MSI 845ARU questions if anyone has experience with it

[Jwyatt]

Hello.
I bought this MB and a 1.6a, and 2 Maxtor 7200 60gATA133 drives. Then got me an antec sx1040 with a 400w antec PS.
other components are:
S3trio PCI video(waiting on my g4)
Linksys network card.

I set this thing up last night, which ran into this morning and now have a couple questions. I have searched over and over to find some answers, but come up short handed.
Heres whats going on. System is up and running, but it seems to take a while to boot. It gets to certain parts during boot sequence and seems to hang for 10-20 seconds. Running Windowz 2000 pro. When it shows the login screen grayed out. Takes a good 30 seconds to get to desktop from there.
Another thing, which i think is the same problem. When I click on the start menu sometimes it take 10-15 seconds for the computer to pull it up. Same for opening applications. IT seems theres something in the background halting any progress from being made for a while then letting it all go. When i pull up task manager and make it happen again it doesnt show anything taking up alot of resources except process idle thingy.

Im not sure if its hardware or not, but it was displaying the same problems earlier this morning without the netcard. Being its win2000 which is based on NT. Does installing the OS without a netcard make anything screwy? I didnt have one till a little while ago. I dont think this would cause the problem, but it might be looking for a network where one is not!! hmmm

 

[CoDerEd]

I just order that mobo and 1.8a, I hope is good
and bring some new atmosphere in here,
since almost all P4 mobo in anandtech seem to be ASUS.

I think it's a software problems, not the hardware,
but your thought about the netcard might be right.
Well if you have any other os why not try it just for sure.

peace

 

[Jwyatt]

I could try another os on it. I partitioned it into 4-10 partitions then split the rest up into a 30g and a 50g. Or something like that. The board seems fast. Hope you like it. MSI has some support forums that seem to have some pretty good guys on it.



http://www.msi.com.tw/forum/

 

[F155mph]

Was it a fresh install? Try updating the bios.

 

[Carl Uman]

I have the same problem I was looking for a solution which is how I found this thread.
MSI 845 Ultra-AR
Windows 2000 Pro
Fresh install
Intel P4 1.6a
256MB DDR Crucial
Maxtor 40GB ATA133

431 watt Enermax

I was thinking maybe it was a bad install but was going to play with the BIOS settings before reinstalling again. Now I'm wondering if there is maybe something with the maxtor or ATA133 drives?

Hope someone can help out. I'll post here if I find anything during testing.

Bump!!!

 

[Carl Uman]

Anyone?

 

[Ark]

Did you install the latest inf update from Intel?
If W2K hangs on the logon box - it is probably network setting or connection.
Check settings or replace card/cable.
If you overclocking - remove OC first.

I build the same PC for my son and it's running without problem.
I had some short delays only when I put really old SCSI card in.

845ARU
1.6A
256MB crucial
20GB WD
linksys NIC
Adaptec 2940AU SCSI
Antec 303XP PS
W2K

 

[Carl Uman]

I have not yet installed the latest INF update from Intel but will try it. I still think it has something to do with the IDE stuff because I was running SCSI and switched to IDE (did a fresh install) and ended up with this mess.

Links for everyone else so they don't have to search (supplied for cut and paste)
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/warning.htm

Personally I'm going to try the "Intel Chipset Software..." (INF) first
then I'm going to try the "Intel Application Accelerator" based on Maxtors support page

Hope this helps someone

Thanks for the post Ark,
Carl

 

[308nato]

I really like the 845. Solid as the proverbial rock. 1.6a @2.24. I have not experienced the problem your having. I have the latest Intel inf update and app accellerator loaded. I have a Maxtor d740XL and no compatability issues. I have seen on the MSI board that the ARU does not like a network card in slot2 for some reason.

Good Luck!

 

[Jwyatt]

Sorry for not replying to this thread. Yes it was a fresh install. I have installed the latest intel turbo stuff with no help. Seems my only solution was to disable the ata133 raid and go with single drive setup on the standard ata133. Sucks because one of the main reasons for buying this board is the 133 raid.

 

[Jwyatt]

Also i have the exact same setup as carl except im using an antec 400w(didnt want to pull my 431 from my athlon rig) and i have 2 maxtor 60gigers

 

[Ark]

Jwyatt: you are talking about Intel ATA accelerator that nothing else as DMA driver. I am talking above about INF update, so W2K can recognimotherboard correctly. It is very important to have the latest INF file. For DMA driver - use windows default.

 

[Carl Uman]

I installed the latest INF driver from Intel's website and no dice. I also tried the application excellerator which didn't help either. I disabled the ATA133 RAID like Jwyatt and tried one of the other hookups and it all worked. The other connectors are not ATA133 based on the manual, they are ATA33/66/100. I agree that it is bad that the RAID is casing problems.

I do have a NIC installed and I'll try moving it to see if it helps.
Thanks,
Carl

 

[Jwyatt]

The latest infs dont effect the raid controller since its not an intel product. I tried them and didnt help. The only thing that helped was removing the raid configuration.

Carl, Sisoft sandra is giving me benchmark scores in line with what a ata133 drive should. Its 30%faster than the ata100 test shown. Im fairly sure the non-raid headers are ata133. 27435 compared to 24000. not sure exactly what those numbers mean, but....lemme try it not overclocked to see if i get the same or similar scores.

Just ran the bench again not overclocked. 27065. compared to the 24000 they show for ata100 add 33% to that and you get...hmm my math must be off....32000. you might be right about the ata100 thing!!

ATA133 should give ~32000, 30000 at least. It could be ata116

Im going to msi forums and seeing if they are having issues with the raid controllers.

 

[Jwyatt]

Im wondering...I upgraded my bios to v 3.2. I skipped v3.1 which includes some fix for the raid controller. Wonder if MSI in thier infinite wisdom missed the fix when doing 3.2?!?!? i doubt it, but im gonna try to go back to 3.1 and test the setup again.

 

[CoDerEd]

I think the newest BIOS contains the thingyou need from the previous one.
so if you have 3.2 than you're all set.

 

[Jwyatt]

Well, i had the newest bios and it didnt fix my problem. I went back one bios version and now im set.