ECS A885GM-A2 BIOS setup


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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

NOTE: My issue was solved. See here for details of the solution:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17662.msg194122#msg194122

and

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=21858.msg194123#msg194123

 

-----ORIGINAL POST-----

 

I've recently upgraded all of my hardware (in anticipation of using 3+TB drives), and I went with the ECS A885GM-A2. However, I am having trouble booting with this mobo and would really appreciate some help. No matter what I have tried for my BIOS settings, all I'm getting is a "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key" message. When I press a key, I can see my flash drive light up (which at least indicates that the system is trying to read from it, right?), but the message just reappears.

 

I have tried a lot of things over the past two days:

 

--I've stripped my system down to the absolute basics in attempting to simply boot. I have no hard drives nor any controllers currently hooked up.

--I've tried all combinations of "boot devices" to include (and exclude) my flash drive as recommended in various posts to this thread,

--I've tried lots and lots of various BIOS settings, including all of these: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=18480.msg165817#msg165817

--As user "apotek" suggested earlier in this thread (6/10/12), I downloaded the earlier BIOS, but the directions call for using a floppy disk to flash the motherboard, and I don't have one. I'm pretty sure I could use my USB drive to flash the BIOS, but I obviously cannot boot to it, so I think I'm out of luck on that font.

 

Some facts of my setup:

 

--If I plug my USB flash drive into my old system (based on the old reliable Asus P5B-VM DO), it boots.

--If I plug the same drive into the A885GM-A2, it doesn't boot.

--My UNRAID OS is on a Lexar Firefly bought directly from Lime Technology in December of 2007 (could this be it?)

--I was running UNRAID 4.5.x, but when I had trouble booting, I upgraded to 4.7 (this boots on my old system still)

 

On 02/17/12 in this thread, Rajahal suggests "messing with the USB emulation settings," but I don't really know what that means. Any ideas?

 

NOTE: I first started a thread in the "General Support" forum (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=21858.0), but decided that this was a better place for my woes.

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I've recently upgraded all of my hardware (in anticipation of using 3+TB drives), and I went with the ECS A885GM-A2. However, I am having trouble booting with this mobo and would really appreciate some help. No matter what I have tried for my BIOS settings, all I'm getting is a "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key" message. When I press a key, I can see my flash drive light up (which at least indicates that the system is trying to read from it, right?), but the message just reappears.

 

I have tried a lot of things over the past two days:

 

--I've stripped my system down to the absolute basics in attempting to simply boot. I have no hard drives nor any controllers currently hooked up.

--I've tried all combinations of "boot devices" to include (and exclude) my flash drive as recommended in various posts to this thread,

--I've tried lots and lots of various BIOS settings, including all of these: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=18480.msg165817#msg165817

--As user "apotek" suggested earlier in this thread (6/10/12), I downloaded the earlier BIOS, but the directions call for using a floppy disk to flash the motherboard, and I don't have one. I'm pretty sure I could use my USB drive to flash the BIOS, but I obviously cannot boot to it, so I think I'm out of luck on that font.

 

Some facts of my setup:

 

--If I plug my USB flash drive into my old system (based on the old reliable Asus P5B-VM DO), it boots.

--If I plug the same drive into the A885GM-A2, it doesn't boot.

--My UNRAID OS is on a Lexar Firefly bought directly from Lime Technology in December of 2007 (could this be it?)

--I was running UNRAID 4.5.x, but when I had trouble booting, I upgraded to 4.7 (this boots on my old system still)

 

On 02/17/12 in this thread, Rajahal suggests "messing with the USB emulation settings," but I don't really know what that means. Any ideas?

 

NOTE: I first started a thread in the "General Support" forum (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=21858.0), but decided that this was a better place for my woes.

 

Have you carefully read the first six or seven posts in this thread?  The one of the posters had to power the system completely down AFTER updating the BIOS settings to get it to boot properly.  Evidently, this board is a beast to get working and it is more smoke and mirrors than true science. 

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Have you carefully read the first six or seven posts in this thread?  The one of the posters had to power the system completely down AFTER updating the BIOS settings to get it to boot properly.  Evidently, this board is a beast to get working and it is more smoke and mirrors than true science.

 

I have tried that--more times than I can count over the past few days. Now I feel like I'm just on a loop, trying the same things over and over. I like your smoke-and-mirrors vs. science analogy. It really seems right on.

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Have you carefully read the first six or seven posts in this thread?  The one of the posters had to power the system completely down AFTER updating the BIOS settings to get it to boot properly.  Evidently, this board is a beast to get working and it is more smoke and mirrors than true science.

 

I have tried that--more times than I can count over the past few days. Now I feel like I'm just on a loop, trying the same things over and over. I like your smoke-and-mirrors vs. science analogy. It really seems right on.

 

Since some people seem not to have a problem with this board, have you considered doing an rma either with your vendor or ECS?

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Frank1940, thanks for trying to help, but I've had a bit of a breakthrough.

 

It seems that it is my flash drive that's the problem after all. I tried putting UNRAID on another flash drive and it booted right to it. Now, of course my problem is that my pro license is tied to the flash drive that I purchased from Lime, but this is pretty great news all the same.

 

I wonder why in the world my flash drive doesn't work with this motherboard?

 

 

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Frank1940, thanks for trying to help, but I've had a bit of a breakthrough.

 

It seems that it is my flash drive that's the problem after all. I tried putting UNRAID on another flash drive and it booted right to it. Now, of course my problem is that my pro license is tied to the flash drive that I purchased from Lime, but this is pretty great news all the same.

 

I wonder why in the world my flash drive doesn't work with this motherboard?

 

Drop a personal note to Tom at LimeTech and explain your problem.  I would also reference the two threads in which you attempted to find a solution.

 

Frank

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Frank1940, thanks for trying to help, but I've had a bit of a breakthrough.

 

It seems that it is my flash drive that's the problem after all. I tried putting UNRAID on another flash drive and it booted right to it. Now, of course my problem is that my pro license is tied to the flash drive that I purchased from Lime, but this is pretty great news all the same.

 

I wonder why in the world my flash drive doesn't work with this motherboard?

 

Drop a personal note to Tom at LimeTech and explain your problem.  I would also reference the two threads in which you attempted to find a solution.

 

Frank

 

Frank,

 

I've gotten everything to work! What I did was use the memtest86's USB Key installer to format my UNRAID flash drive. Then I deleted all of the memtest files, copied my UNRAID backup to the flash, and renamed my flash drive back to UNRAID. It obviously had something to do with the way my flash drive was formatted.

 

But I have my fully-functioning UNRAID 4.7 Pro License working in my new system. Now to upgrade to v5.x!

 

Thanks to everyone...

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Is anyone using this board successfully with two SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 controllers, v5x and 3TB drives? If so, could you share your BIOS settings, because I'm having trouble getting my system up properly.

 

In another thread, someone suggested "disabling PCI-E OPROM in the BIOS for the PCI slots the cards were in. The hard drives wont be detected on startup after you do this, but unRAID doesn't need them to be."

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the ECS motherboard's BIOS has any such settings. Any other ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

UPDATE: I grew frustrated with this board. Swapped it for a SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O with an Intel i3. I'm up and running now.

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