Can't format hard drives with SK8V

[CharliLJ]

I have finally found the answer to my problems with the SK8V motherboard. The answer is as follows:

 

I have the following system configuration:

 

ASUS SK8V MoBo (ROM v 1.002)

AMD64-FX 53 chip (2400 Mhz, 1.55V, hypertransport on)

Corsair 2 X CMX1024RE-3200 (3-3-3-8, 400Mhz, 2.7V, ECC on, interleaved)

WinXP Pro SP2

Seagate ST3800011A ATA-100 hard drives, x 2, in RAID 1 (mirrored) set

Promise 20378 RAID controller

OCX 450 Watt power supply

 

After repeatedly attempting to load either WinXP Pro or Win2K onto the RAID set in this configuration, I discovered that there is a bug somewhere in between the RAID controller, the MoBo and the Windows setup routine. The bug occurs at the step which calls for the user to choose between four different options (FAT, FAT32, Quick NTFS format and regular NTFS format) for formatting the new boot partition.

 

If the hapless user chooses the default regular NTFS format for the partition, setup enters the formatting process and the bar moves to 100%. At that point, the user is almost always faced with a message that says, the disk cannot be formatted because of an error on the disk. Sometimes, setup will go to a blue screen and occasionally it will return a 0x0000008E stop error. Under no circumstances, however, will the disk actually be formatted. Nothing else is wrong with the system, all components operate normally, otherwise, and memory testing with MemTest86 3.1, in particular, is completely normal. Apparently, this problem only occurs in this precise configuration (according to ASUS's RMA department, they're able to format drives normally).

 

RMA'ing the disks and the MoBo, changing the disk cabling, changing from RAID to IDE, and changing from WinXP Pro to Win2K doesn't make a difference in this problem. Accordingly, the bug is likely in the SK8V ROM or elsewhere on the SK8V board, itself.

 

If the user chooses the Quick NTFS format, instead of the default full NTFS format, every thing proceeds normally.

 

It's very irksome that ASUS didn't immediately exchange the MoBo when I presented them with this problem. Doing so much earlier would have saved a lot of time, rather than making me wait a total of 6 weeks extra (before exchanging the board), just to find out that the problem is likely a software issue and not a hardware issue with the MoBo. Of course, it's also irksome that ASUS was not able to reproduce the problem in their labs, but this much is perhaps forgivable.

[RAM GUY]

Please put the memory module on slot 1 & 3; make sure that you have the latest BIOS for your MB, and set the following settings on your BIOS;

TwinX512 or TwinX1024/RE-3200LL

Advanced CPU/Memory Configuration:

Memclock Mode: Limit

Memclock Value: 2:1 (DDR400)

Bank Interleaving: 4/Enabled

Burst Length: 8

SDRAM CAS Latency: 2T

SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 3T

SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 6T

SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 2T

SDRAM 2T Command rate: Disabled

Master ECC Enabled: Enabled

Hypertransport: 5X

Jumper Free/Frequency Voltage Control:

Spread Spectrum: Enabled

CPU FSB Clock: 200

DDR Voltage: 2.7/2.75 Volts

AGP Voltage: Default *unless you have ATI (9200 or 9600) or NVIDIA (5200 or 5700) then 1.6 Volts suggested!*

All other settings should be set to default settings!

Then please test them one at a time with http://www.memtest.org and let’s make sure it's not some other issue! I would run the test for at least 2-3 passes to be sure!

[Wired]

Nothing else is wrong with the system, all components operate normally, otherwise, and memory testing with MemTest86 3.1, in particular, is completely normal.

 

Ram Guy, I don't think this is a memory issue, just a member telling us of this issue.

 

CharliLJ, you should psot that over at houseofmobos.com in the Issues section.