disabling Promise RAID controller on A7V333

[Dale I. Green]

Hi.

I have the Asus A7V333 motherboard with the on-board Promise PDC20276 RAID
controller (BIOS Rev. MBFastTrak133 "Lite" BIOS v 2.00.1.23). However, I
have no drives connected to this controller and would like to disable it in
order to eliminate the long "Scanning IDE drives..." portion of the boot
process.

I've read the manual and searched this newsgroup and understand there is a
jumper labeled RAID_EN which should allow me to disable the controller.
However, I tried this and it did NOT eliminated the "Scanning IDE
drives..." from the boot. I've also checked the BIOS setup, but could find
nothing to help.

So, can anyone tell me whether disabling the Promise controller via the
RAID_EN jumper is supposed to eliminate "Scanning IDE drives..."? If not,
then is there any way to eliminate it? Might a system BIOS update help (I
have Rev. 1006)?

All suggestions and/or advice greatly appreciated!

 

[Egil Solberg]

I've read the manual and searched this newsgroup and understand there is a
jumper labeled RAID_EN which should allow me to disable the controller.
However, I tried this and it did NOT eliminated the "Scanning IDE
drives..." from the boot. I've also checked the BIOS setup, but could find
nothing to help.

On page 87 in your manual it says something about a BIOS setting: "Load
onboard ATA BIOS". Can you find that one and disable it within BIOS?
Could not find it on BIOS screenshots by reading the online manual, though,
but those manuals are seldom 100% accurate.

 

[Dale I. Green]

Thanks, but I tried that, and it actually disabled the main IDE channels,
thus preventing the machine from booting.

 

[Egil Solberg]

Thanks, but I tried that, and it actually disabled the main IDE channels,
thus preventing the machine from booting.

http://www.anycities.com/user/mainboards/asus/asus.html

Here there are listed modified BIOSes for the A7V333. Take a look at those
listed as "UDMA fastboot". If the IDE scanning at startup annoys you so
much, you could consider trying one of those 2 BIOSes listed.

 

[Paul]

Egil,
Why would the original poster want to flash to a hacked BIOS? Dale indicated
that he does not have anything connected on the RAID ports so why even bother
with anything pertaining to the RAID controller/drivers?

Dale,
Are you 100% certain what you are seeing is the RAID controller scanning for IDE
drives? I am sure you know that the standard IDE controllers can "scan" for
drives with each boot cycle as well. If you are in fact seeing the RAID
controller doing it's scan, then you have not got the RAID_EN jumper in the
disabled position. My board has it disabled and I have not seen the RAID
controller even once try to do it's scan since I moved the jumper.

Paul

 

[Paul]

To avoid the long delay "scanning IDE drives...", I guess.

But if he has truly disabled the RAID controller, as he wishes to do so, then
there is no "scanning" performed by the RAID controller. It would then be a
waste of time to flash to the hacked BIOS.

 

[Egil Solberg]

But if he has truly disabled the RAID controller, as he wishes to do so, then
there is no "scanning" performed by the RAID controller. It would then be a
waste of time to flash to the hacked BIOS.

That seems very logical, yes. Of course he could be confused with the
scanning of IDE-devices by the standard IDE-controller.
I haven´t tested the board in question (just the plain A7V333), so I cannot
tell exactly what happens when the controller is disabled with jumper.
I don´t consider flashing with this special BIOS too risky, but if it was my
board, I would just have put up with the "scanning IDE devices"-message. I
would not have flashed. Just mentioned it to show the possibility.

 

[Paul]

That seems very logical, yes. Of course he could be confused with the
scanning of IDE-devices by the standard IDE-controller.
I haven´t tested the board in question (just the plain A7V333), so I cannot
tell exactly what happens when the controller is disabled with jumper.
I don´t consider flashing with this special BIOS too risky, but if it was my
board, I would just have put up with the "scanning IDE devices"-message. I
would not have flashed. Just mentioned it to show the possibility.

I do have the board and got tired of the delay inflicted by the RAID controller
scanning each time it is booted. I disabled via the RAID_EN jumper and it never
announced itself again. Also, I am still using the standard BIOS.

The only time I would even consider going to the hacked BIOS is if I needed to:
a) put a ATAPI device onto one of those ports or b) I wanted to use a couple of
HDD's on this controller and did not want to by annoyed by the insistent
scanning of the "Lite" version of the standard BIOS.

 

[Baron Von Black]

I do have the board and got tired of the delay inflicted by the RAID controller
scanning each time it is booted. I disabled via the RAID_EN jumper and it never
announced itself again. Also, I am still using the standard BIOS.

The only time I would even consider going to the hacked BIOS is if I needed to:
a) put a ATAPI device onto one of those ports or b) I wanted to use a couple of
HDD's on this controller and did not want to by annoyed by the insistent
scanning of the "Lite" version of the standard BIOS.

Hi All

For the record, I'm using the "Lumberjack Full hacked" 1016 BIOS on my
A7V333-Raid.

Regards the boot delay, on this BIOS the RAID boot delay is the same
duration as the Lite one so if thats all you want you'll be disappointed!

To skip the Boot delay on both the Lite & full versions just press DEL on
the numeric pad.

If after disabling the RAID controller and you find it's still functioning
ensure you have a good jumper to start with.
sounds silly but it's not uncommon for the jumpers to have the contacts
missing.... know this from experience.

If that fails I would guess you have a faulty Mobo.....

 

[Paul]

-- snip --
Response inline...

Hi All

For the record, I'm using the "Lumberjack Full hacked" 1016 BIOS on my
A7V333-Raid.

Regards the boot delay, on this BIOS the RAID boot delay is the same
duration as the Lite one so if thats all you want you'll be disappointed!

Thanks for that insight. I have been led to believe the hacked version bypasses
the delay...it is good to know this fact.

To skip the Boot delay on both the Lite & full versions just press DEL on
the numeric pad.

If after disabling the RAID controller and you find it's still functioning
ensure you have a good jumper to start with.
sounds silly but it's not uncommon for the jumpers to have the contacts
missing.... know this from experience.

Yes, I myself have had problems with jumpers being bad. The odd thing about it,
the only jumpers that have been bad are the ones which came with my Asus mobo's.
No other product that I have worked on has had bad jumpers--just the Asus
mobo's.



Paul

-- snip --

 

[tomcas]

The "Pure UDMA" version of the Lumberjacker hacked bios (and driver) for
the A7V333 promise controller is supposed to scan quicker that the
promise lite version or at least it was claimed so in earlier releases
(I'm using 1.008). The "UDMA Fast Boot" version of Lumberjacker is
suppose to skip the scan of the promise controller altogether which is
why you can't boot from a CD drive that's connected to it.

 

[Dale I. Green]

Hi all.

Sorry for the delay in posting back... ISP problems.

Anyways, for no apparent reason, the RAID contoller scanning has magically
stopped!

I cannot explain it. To my knowledge, I have not done anything to cause
it. I certainly have not done anything inside the case or with the BIOS
setup since I started this thread.

It's as if it just took awhile for the disabled RAID_EN jumper to be
recognized.

The only explanations I can think of are:

1) the jumper shunt/contacts are flakey

2) due to (1), the system had to heat-up enough before good
connections were made

3) bugs in the RAID BIOS

Basically, though, I have no idea what happened.

In any case, this issue is closed. The POST test has been reduced from
about 20 seconds down to about 3 seconds!

Thanks to all who have responded. All of the information was (is) useful.