a senseless
thing to do....)

b) you were running an OS that had no driver support for SATA EG DOS, Win95
etc. Unix's

c) easy way out to get it going particularly on the earlier bios's.


- Tim

Excellent info Tim, can you explain other settings..settings that appear in
the advance BIOS option.

Options like:

PSB Parking

Full Screen LOGO Show

Intel OnScreen Branding

SCSI/RAID Cntrl Boot Order -- if i disable on onboard Sil3122A and GigaRAID
controller...do these disappear?

What above effect boot time, like those logos...do they effect boot time
when disabled?

I want to disable everything possible, game port, midi port, CIR port, H/W
Lan, Parallel and Serial ports.

What other advance BIOS options appear?,

http://www.ite.com.tw/productInfo/Do...3%20Controller

Which of the following files should i download?...update the BIOS for ITE
etc?

I won't be using them, but i like to have all the latest BIOS and drivers in
case i need them.

Inline...

"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...
Excellent info Tim, can you explain other settings..settings that appear
in
the advance BIOS option.

Options like:

PSB Parking

Pass.

Full Screen LOGO Show

This is the Gigabyte logo that you will have seen on first boot. I keep mine
off as I like to see the boot process. It has no effect that I am aware of
on boot itme.

Intel OnScreen Branding

Not 100% sure, but I think this suppresses the extra logos that appear when
the above is off. No effect on boot time.
Have a play with these and perhaps benchmark if you feel inclined and post
back.

SCSI/RAID Cntrl Boot Order -- if i disable on onboard Sil3122A and
GigaRAID
controller...do these disappear?

I have SIL and Gigaraid disabled and they are not in the Boot Order menu -
again rev 1 board and bios F10.
Gigaraid adds 22 seconds to boot time - it is painfully slow.
SIL adds a little time and is nowhere near as bad as Gigaraid.
ICH5R adds about 2 seconds once it is configured so long as things are OK.
More when not configured, or when a disc has failed.
If you are going to setup RAID 1 then try some failure scenarios. EG pull
the power on one of the drives (when the system is OFF of course) and see
what happens. Basically, it is exactly what you would expect. If RAID 0 then
Do Not do that!

What above effect boot time, like those logos...do they effect boot time
when disabled?

See above.

I want to disable everything possible, game port, midi port, CIR port, H/W
Lan, Parallel and Serial ports.

Disable everything you do not need including IDE channels. This will free up
IRQ's - not that this will make any difference, and may make life easier
later EG troublesome graphics cards that don't like IRQ sharing. Do not
forget you have things disabled in bios later as you may then have trouble
getting EG LAN going... Be careful to test all peripherals you are going to
disable before you do: you do not want to find that COM1 (for example) does
not work in 2 years time when you need it and have lost the warrantee
period.

What other advance BIOS options appear?

Try Control F1 and have a look. RTM. Most is for "show" and rare needs. IE
if you want to get your system stable & 100% you will have little cause to
go into the advanced settings except perhaps memory voltage (?). Its just
one of those things. Some people see a setting and feel compelled to change
it and stuff things up in the process. Chances are unless you do
benchmarking and test methodically you will not experience any increased
performance by tinkering with advanced options. For me, "optimium
performance" does not work and reportedly does not work often IE you may
need faster RAM for this and to not use SATA discs.

There is a web site somewhere where all the odd settings are documented.
Perhaps someone can chip in with its location?

I gave up overclocking as I benchmarked everything as I went - used various
benchmark programs + stopwatch on long running tasks I have (EG a full C++
compile of a large project, database slice and dice functions) and found
little difference when overclocking to the point where when left with the
question of "How much less stable stable is the system?" 10% CPU isn't much
at all and barely noticeable. 25% is not too noticeable either. I reverted
to Stock settings and have been there since. Stability is more important to
me. Personally, I really would like a big boost in performance, but dual
opteron 248's aren't enough to make me move yet - I already have a dual
server.

Regards,
- Tim

On Rev 1: IT8212F. This is no doubt the same on Rev2 since others state that
the only major change between the two is the sound chip.

See:
http://www.ite.com.tw/productInfo/Do...3%20Controller

If you are not going to use them any time soon then I would skip these but
note that there are updates available.

There is a bit of history to the ITE controller:
1st issue version: dead slow on boot, poor performance, many complained in
this NG.
would not support non HDD devices
subsequent versions:
general ATA device support became available
performnace improved
ATA device support disappeared.

Looks like there are now 2 options for the firmwa with non HD support and
without.
Perhaps given time they will sort all of this out and provide 1 unified set
of firmware + 1 driver that supports all combos.

- Tim

"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...
http://www.ite.com.tw/productInfo/Do...3%20Controller

Which of the following files should i download?...update the BIOS for ITE
etc?

I won't be using them, but i like to have all the latest BIOS and drivers
in
case i need them.

Richard,

I believe this is what "PSB Parking" actually is,


http://www.lostcircuits.com/hdd/hdd5/3.shtml


My 8KNXP does not like it, doesn't like Delayed Transaction enabled either. I use the "Performance" settings with the exception of the preceding & RAM V +.1, and timings set to OCZ's specs for my RAM. VERY stable, Sandra around 4550. Love the board! I currently have only 2 HDs on IDE 1 though so I can't help with anything else.

umm.....

Richard




Tim wrote:
Inline...

"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...

Excellent info Tim, can you explain other settings..settings that appear
in
the advance BIOS option.

Options like:

PSB Parking


Pass.


Full Screen LOGO Show


This is the Gigabyte logo that you will have seen on first boot. I keep mine
off as I like to see the boot process. It has no effect that I am aware of
on boot itme.


Intel OnScreen Branding


Not 100% sure, but I think this suppresses the extra logos that appear when
the above is off. No effect on boot time.
Have a play with these and perhaps benchmark if you feel inclined and post
back.


SCSI/RAID Cntrl Boot Order -- if i disable on onboard Sil3122A and
GigaRAID
controller...do these disappear?


I have SIL and Gigaraid disabled and they are not in the Boot Order menu -
again rev 1 board and bios F10.
Gigaraid adds 22 seconds to boot time - it is painfully slow.
SIL adds a little time and is nowhere near as bad as Gigaraid.
ICH5R adds about 2 seconds once it is configured so long as things are OK.
More when not configured, or when a disc has failed.
If you are going to setup RAID 1 then try some failure scenarios. EG pull
the power on one of the drives (when the system is OFF of course) and see
what happens. Basically, it is exactly what you would expect. If RAID 0 then
Do Not do that!


What above effect boot time, like those logos...do they effect boot time
when disabled?


See above.


I want to disable everything possible, game port, midi port, CIR port, H/W
Lan, Parallel and Serial ports.


Disable everything you do not need including IDE channels. This will free up
IRQ's - not that this will make any difference, and may make life easier
later EG troublesome graphics cards that don't like IRQ sharing. Do not
forget you have things disabled in bios later as you may then have trouble
getting EG LAN going... Be careful to test all peripherals you are going to
disable before you do: you do not want to find that COM1 (for example) does
not work in 2 years time when you need it and have lost the warrantee
period.


What other advance BIOS options appear?


Try Control F1 and have a look. RTM. Most is for "show" and rare needs. IE
if you want to get your system stable & 100% you will have little cause to
go into the advanced settings except perhaps memory voltage (?). Its just
one of those things. Some people see a setting and feel compelled to change
it and stuff things up in the process. Chances are unless you do
benchmarking and test methodically you will not experience any increased
performance by tinkering with advanced options. For me, "optimium
performance" does not work and reportedly does not work often IE you may
need faster RAM for this and to not use SATA discs.

There is a web site somewhere where all the odd settings are documented.
Perhaps someone can chip in with its location?

I gave up overclocking as I benchmarked everything as I went - used various
benchmark programs + stopwatch on long running tasks I have (EG a full C++
compile of a large project, database slice and dice functions) and found
little difference when overclocking to the point where when left with the
question of "How much less stable stable is the system?" 10% CPU isn't much
at all and barely noticeable. 25% is not too noticeable either. I reverted
to Stock settings and have been there since. Stability is more important to
me. Personally, I really would like a big boost in performance, but dual
opteron 248's aren't enough to make me move yet - I already have a dual
server.

Regards,
- Tim