Hi all. I just performed a new build using the new 780a board from Asus, the M3N-HT deluxe. Very pleasantly surprised at how everything worked - booted immediately using 2x2 gb of Mushkin ddr2 800 memory and a 45 watt 4850e processor. I chose this processor because I don't need any more horsepower to do the things I do, including occasional gaming. The most taxing game I currently play is Oblivion. I just couldn't justify getting a 95 or 125 watt processor. When the 65 watt phenoms hit, then maybe... Now just waiting to see what other hybrid power enabled gpus come out in the near future.
Anyway, the only issue I had was getting the RAID drivers to install to utilize a RAID 1 set. With this board, you set the SATA mode in the BIOS for all ports. If you choose RAID, Windows needs the RAID drivers for all drives attached - even a single boot drive. Boot will fail in RAID mode otherwise. I want to avoid re-installing the OS to do this, so does anyone know how to install the RAID drivers from within windows? I haven't been able to do this despite many attempts. I am guessing that the process might be similar to getting AHCI drivers installed. Until I get it fixed, I'm stuck in IDE mode for all drives.
I can't believe no one out there has had any experience with this board. I mean, I know the board is relatively new, but I was betting on a bunch of other early adopters out there...
Anyway, I have been researching this issue and have come up with very little information, other than that some people seem to be having similar problems in Vista (I'm using XP pro).
I installed XP with the SATA mode in the BIOS set to "IDE." The other options, which apply to all the ports, are "RAID" and "AHCI." After installing the chipset drivers, it appears that Windows ignores them and instead keeps the default IDE drivers. I have tried re-installing the drivers several times, even in safe mode, and they don't take.
Furthermore, if I try to change the SATA mode to either RAID or AHCI, I get a blue screen right after the splash screen comes up with an immediate re-boot.
My goal is to be able to run a RAID 1 set along with my boot drive. For the short term, I'd take just being able to use the nVidia sata drivers.
