Can I put 4 IDE HDD's, 2 Sata HDD's and 3 DVD drives on an A8N-SLI Deluxe?

[HST]

Providing I have a powerful enough power supply:

Can I put 2 SATA hard drives (one the master boot) on the SATA1 and
SATA2 ports, 4 IDE hard drives on the primary and secondary IDE ports
and I was thinking on getting these SATA to IDE adapters to use for my
3 DVD drives:

http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/serial-ata-ide-converter.htm

Will this setup work? And if so, where do I plug them into, the SATA3
and SATA4 ports, but that leaves me with another DVD drive to plug in.
Will that go into the SATA_RAID port?

I'm so confused...

 

[Paul]

Providing I have a powerful enough power supply:

Can I put 2 SATA hard drives (one the master boot) on the SATA1 and
SATA2 ports, 4 IDE hard drives on the primary and secondary IDE ports
and I was thinking on getting these SATA to IDE adapters to use for my
3 DVD drives:

http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/serial-ata-ide-converter.htm

Will this setup work? And if so, where do I plug them into, the SATA3
and SATA4 ports, but that leaves me with another DVD drive to plug in.
Will that go into the SATA_RAID port?

I'm so confused...

I would put the 3 DVD drives on the two Southbridge IDE ports.
Take the 4 IDE drives and put them on a Promise Ultra133 TX2.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Category=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

By doing that, you won't need any SATA adapters of unknown
quality. Some of the early adapter chips in the SATA adapters
were crap, and you have to select carefully when buying those
things.

HTH,
Paul

 

[milleron]

Providing I have a powerful enough power supply:

Can I put 2 SATA hard drives (one the master boot) on the SATA1 and
SATA2 ports, 4 IDE hard drives on the primary and secondary IDE ports
and I was thinking on getting these SATA to IDE adapters to use for my
3 DVD drives:

http://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/serial-ata-ide-converter.htm

Will this setup work? And if so, where do I plug them into, the SATA3
and SATA4 ports, but that leaves me with another DVD drive to plug in.
Will that go into the SATA_RAID port?

I'm so confused...

You can squeeze all those drives into a computer with an A8N-SLI, but
I suspect that with that motherboard, you'd be better off buying a
two-channel PCI IDE controller to connect the optical drives.
1 -- almost everyone who's tried running optical drives from the SATA
controllers has experienced difficulty. Since some companies are now
manufacturing SATA optical drives, the day will come when the firmware
and drivers will run them, but I don't think that day is here yet for
the A8N-SLI.
2 -- most folks have a lot of trouble getting anything but RAID arrays
of SATA HDs to run on the Silicon-Image SATA controller.

I think you're really asking for trouble if you try to do it the way
you're thinking about.

So, I think I'm probably speaking for everyone in asking what in the
world you run on a computer that requires SIX hard drives and THREE
optical drives??? I'm not sure you could cram all those cables into
any case I've seen recently. I could heat my family room with a rig
like that. You've really got me curious. Surely you could accomplish
everything you need to do with two large SATA and two large IDE
drives, judiciously partitioned and set up with wisely chosen logical
drives, and surely you could do anything that needs to be done with
two optical drives.
Failing that, if absolutely necessary to have three optical drives,
you should still be able to get by with one IDE drive and three SATAs
or four SATAs.


Ron

 

[ByTor]

You can squeeze all those drives into a computer with an A8N-SLI, but
I suspect that with that motherboard, you'd be better off buying a
two-channel PCI IDE controller to connect the optical drives.

Excellent suggestion on the controller card.....I would suggest, believe
it or not, a Sil card, not promise for optical drives........

1 -- almost everyone who's tried running optical drives from the SATA
controllers has experienced difficulty. Since some companies are now
manufacturing SATA optical drives, the day will come when the firmware
and drivers will run them, but I don't think that day is here yet for
the A8N-SLI.
2 -- most folks have a lot of trouble getting anything but RAID arrays
of SATA HDs to run on the Silicon-Image SATA controller.

I think you're really asking for trouble if you try to do it the way
you're thinking about.
Agreed.........

So, I think I'm probably speaking for everyone in asking what in the
world you run on a computer that requires SIX hard drives and THREE
optical drives???

I myself have 5 optical drives & six HD's in my machine.....4 opticals
are connected to my Silicon Image Sil 0860 ATA/133 Controller......I can
burn 3cd's at once and the machine does not flinch....Im running an
A7M266 board.........Still smokin'

I'm not sure you could cram all those cables into
any case I've seen recently.

Sure you can if you have a 2ft high tower like I have....He, He... ;0)

I could heat my family room with a rig
like that. You've really got me curious. Surely you could accomplish
everything you need to do with two large SATA and two large IDE
drives, judiciously partitioned and set up with wisely chosen logical
drives, and surely you could do anything that needs to be done with
two optical drives.

Depends, I make lots of copies of things..........

 

[HST]

So, I think I'm probably speaking for everyone in asking what in the
world you run on a computer that requires SIX hard drives and THREE
optical drives??? I'm not sure you could cram all those cables into
any case I've seen recently. I could heat my family room with a rig
like that. You've really got me curious. Surely you could accomplish
everything you need to do with two large SATA and two large IDE
drives, judiciously partitioned and set up with wisely chosen logical
drives, and surely you could do anything that needs to be done with
two optical drives.
Failing that, if absolutely necessary to have three optical drives,
you should still be able to get by with one IDE drive and three SATAs
or four SATAs.


Ron

I do alot of downloading, about 5GB every night, then I sort out what
I don't want/need and delete the junk saving the good stuff. It adds
up ) I also do alot of movie rendering and DVD ripping/burning, like
I said, it adds up )

Currently besides the 6 hdd's I have on my system right now I have 2
more IEEE as well. The DVD drives are all burners, I guess I have way
too much free time on my hands, he he he.

I could like you said get 2 huge drives and settle all scores but I
have a total of 8 drives, 6 that are installed now that have too much
stuff that I have no time to burn to back them up. That's why I asked
what I asked.

I'm currently considering the A8N-SLI Deluxe with an X2 4800+ dual
core and that's why I want to get my answers in now before I buy.

Thanks for the advice.

HST

 

[HST]

I would put the 3 DVD drives on the two Southbridge IDE ports.
Take the 4 IDE drives and put them on a Promise Ultra133 TX2.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Category=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

By doing that, you won't need any SATA adapters of unknown
quality. Some of the early adapter chips in the SATA adapters
were crap, and you have to select carefully when buying those
things.

HTH,
Paul

Thanks for the advice, I happen to have a Ultra133 TX2 in my computer
right now, still considering the A8N-SLI Deluxe with a dual core X2
4800+

HST

 

[ByTor]

I do alot of downloading, about 5GB every night, then I sort out what
I don't want/need and delete the junk saving the good stuff. It adds
up ) I also do alot of movie rendering and DVD ripping/burning, like
I said, it adds up )

Hmmmm, sounds like me.......... ;0)

Currently besides the 6 hdd's I have on my system right now I have 2
more IEEE as well. The DVD drives are all burners, I guess I have way
too much free time on my hands, he he he.

Naaaaah, good idea to have more than one....I have a total of 15 HD's
spread amongst 5 machines, can never not have enough. I keep duplicate
backups of important stuff plus images.

I could like you said get 2 huge drives and settle all scores but I
have a total of 8 drives, 6 that are installed now that have too much
stuff that I have no time to burn to back them up. That's why I asked
what I asked.

Sounds like me, get off the lazy butt & start burning....He, He.
Currently have 100gig of music still to burn.....Ho hum, someday.......

I'm currently considering the A8N-SLI Deluxe with an X2 4800+ dual
core and that's why I want to get my answers in now before I buy.

Thanks for the advice.

HST

As I mentioned in my additions to milleron, I would suggest using a
controller for the burners, I don't care what anyone says, putting them
on controllers is much more efficient than on the MB especially the
Sil....But, promises are a little problematic I feel with burners
attached......they're great for HD's though, I have 3 HD's connected to
one on this machine......My machine though, I believe, is maxed out
though as far as power, I have a 425 watt power supply I believe & I
tried to add one more HD to the system and it gave me lots of trouble so
below are my specs to compare & give ya an idea..............

I'd love to hear how ya made out as eventually I will be upgrading this
MB (can't beat it down with a stick though) & would be curious about
yours...........

Good Luck........(Nice to see someone with almost an identical setup)


Motherboard
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1400 MHz (10.5 x 133) 1600+
Motherboard Name Asus A7M266 (5 PCI, 1 AGP Pro, 1 AMR, 3 DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset AMD-760
System Memory 768 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Medallion (04/29/02)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display
Video Adapter ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500 (64 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon 7500 (RV200)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB]

Multimedia
Audio Adapter C-Media CMI8738 Audio Chip
Audio Adapter Creative SB Audigy LS Sound Card

Storage
IDE Controller Silicon Image SiI 0680 ATA/133 Controller
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller SOJU SCSI Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller Win2000 Promise Ultra100 TX2 (tm) IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive WDC WD1200BB-00CAA0 (111 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive WDC WD1200BB-00CAA1 (111 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive WDC WD20 00JB-00DUA1 SCSI Disk Device (186 GB)
Disk Drive Maxtor 6E040L0 (40 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Disk Drive WDC WD12 00JB-00FUA0 SCSI Disk Device (111 GB)
Disk Drive WDC WD25 00JB-00FUA0 SCSI Disk Device (232 GB)
Optical Drive ATAPI-CD ROM-DRIVE-56MAX (56x CD-ROM)
Optical Drive DVDRW IDE1108 SCSI CdRom Device (DVD+RW:8x/4x, DVD-
RW:8x/4x, DVD-ROM:12x, CD:40x/24x/40x DVD+RW/DVD-RW)
Optical Drive PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4012A SCSI CdRom Device (40x/12x/40x
CD-RW)
Optical Drive PLEXTOR DVDR PX-504A SCSI CdRom Device (DVD:4x/2.4x/12x,
CD:16x/10x/40x DVD+RW)
Optical Drive SONY DVD-ROM DDU1621 SCSI CdRom Device (16x/40x DVD-ROM)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions
C: (FAT32) 20484 MB (6441 MB free)
D: (FAT32) 114442 MB (29592 MB free)
E: (FAT32) 114442 MB (28600 MB free)
F: (FAT32) 119211 MB (61245 MB free)
G: (FAT32) 10211 MB (10087 MB free)
H: (FAT32) 88612 MB (72524 MB free)
K: (FAT32) 180506 MB (83252 MB free)
L: (FAT32) 10161 MB (6283 MB free)
O: (FAT32) 57233 MB (14798 MB free)
P: (FAT32) 41713 MB (41713 MB free)
Q: (FAT32) 20345 MB (7499 MB free)
S: (NTFS) 15500 MB (10975 MB free)

Input
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse PS/2 Compatible Mouse

Network
Network Adapter Linksys LNE100TX(v5) Fast Ethernet Adapter
(192.168.1.100)

Peripherals
Printer \\Pavilion\Lexmark Z700-P700 Series
Printer \\SOYO\Epson Stylus COLOR 600 ESC/P 2
Printer Acrobat PDFWriter
Printer Adobe PDF
Printer DocuCom PDF Driver
Printer Family Tree Maker Printer
Printer Fax
Printer Lexmark X73
Printer Microsoft Office Document Image Writer
Printer Net-It Now! SE
Printer OmniForm
Printer PaperPort Black & White Image
Printer PaperPort Color Image
Printer PaperPort PDF
Printer SnagIt 7
Printer WinFax (Photo Quality)
Printer WinFax
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB Device ATI Wireless Remote Receiver V2.33
USB Device Philips Composite USB Device
USB Device Philips HID Audio Controls
USB Device Philips USB Audio

 

[HST]

As I mentioned in my additions to milleron, I would suggest using a
controller for the burners, I don't care what anyone says, putting them
on controllers is much more efficient than on the MB especially the
Sil....But, promises are a little problematic I feel with burners
attached......they're great for HD's though, I have 3 HD's connected to
one on this machine......My machine though, I believe, is maxed out
though as far as power, I have a 425 watt power supply I believe & I
tried to add one more HD to the system and it gave me lots of trouble so
below are my specs to compare & give ya an idea..............

Ok, a few questions for you, first, why do you think putting the DVD
burners on controllers instead of the motherboard is more efficient?
And second and more importantly, what Sil controller are you talking
about, here's a snip of your last answer to me:

 

[ByTor]

Ok, a few questions for you, first, why do you think putting the DVD
burners on controllers instead of the motherboard is more efficient?
And second and more importantly, what Sil controller are you talking
about, here's a snip of your last answer to me:

Silicon Image SiI 0680 ATA/133 Controller

I assumed you had seen it in my comments to milleron? Did you see my
specs I posted?

Any experiences I have ever had with burners attached to MB's drags the
machine down when burning making it a little difficult to navigate other
options computing.....I do not attach opticals to HD's either if I can
help it, dragging them down is not an option either by connecting a
lower end device to a HD. Also, the obvious, it keeps them seperate from
HD's....etc. It's a matter of personal preference for me though, as I
had mentioned in my addition to millerons comments I can burn 3cds at
once and my machine does not flinch....If I connected a burner to my
MBoard & burned my machine totally drags ass........Maybe these newer
faster computer manage it more efficiently? I'm not sure, I just won't
trust burners attached to MB's......I will repeat, it is a personal
preference, long drawn out technical explanations I can not provide only
my experience with experimenting............

 

[HST]

Silicon Image SiI 0680 ATA/133 Controller

I assumed you had seen it in my comments to milleron? Did you see my
specs I posted?

ok, I am a little confused, the Silicon Image controller you talk
about, is that an actual PCI card or is it actually part of the
motherboard, because when I do a search for it on Google, it's not
showing me a specific card.

and yes, I did see your comments and your specs, I'm still trying to
understand the A8N-SLI motherboard fully before I take the leap buying
it with my other planned purchases.

 

[ByTor]

ok, I am a little confused, the Silicon Image controller you talk
about, is that an actual PCI card or is it actually part of the
motherboard, because when I do a search for it on Google, it's not
showing me a specific card.

and yes, I did see your comments and your specs, I'm still trying to
understand the A8N-SLI motherboard fully before I take the leap buying
it with my other planned purchases.

PCI...........

With that board I'm wondering if you'll even need a card.......Wouldn't
know how burning responds to anything other than an IDE connecter
device.....Never worked with a board like that.........I'll stand down
from any furthur comments...........

Good Luck................

 

[milleron]

I do alot of downloading, about 5GB every night, then I sort out what
I don't want/need and delete the junk saving the good stuff. It adds
up ) I also do alot of movie rendering and DVD ripping/burning, like
I said, it adds up )

Currently besides the 6 hdd's I have on my system right now I have 2
more IEEE as well. The DVD drives are all burners, I guess I have way
too much free time on my hands, he he he.

I could like you said get 2 huge drives and settle all scores but I
have a total of 8 drives, 6 that are installed now that have too much
stuff that I have no time to burn to back them up. That's why I asked
what I asked.

I'm currently considering the A8N-SLI Deluxe with an X2 4800+ dual
core and that's why I want to get my answers in now before I buy.

Thanks for the advice.

HST

X2 4800+ -- GREAT choice, but it tells me that you're not on a limited
budget. Just buy a couple of Seagate 7200.8 or Hitachi Deskstar 400GB
SATA drives, or even three of them, and forget about the extra PCI
controller(s) and the dozens of HDs you have. You can get three
optical drives and more than a TERRABYTE of HD space on the A8N-SLI's
controllers this way, and I defy you to use that up no matter how much
junk you download, process, and burn.
Ron

 

[milleron]

ok, I am a little confused, the Silicon Image controller you talk
about, is that an actual PCI card or is it actually part of the
motherboard, because when I do a search for it on Google, it's not
showing me a specific card.

and yes, I did see your comments and your specs, I'm still trying to
understand the A8N-SLI motherboard fully before I take the leap buying
it with my other planned purchases.

There's a lot to understand. I'm not speaking from experience because
mine will not be built until 96 hours from now, but I've spent
hundreds of hours poring over the manual, this News group, and almost
every forum on the Internet that discusses the board.

The salient points for your situation are:
1 -- don't count on using the SI SATA controller for anything but
RAID. Since you're not anticipating RAID, I'd recommend not trying to
allocate any drives to it during your planning phase. (I suppose that
you could install more than one drive there with JBOD disk spanning,
but that would force you to reformat those drives, and I don't think
you want to do that.)
2 -- Don't plan on attaching any optical drives to the nVidia SATA
controller, not even something like a Plextor SATA burner. This will
change with newer nVidia chipset drivers, but I'm not aware that it
has as yet.
3 -- Be sure to order the A8N-SLI Premium and NOT the A8N-SLI Deluxe.
In case you're not familiar with the Premium, it replaces the
southbridge fan with a heatpipe cooler that gets rid of all of the
noise inherent to the board, itself, and hopefully makes the board
more reliable. It uses different BIOS versions, and Asus has listed
it as X2 compatible from its first iteration. If not for the recent
advent of the Premium, Asus presumably would have come out with its
next revision of the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Considering your almost
unlimited budget, you do not want to buy a Deluxe. It would be like
buying a revision 1.02 board when the 1.03 is already available..

There is no advantage to having lots of relatively small HDs compared
to a few relatively large ones. You may need to burn three optical
discs at once. I can't second guess you on that, but I sure hope that
when you get this world-class dream-machine A8N-SLI x with an X2
4800+, you don't clog up the case with way more HDs and cables than is
good for the power and cooling capacities of your PSU and case. That
would seem like such a shame.


Ron

 

[ByTor]

There's a lot to understand. I'm not speaking from experience because
mine will not be built until 96 hours from now, but I've spent
hundreds of hours poring over the manual, this News group, and almost
every forum on the Internet that discusses the board.

The salient points for your situation are:
1 -- don't count on using the SI SATA controller for anything but
RAID. Since you're not anticipating RAID, I'd recommend not trying to
allocate any drives to it during your planning phase. (I suppose that
you could install more than one drive there with JBOD disk spanning,
but that would force you to reformat those drives, and I don't think
you want to do that.)
2 -- Don't plan on attaching any optical drives to the nVidia SATA
controller, not even something like a Plextor SATA burner. This will
change with newer nVidia chipset drivers, but I'm not aware that it
has as yet.
3 -- Be sure to order the A8N-SLI Premium and NOT the A8N-SLI Deluxe.
In case you're not familiar with the Premium, it replaces the
southbridge fan with a heatpipe cooler that gets rid of all of the
noise inherent to the board, itself, and hopefully makes the board
more reliable. It uses different BIOS versions, and Asus has listed
it as X2 compatible from its first iteration. If not for the recent
advent of the Premium, Asus presumably would have come out with its
next revision of the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Considering your almost
unlimited budget, you do not want to buy a Deluxe. It would be like
buying a revision 1.02 board when the 1.03 is already available..

There is no advantage to having lots of relatively small HDs compared
to a few relatively large ones. You may need to burn three optical
discs at once. I can't second guess you on that, but I sure hope that
when you get this world-class dream-machine A8N-SLI x with an X2
4800+, you don't clog up the case with way more HDs and cables than is
good for the power and cooling capacities of your PSU and case. That
would seem like such a shame.


Ron

Thanks for putting it in a better technical perspective for myself
also.....New boards are becoming more complex, less PCI slots, improved
PCI, lesser relience on AGP, more focus on SATA/RAID.....etc....It
appears the newer boards will cost more in the end run to stock the
board itself.....Wondering when IDE will be fully dismissed? I'm sure my
A7M266 board has hit the archives already, but damn I love this board,
last of its kind I believe on the AMD 760 chipset, or maybe the A7M266-
D?
Anyway, I appreciate the explanation as it confirms my thoughts but on
my limited understanding, I hear what you're saying but my education
needs to be enhanced anyway....I never claim to be a hardware
specialists but I know what works for me.........I clearly did not peek
at the OP's board well enough.....Oh well, learn something new every
day...... ;0)

Cheers............

 

[HST]

There's a lot to understand. I'm not speaking from experience because
mine will not be built until 96 hours from now, but I've spent
hundreds of hours poring over the manual, this News group, and almost
every forum on the Internet that discusses the board.

The salient points for your situation are:
1 -- don't count on using the SI SATA controller for anything but
RAID. Since you're not anticipating RAID, I'd recommend not trying to
allocate any drives to it during your planning phase. (I suppose that
you could install more than one drive there with JBOD disk spanning,
but that would force you to reformat those drives, and I don't think
you want to do that.)
2 -- Don't plan on attaching any optical drives to the nVidia SATA
controller, not even something like a Plextor SATA burner. This will
change with newer nVidia chipset drivers, but I'm not aware that it
has as yet.
3 -- Be sure to order the A8N-SLI Premium and NOT the A8N-SLI Deluxe.
In case you're not familiar with the Premium, it replaces the
southbridge fan with a heatpipe cooler that gets rid of all of the
noise inherent to the board, itself, and hopefully makes the board
more reliable. It uses different BIOS versions, and Asus has listed
it as X2 compatible from its first iteration. If not for the recent
advent of the Premium, Asus presumably would have come out with its
next revision of the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Considering your almost
unlimited budget, you do not want to buy a Deluxe. It would be like
buying a revision 1.02 board when the 1.03 is already available..

There is no advantage to having lots of relatively small HDs compared
to a few relatively large ones. You may need to burn three optical
discs at once. I can't second guess you on that, but I sure hope that
when you get this world-class dream-machine A8N-SLI x with an X2
4800+, you don't clog up the case with way more HDs and cables than is
good for the power and cooling capacities of your PSU and case. That
would seem like such a shame.


Ron

Ron, thank you for taking the time to write back, here's my deal with
questions as well. I'm not on an unlimited budget but my wife has
agreed to let me spend 2 grand to get my sorry ass Intel 2.0 up to
speed just as long as I do the dishes more, take out the garbage more
and get her a nice 10 year wedding ring this August, he he he. I do
plan on the X2 4800+ just as soon as Newegg or Zipzoomfly gets them in
stock. I also plan on 2GB (1GB per stick times 2 sticks because I hear
the board doesn't work well with all 4 slots used up) Corsair Twin XMS
3200 LL Pro DDR 400 ram, am I ok so far? I want the ATI All In Wonder
X600 Pro SLI (don't laugh) because I want to hook up 2 monitors, one
main one and the other for watching TV and recording shows and stuff.
Two Western Digital Raptor 74GB drives for the SATA ports, one the
main boot drive (SATA1 and SATA2) am I ok on that? Now, about the
other IDE drives I have installed now, I can go out like you said and
get some huge drives but I have sooooooooo much valuable stuff on
these drives, 700GB total that I have no time at all to burn them/it
to DVD's, so I'm taking the lazy way out. The only reason I'm getting
the Raptors is so I can have a fast boot drive and I hope to render
and encode movies from one Raptor to the other without any problems. I
do not plan on Raid as you already know from your reply. I have 2 DVD
burners and a CDR burner (don't ask me why I still use it) and I'm
still trying to decide how to hook them up. Am I rambling on or are
you with me )

I hear you on the Premium and not the Deluxe but the Asus website
doesn't have any info on it, have you seen it anywhere?

Will I hook up all the drives besides the Raptors as JBOD like you
mentioned or does that mean I have to reformat for sure? How else
would I hook them up without losing all my data?

HST

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Ron, thank you for taking the time to write back, here's my deal with
questions as well. I'm not on an unlimited budget but my wife has
agreed to let me spend 2 grand to get my sorry ass Intel 2.0 up to
speed just as long as I do the dishes more, take out the garbage more
and get her a nice 10 year wedding ring this August, he he he. I do
plan on the X2 4800+ just as soon as Newegg or Zipzoomfly gets them in
stock. I also plan on 2GB (1GB per stick times 2 sticks because I hear
the board doesn't work well with all 4 slots used up) Corsair Twin XMS
3200 LL Pro DDR 400 ram, am I ok so far? I want the ATI All In Wonder
X600 Pro SLI (don't laugh) because I want to hook up 2 monitors, one
main one and the other for watching TV and recording shows and stuff.
Two Western Digital Raptor 74GB drives for the SATA ports, one the
main boot drive (SATA1 and SATA2) am I ok on that? Now, about the
other IDE drives I have installed now, I can go out like you said and
get some huge drives but I have sooooooooo much valuable stuff on
these drives, 700GB total that I have no time at all to burn them/it
to DVD's, so I'm taking the lazy way out. The only reason I'm getting
the Raptors is so I can have a fast boot drive and I hope to render
and encode movies from one Raptor to the other without any problems. I
do not plan on Raid as you already know from your reply. I have 2 DVD
burners and a CDR burner (don't ask me why I still use it) and I'm
still trying to decide how to hook them up. Am I rambling on or are
you with me )

I hear you on the Premium and not the Deluxe but the Asus website
doesn't have any info on it, have you seen it anywhere?

I just saw one at Fry's here in Las Vegas. I think the price was around
$189.

 

[milleron]

Thanks for putting it in a better technical perspective for myself
also.....New boards are becoming more complex, less PCI slots, improved
PCI, lesser relience on AGP, more focus on SATA/RAID.....etc....It
appears the newer boards will cost more in the end run to stock the
board itself.....Wondering when IDE will be fully dismissed? I'm sure my
A7M266 board has hit the archives already, but damn I love this board,
last of its kind I believe on the AMD 760 chipset, or maybe the A7M266-
D?
Anyway, I appreciate the explanation as it confirms my thoughts but on
my limited understanding, I hear what you're saying but my education
needs to be enhanced anyway....I never claim to be a hardware
specialists but I know what works for me.........I clearly did not peek
at the OP's board well enough.....Oh well, learn something new every
day...... ;0)

Cheers............

Interesting that you have an old reliable A7M266. That's what I'm
typing this message on (built June, 2001 and upgraded to a
Palomino-core 2100+). I'm writing while taking a short break from
bench-assembling my new A8N-SLI Premium. With just the RAM and video
card, it POSTs!!! The Thermalright XP120 HSF is virtually silent.
The southbridge is warm to the touch, but I have to leave my finger on
it for a few seconds to be sure it's above room temperature. The heat
pipe coming from it is literally cool to the touch, and the heatsink
at the other end is literally cool to the touch (although it's close
to the 120mm fan on the XP120, the fins are perpendicular, so the
fan's not blowing directly on it). With no load at all, sitting on
the benchtop, the CPU is 23°C.
I'll post this same message in the thread on the BIOS Savior, but it's
so important that I don't mind inserting it twice: Since the IOSS
BIOS Savior model RD1-PMC4 was certified for the A7N, I though it
might be OK for the A8N-SLI, and it does work. Importantly, I could
NOT flash it from awdflash.exe (latest version downloadable from Asus)
because it got a checksum error and refused to proceed. Before giving
up, though, I rebooted and tried the Asus EZ-Flash (ALT-F2 during
POST), and it flashed the BIOS Savior without any problem. Rebooting
from the BIOS Savior worked like a charm. My original BIOS is now
sitting securely atop the BIOS Savior, safe from any harm. Should I
ever encounter any BIOS problem, I'll just flip the back-panel switch
and be booting from my original BIOS again. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
perhaps the best $24 you can spend on a single item.

Ron
Ron

 

[milleron]

Ron, thank you for taking the time to write back, here's my deal with
questions as well. I'm not on an unlimited budget but my wife has
agreed to let me spend 2 grand to get my sorry ass Intel 2.0 up to
speed just as long as I do the dishes more, take out the garbage more
and get her a nice 10 year wedding ring this August, he he he. I do
plan on the X2 4800+ just as soon as Newegg or Zipzoomfly gets them in
stock. I also plan on 2GB (1GB per stick times 2 sticks because I hear
the board doesn't work well with all 4 slots used up) Corsair Twin XMS
3200 LL Pro DDR 400 ram, am I ok so far? I want the ATI All In Wonder
X600 Pro SLI (don't laugh) because I want to hook up 2 monitors, one
main one and the other for watching TV and recording shows and stuff.
Two Western Digital Raptor 74GB drives for the SATA ports, one the
main boot drive (SATA1 and SATA2) am I ok on that? Now, about the
other IDE drives I have installed now, I can go out like you said and
get some huge drives but I have sooooooooo much valuable stuff on
these drives, 700GB total that I have no time at all to burn them/it
to DVD's, so I'm taking the lazy way out. The only reason I'm getting
the Raptors is so I can have a fast boot drive and I hope to render
and encode movies from one Raptor to the other without any problems. I
do not plan on Raid as you already know from your reply. I have 2 DVD
burners and a CDR burner (don't ask me why I still use it) and I'm
still trying to decide how to hook them up. Am I rambling on or are
you with me )

I hear you on the Premium and not the Deluxe but the Asus website
doesn't have any info on it, have you seen it anywhere?

Will I hook up all the drives besides the Raptors as JBOD like you
mentioned or does that mean I have to reformat for sure? How else
would I hook them up without losing all my data?

HST

1 -- Be sure to go to www.asus.com, not usa.asus.com. At the global
site, there's all kinds of info on the A8N-SLI Premium.
2 -- It's become widely available the last week or so. You can get
one at newegg and Monarch for about US$193, and both e-tailers have
them in stock. Mine got to me from Monarch in two business days.
3 -- You're fine with the 74GB Raptors -- great choice. The pair
should be ideal for what you have in mind.
4 -- It won't take much time to copy the myriad old drives to a couple
of new large Seagates or Hitachis. All you need to do is get the rig
up and running with the Raptors and the one or two very-large drives.
Then partition the SATAs and create one logical drive for each of your
current small ones. Then, one by one, connect the old drives to a
spare IDE connector and simply copy them to the respective logical
drive on the new megadrive. When done, you won't know the difference.
In XP, you can assign them the same drive letters you're used to
calling them.
5 -- Sorry to hear that the budget is somewhat limited. Otherwise,
I'd say that you're the fellow for whom Buffalo designed their
TeraStation NAS box. You could connect it via the Gbyte ethernet
connection on the A8N-SLI and have a terrabyte available with transfer
speeds approaching the IDE bus. That would clean up your new box and
put everything you have at your fingertips. 700 GB of stored stuff is
a LOT. It BEGS you to archive much of it to DVD.
5 -- The Corsair Twinx 3200 LL Pro should be great
6 -- I don't think there is any such thing as an ATI AIW X600 Pro SLI,
is there? SLI is proprietary to nVidia. You can put an ATI AIW PCI-e
card in slot 1, and you can put another in slot 4, but the second
would run only at 4x, I believe. Not sure on this. I'm using a
single ATI X800XL in slot 1. I'm not the one to answer questions on
watching TV, but I'm not sure why you'd need two monitors since you
can't do both simultaneously. I'd need more information to comment on
this point, and others could do so more intelligently.
Ron

 

[ByTor]

Interesting that you have an old reliable A7M266. That's what I'm
typing this message on (built June, 2001 and upgraded to a
Palomino-core 2100+). I'm writing while taking a short break from
bench-assembling my new A8N-SLI Premium.

It still pumps.....Cool as the arctic.... ;0)
When I first bought it I had to flash the bios with an older processor
in order for it to accept my Athlon XP 1600+......This little bit of
info was left out when I bought the board, no wonder I couldn't get it
going when I first built it.....Sent it back where I got it from and
they flashed it for me......Well worth it though, this board handles
very well for what I have connected to it....Not sure if you seen the
specs I posted to HST..........

With just the RAM and video
card, it POSTs!!! The Thermalright XP120 HSF is virtually silent.
The southbridge is warm to the touch, but I have to leave my finger on
it for a few seconds to be sure it's above room temperature. The heat
pipe coming from it is literally cool to the touch, and the heatsink
at the other end is literally cool to the touch (although it's close
to the 120mm fan on the XP120, the fins are perpendicular, so the
fan's not blowing directly on it). With no load at all, sitting on
the benchtop, the CPU is 23°C.
I'll post this same message in the thread on the BIOS Savior, but it's
so important that I don't mind inserting it twice: Since the IOSS
BIOS Savior model RD1-PMC4 was certified for the A7N, I though it
might be OK for the A8N-SLI, and it does work. Importantly, I could
NOT flash it from awdflash.exe (latest version downloadable from Asus)
because it got a checksum error and refused to proceed. Before giving
up, though, I rebooted and tried the Asus EZ-Flash (ALT-F2 during
POST), and it flashed the BIOS Savior without any problem. Rebooting
from the BIOS Savior worked like a charm. My original BIOS is now
sitting securely atop the BIOS Savior, safe from any harm. Should I
ever encounter any BIOS problem, I'll just flip the back-panel switch
and be booting from my original BIOS again. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
perhaps the best $24 you can spend on a single item.

Ron
Ron

Sounds like a great board and would be inbterested to know furthur how
ya make out.......Board like that for it to run top notch for me would
be an investment as I don't like shortcuts with hardware. 2 PCI slots
make me uncomfortable though, but hey I guess I could live with it.....

 

[HST]

1 -- Be sure to go to www.asus.com, not usa.asus.com. At the global
site, there's all kinds of info on the A8N-SLI Premium.

Yes you are correct, but I can't seem to find the manual in PDF format
so I can print it out and read it at work, have you got it? Maybe you
can post it for me in a dead group or something, I'd appreciate it.

2 -- It's become widely available the last week or so. You can get
one at newegg and Monarch for about US$193, and both e-tailers have
them in stock. Mine got to me from Monarch in two business days.
3 -- You're fine with the 74GB Raptors -- great choice. The pair
should be ideal for what you have in mind.
4 -- It won't take much time to copy the myriad old drives to a couple
of new large Seagates or Hitachis. All you need to do is get the rig
up and running with the Raptors and the one or two very-large drives.
Then partition the SATAs and create one logical drive for each of your
current small ones. Then, one by one, connect the old drives to a
spare IDE connector and simply copy them to the respective logical
drive on the new megadrive. When done, you won't know the difference.
In XP, you can assign them the same drive letters you're used to
calling them.
5 -- Sorry to hear that the budget is somewhat limited. Otherwise,
I'd say that you're the fellow for whom Buffalo designed their
TeraStation NAS box. You could connect it via the Gbyte ethernet
connection on the A8N-SLI and have a terrabyte available with transfer
speeds approaching the IDE bus. That would clean up your new box and
put everything you have at your fingertips. 700 GB of stored stuff is
a LOT. It BEGS you to archive much of it to DVD.
5 -- The Corsair Twinx 3200 LL Pro should be great
6 -- I don't think there is any such thing as an ATI AIW X600 Pro SLI,
is there? SLI is proprietary to nVidia. You can put an ATI AIW PCI-e
card in slot 1, and you can put another in slot 4, but the second
would run only at 4x, I believe. Not sure on this. I'm using a
single ATI X800XL in slot 1. I'm not the one to answer questions on
watching TV, but I'm not sure why you'd need two monitors since you
can't do both simultaneously. I'd need more information to comment on
this point, and others could do so more intelligently.
Ron

The ATI AIW X600 Pro is PCI Express and at Newegg for $189.00, I know
I called it the Pro SLI, my mistake.

Two more questions maybe you can answer.

The two LAN ports on the mobo, LAN1 and LAN2, what is the difference
and which one do I connect to my cable modem?

My current old reliable P4B266 has 3 fan connectors and when I look at
the A8N-SLI manual on page 2-23 I see 5 fan connectors on it, besides
the CPU_FAN what did you connect the other 4 to?

HST