POST Hangs With Promise FastTrak TX4200

[Mikki]

Alright guys, I've beat my head enough about this, time to ask for help! :help:

Problem is simple. Whenever I install this SATA RAID card in my system, it'll boot, make it past the BIOS screen to where it would normally list the hardware and such, and just hangs. No activity, no nothing....just sits there.

It doesn't matter which PCI slot the thing is in, and doesn't matter if the drives are connected to the card or not. I messed around a bit with IRQ's in the BIOS, but not sure if I exhausted that...didn't do anything tho. Went to update the firmware but there are no updates. It pretty much doesn't matter what I do, nothing helps. Yet, as soon as I pull the card out my rig boots fine. And here's the kicker.....I install the card in another system and it works fine...boots and I can go into the card's BIOS.

Searched the Net with no results...it seems no one is having problems with this card but me. So....anyone want to take a crack at this?

The board is an AOpen AK86-L.

:help: :(

[RyderOCZ]

Possibly only listing the obvious...

1) When you insert the card, have you gone into bios first thing after inserting it and made sure it didn't hose the boot order?

2) Does the bios on that board have the "clear ESCD" selection...if so...set it to enabled.

3) After inserting the card, try clearing the bios before powering up.

When you have had the system hang, the bios of the card is never displayed? :scratch:

[RotorHead]

Is the first boot device set to SCSI, the fastrack card is recognized as SCSI according to the manual.

[Mikki]

Ryder, nothing displays at all....as soon as the boot screen comes up it goes blank...as if it gets to a certain point during POST and then doesn't like what it sees....

I'll be happy and grateful to check on yours and RotorHead's suggestions....thanks guys!

:)

[Hawk]

Mikki,

Can you select the IRQ and mem address on the add-in card? or disable the inbedded SATA, IDE if it is not being used.

[RyderOCZ]

Another thought comes to mind also Mikki....I am not familiar with that board and how old it is...but maybe a PCI compliance issue? The card requiring 2.2 or 2.3 and the board only being 2.1? Bios flash might take care of it. :)

[Hawk]

Also, is the Boot Device set to Fastrack Controller?

[Mikki]

Thanks for all the help guys.....you rock! :rock:

I just got home so I'll look into this in a few...all the playing around with the cards has completely knocked my multi-monitor setup all out of whack so I need to fix that as well...I'm down to three monitors at the moment... :rolleyes:

Hawk, do you mean change the IRQ actually on the card or on the mobo BIOS?

Ryder, it's a fairly new board but who knows....it's due for a BIOS update anyway....:p ;)

[Hawk]

Hawk, do you mean change the IRQ actually on the card or on the mobo BIOS?



This is old school stuff, but it would be on the card, maybe in it's BIOS. Similar to a SCSI adaptec card where you can change it.

[Mikki]

I never could get far enough to get in the card's BIOS, unless I installed it in a different machine....:p

Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is it's working, I currently have a 0 + 1 array set up using all four drives, giving me 400g of security to play with...:):D

The bad news is I don't know how I fixed it. That irritates me because it would have been nice to have that info here for the next person with that problem. As happens many times, I was simply trying everything I could and it finally worked. I was playing with BIOS settings at the time, so it was obviously one of those, and it was very soon after I updated the BIOS, so I'm thinking that was the main cure. At least that's what I'll tell people to try first if they're having this problem. I just wish I'd thought of that.... :o

Thanks a bunch to all of you guys, I knew I'd eventually get it solved through the forum....;):D Have a :beer: on me!!!

Now I just need to sort out my newly-found video problems.... :( :look:

[Hawk]

The bad news is I don't know how I fixed it.




Must have been the nut behind the keyboard. :yikes: :hide: :hide: :hide:

[Mikki]

Yeah, it was/is definitely loose............:bonk::rolleyes: