Widescreen Gaming Forum

I would, except I haven't been able to boot off the cd unless no OS is installed. It boots to hdd no matter that I set cd first in boot order and put 'usb boot first' active either.

Had to frankenstein a drive on the floor next to it to reinstall it last time, guess I'll have to do that again.

You have another machine you could PXE from ? Do your motherboard support PXE booting ?

PXE booting? network boot? yes it does, keeps feeding that part since it keeps skipping over the cdrom.

I've attempted right now to boot to windows cd via said cd on the floor method, now even the cd halts on logo ...

I'm about to find an old pci card to see if the issue shows up with something other than the controller. I'm beginning to think these intel atom boards are for show and not use.

That would not surprise me, I have been thinking of an atom based file server, let me know if it ever works out.

So far seems theres something that just won't work between this rocketraid controller and the D945GCLF2 motherboard.

I bought 2 D945GCLF2, one for the file server and one for an almost silent pc.

I've just tried the controller in the 2nd D945GCLF2, it's been fine since I installed it, just putting in the controller, without drives. It just halts, I'm not even able to get into bios, I just get a blinking cursor in top left.

Remove the controller and it boots back just fine.

I've just tried a couple old pci cards I had.

results are:

freeze on animated boot logo:
rocketraid 454
dlink 530CT NIC

boots but crash on shutdown:
maxi gamer phoenix (voodoo banshee)

no problem:
xg sound card

So, seems there's an issue with the pci slot itself, since the same happens in the other motherboard I'm doubting a defective slot, the odds of both being defective aren't that great, I think intel has better quality testing than that.

Now please, anyone have a clue what's going on?

Don't take the questions personally as even the most basic questions can sometimes be the root cause. I know I've done some extensive troubleshooting when it turned out I wasn't seating an AGP card fully...just an example.

I put the reason why I'm asking in (...)
[list]
During these tests, are all the 500G drives powered? (PSU)
Were you using the same rated PSU in both motherboards? (PSU)
Did the processor used change between tests? (test grouping)
Were the card known good before testing ? (Quality control)
You always made sure to touch the case before trying to insert the cards? (Quality control)
[/list:u]

(risking sounding like a broken record...)
If you look at the cards you testing with, they are mostly interrupt intensive. But the sound card is not, leading to only a crash at shutdown. If the drives are powered, but not plugged in, I have to say power. If the drives aren't plugged in, I'd say BIOS compatibility issue. Since you can't boot, I next say it's a heat issue, though I would doubt it. If you can get booted up let's test the North and south bridge temperatures while we are at it.

During these tests, are all the 500G drives powered? (PSU)
As far as I can tell yes. Problem happens without them plugged into controller so I don't think they have a say in the crash.

Were you using the same rated PSU in both motherboards? (PSU)
Tried both psu in both motherboards

Did the processor used change between tests? (test grouping)
Can't change it, it's soldered to the motherboard.

Were the card known good before testing ? (Quality control)
Bought at same time so no clue.

You always made sure to touch the case before trying to insert the cards? (Quality control)
Always do.

If you look at the cards you testing with, they are mostly interrupt intensive. But the sound card is not, leading to only a crash at shutdown.
The sound card is fine completely, it's the vga card that boots but crashes on shutdown.

If the drives are powered, but not plugged in, I have to say power.
Thought so too, till problem showed up while only boot drive was powered.

If the drives aren't plugged in, I'd say BIOS compatibility issue.
Wouldn't doubt it, seems the mobo and bios lack serious fixing, even if it's like their 3rd or 4th version already.

Since you can't boot, I next say it's a heat issue, though I would doubt it. If you can get booted up let's test the North and south bridge temperatures while we are at it.
Each 4 drives has a 120mm fan for it, they seem quite cool.

North / South bridges, heatsink doesn't look that warm, I'm wondering how much the chip transfers though, heatink seems held there by the clip without much else.

edit - I've just tried reinstalling vista, 32bit this time, to see if maybe it's a 64bit os glitch. For whatever reason on the last step setup actually bluescreened ...

And before that, it wouldn't boot off the dvd from usb drive, said bootmgr not found (I checked the file, it's there, can even copy it)

I put back the floor drive and tried it, went fine till it bluescreened on last step, no clue why since it restarted immediatly.

The last time I had such random glitches it turned out to be bad ram, I guess if the reinstall doesn't work again I'm gonna swap the 1 stick with the other one.

And make sure it is seated really well, improperly seated ram has given me no end of trouble.

I've removed and reseated it, doesn't seem to be poorly fit.

Yet I'm unabled to install vista 32bit. It expands files and everything, reboots once, gets to completing install. and bluescreens. Too short for me to see much except some icg or something dll failure. On restart it gives no clue as to what fails and just says to restart install.

Memtest+ didn't show any issues, know any reliable memory testers?