- Jul 19, 2011
- 3
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- 18,520
ASUS P8Z68-V homebrew
I suspect a problem is with the SATA drive controller.
The current state of the machine is that I have just upgraded the BIOS to v3603, and after reading the files from the DVD drive, (either the Win7-64-bit install disk, or the Win7-64bit repair disk,) it shows loading the files, then goes to either the flag splash screen (install disk) or the marching yellow caterpillar screen of the repair disk. Then the screen goes black, then off, then on and black, then off, etc. No cursor.
KBD, Mouse and USB flash drive seem to work OK, and the bios sees both the M4 SATA SSD, and both SATA DVD drives (TSST and LG), and the Seagates, if they are plugged in.
Inventory:
I have the Asus P8Z68-V board v3603 BIOS, with a Zalman ZM600-HP heatpipe cooled 600w PSU, with 8GB of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM, and the SATA Crucial M4 (6gbs), and a pair of 1TB SATA Seagate Barracuda drives (3gbs), which I am trying to set as a RAID 1 pair, and two DVD drives: one is TSST, the other is LG. I have nothing special for the video-- I am using an old VGA screen which seems to work fine when it does.
Here is the history:
It was running fine, but I was never able to get the SSD to be the boot drive, a great disappointment. The Bios when set for RAID said that part was "not bootable". So I used it as a non-caching accelerator and booted from the RAID 1 pair. This worked for quite a while.
A month ago or so I moved the machine physically.
Not long later, the RAID pair failed. I still have the good platter. I rehabbed the bad platter by fixing the MBR, and running FixBoot. I got the RAID-1 pair up with a new second platter, so that I could keep my data safe on the other drive. (Still parked.) So the drive was actually OK, and it is troubling that it sustained a damaged MBR. I have always been careful about shutting down gracefully.
So I rebuilt the machine from the OEM disk, and added the second DVD LG disk.
Then it began to behave as it does-- loads software, but does not get past the splash screen, booting from the DVD with NO Seagates plugged in. I tried it with the SATA set for AHCI and for RAID. No difference.
As I said, in RAID mode, it shows the M4 as NOT bootable, which is troubling.
I rotated the RAM, and tried it with one stick only. No change. I ran the ASUS MemOK. No apparent effect, although the lights blinked per instructions.
I thought I would reflash the BIOS with the latest and greatest (3603). Something went wrong with that process, and the boot_device_led got stuck on, but it was cured when I cleared the CMOS by shorting the battery out, something sysbuilders should know, which I learned on your site.
I read through the list of "PERFORM THESE STEPS before posting about POST/boot/no video problems!" I have no way to determine individual power line voltages on PSU.
I reflashed the BIOS to v3603, and that went fine, but we still have the same condition: reads software from DVD, but does not get past the "marching yellow caterpillar", but VGA goes black, then off, then on and black, then off, then on and black, etc.
Video of this behavior at
http://youtu.be/p1J-1Z7H1cs
Thanks in advance,
Daniel Guetzkow
I built my first Z80/S-100 box in 1976, soldering 10 edge connectors with 100 solderjoints each... (long night). Before the days of chip sockets....
I suspect a problem is with the SATA drive controller.
The current state of the machine is that I have just upgraded the BIOS to v3603, and after reading the files from the DVD drive, (either the Win7-64-bit install disk, or the Win7-64bit repair disk,) it shows loading the files, then goes to either the flag splash screen (install disk) or the marching yellow caterpillar screen of the repair disk. Then the screen goes black, then off, then on and black, then off, etc. No cursor.
KBD, Mouse and USB flash drive seem to work OK, and the bios sees both the M4 SATA SSD, and both SATA DVD drives (TSST and LG), and the Seagates, if they are plugged in.
Inventory:
I have the Asus P8Z68-V board v3603 BIOS, with a Zalman ZM600-HP heatpipe cooled 600w PSU, with 8GB of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM, and the SATA Crucial M4 (6gbs), and a pair of 1TB SATA Seagate Barracuda drives (3gbs), which I am trying to set as a RAID 1 pair, and two DVD drives: one is TSST, the other is LG. I have nothing special for the video-- I am using an old VGA screen which seems to work fine when it does.
Here is the history:
It was running fine, but I was never able to get the SSD to be the boot drive, a great disappointment. The Bios when set for RAID said that part was "not bootable". So I used it as a non-caching accelerator and booted from the RAID 1 pair. This worked for quite a while.
A month ago or so I moved the machine physically.
Not long later, the RAID pair failed. I still have the good platter. I rehabbed the bad platter by fixing the MBR, and running FixBoot. I got the RAID-1 pair up with a new second platter, so that I could keep my data safe on the other drive. (Still parked.) So the drive was actually OK, and it is troubling that it sustained a damaged MBR. I have always been careful about shutting down gracefully.
So I rebuilt the machine from the OEM disk, and added the second DVD LG disk.
Then it began to behave as it does-- loads software, but does not get past the splash screen, booting from the DVD with NO Seagates plugged in. I tried it with the SATA set for AHCI and for RAID. No difference.
As I said, in RAID mode, it shows the M4 as NOT bootable, which is troubling.
I rotated the RAM, and tried it with one stick only. No change. I ran the ASUS MemOK. No apparent effect, although the lights blinked per instructions.
I thought I would reflash the BIOS with the latest and greatest (3603). Something went wrong with that process, and the boot_device_led got stuck on, but it was cured when I cleared the CMOS by shorting the battery out, something sysbuilders should know, which I learned on your site.
I read through the list of "PERFORM THESE STEPS before posting about POST/boot/no video problems!" I have no way to determine individual power line voltages on PSU.
I reflashed the BIOS to v3603, and that went fine, but we still have the same condition: reads software from DVD, but does not get past the "marching yellow caterpillar", but VGA goes black, then off, then on and black, then off, then on and black, etc.
Video of this behavior at
http://youtu.be/p1J-1Z7H1cs
Thanks in advance,
Daniel Guetzkow
I built my first Z80/S-100 box in 1976, soldering 10 edge connectors with 100 solderjoints each... (long night). Before the days of chip sockets....
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