Insanely Slow 975XBX2 Boot Times (Bios Booting)

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 6:55 pm

Ok so i give up, this board is just nuts, heres the problem in a nutshell.

I have the XBX2 board, whenever i power it on, it shows a small dash top left corner of my screen, (This Dash _ ) it does not blink, just stays there for 50 seconds (Timed it) after that is done it flashes the "Press F2 to enter setup" window for like a split second and on it goes to the Marvel Sata raid controller here it takes roughly 9 seconds to go trough (acceptable), on goes to the intel matrix raid boot screen, here it takes 35 seconds (WTH??) after this and another 15 second wait it then goes on to decide that it should go ahead and boot now.

I have just one question about this board... Is this insanely 3 minute long fiasco the standard boot up time for this board?

Before you say, No i dont have network boot enabled, only card in the system is the BFG8800GTX video card and thats it, ive tried it with another card (7600GT) and still get the exact same problem so its not the card.

Anyone have any ideas what is causing this? im going nuts here...

On another note, ive turned off all USB boot stuff and still if i leave my USB floppy drive plugged in the motherboard will not boot it just passes the matrix boot screen and just hangs there, i get a blinking light and if i press the keyb enough i get the typical keyb buffer overflow error beeps.

I hope someone has come across this problem already.

Thanks

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:12 pm

On another another note...

When in the bios i can almost see the bios windows draw themselves, like if the computer was running at like 2mhz....

(No overclocking was done on any components in this system ever)

Post by **dicecca112** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:15 pm

try reseting the cmos, and booting with all things set at defaults in the bios

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:23 pm

done :/ no dice, still same problem

boris · Post by **boris** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:23 pm

make sure that - Advanced-primary video is set to auto
disable - Advanced - Peripheral config - Secondary Sata
set - Advanced - Drive Config - configure SATA as IDE

hope it helps

DaddyRabbit · Post by **DaddyRabbit** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:44 pm

What are your system specs,

We have:

XBX2 (box or bulk?)
BFG 8800GTX (lucky dawg)
What memory?
What CPU?
What Optical drive (mainly is it/them SATA or EIDE for the optical?)?
What hard drive(s) and are you booting from a RAID set?
What controller are the or all of the drives connected to?

This info would be helpful, I'll reboot now and get a rough boot time but I know mines not that bad (at least till Windows actually starts

)

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:48 pm

well ill be damned... man ur a genius.. the video AUTO did it, its working just fine now, still wondering why it doesnt wanna boot from the usb floppy but thats happened to me before on other machines so its not a big deal..

Thanks a ton!!!

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:54 pm

DaddyRabbit wrote:What are your system specs,

We have:

XBX2 (box or bulk?)
BFG 8800GTX (lucky dawg)
What memory?
What CPU?
What Optical drive (mainly is it/them SATA or EIDE for the optical?)?
What hard drive(s) and are you booting from a RAID set?
What controller are the or all of the drives connected to?

This info would be helpful, I'll reboot now and get a rough boot time but I know mines not that bad (at least till Windows actually starts )

XBX2 (box or bulk?) Bulk (only ones i could find)
BFG 8800GTX (lucky dawg) (Watercooled too

)
What memory? 4gb Kingston HyperX DDR2 800
What CPU? T6600 2.4
What Optical drive (mainly is it/them SATA or EIDE for the optical?)? Sata
What hard drive(s) and are you booting from a RAID set? sata
What controller are the or all of the drives connected to? sata

4 500gb drives on the blue plugs, 2 80gb drives on the black plugs, and 1 CD on the black as well.

Still working on the why it wont boot lol now it just says theres no boot devices...

well thats odd if i disable the IDE interface my SATA CD refuses to be a boot device.....

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:57 pm

Hmm its doing the slow boot again... i think its the IDE interface... testing..

DaddyRabbit · Post by **DaddyRabbit** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 7:57 pm

And after I rebooted and did the "one, one thousand thing!

Well not to waste it...

From cold boot to the dash ~ 8 sec
Dash on for ~ 14 sec
Splash screen for ~ 1 1/2 sec
XP - well I quit counting...

Glad you got it fixed, my XBX2 is quickly winning my favor

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:02 pm

Great... it was the IDE western digital drive... it was set to master but with slave and there was no slave... god i hate WDs Master/Slave pinout systems, its the only one that does that to a system when theres no slave present...

Well that took care of that...

and it seems it also fixed the non booting issue...

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:04 pm

Lol, yes system is working very similar to yours, also its now booting just fine...

Well i think that settles that problem lol....

WATCH YOUR IDE CABLE SETTINGS hahaha

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:06 pm

BTW while im here and you guys are watchingi have a question.

Whats the diference between the marvel and the intel raid controllers? whats the whole point of putting 2 diferent ones? and which one is better for what?

Xionicfire · Post by **Xionicfire** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:12 pm

Better just post this as another question in the forums in case someone else might have the same doubt.

DaddyRabbit · Post by **DaddyRabbit** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:24 pm

The ICH7R is actually a in the chipset, the Marvel is a third party controller. The reason for using it is to give user more SATA ports. The ICH7R can only support 4 ports natively so they tack on the Marvell to add on. I personally (with no real knowledge or data to back it up

) would defer to the ICH7R using the Marvel for a secondary MASS storage like:

"4 500gb drives on the blue plugs,..." Jeez! I remember when I spent $499 USD on a 40 MEGABYTE Miniscribe MFM drive (OK showing my age...)

Also AFAIK the only difference between the bulk (BLK975XBX2) and the boxed version is a 1yr vs. 3 yr warranty but there is another version that is substantially different in features, that's why I asked.

Glad it's working well now, I'm loving my XBX2, E6600, and 8800GTS more every day...