ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe & PCI-e SATA Cards

[Melvin451]

I'm having a problem with this MB and expansion cards.  I'm running 9 drives using all 8 on board SATA ports plus one drive in an expansion card.  I've tried an SiL 3132 2 Port Sata Card as well as a Asmedia 2 port card.  I've moved the graphics card around in various combinations with one or both SATA cards.  No matter the configuration, while the bios sees the cards and one or more hard drives attached, it will only boot with one drive attached to a card, period.  Otherwise, it freezes after the card's bios is invoked.  I'd like to be able to add a couple more drives, but I'm stuck.  I'm hoping there is a system bios setting I might use.  BTW, the cards have current bios.  Any help?

[unevent]

Should be a way to jumper or somehow disable the SATA card's BIOS and use it as a simple disk controller.  The Rosewill RC-211 I have uses a jumper.

[Melvin451]

Thanks, that was worth trying, however, no joy.  Still hangs on the card bios. 

 

[sureguy]

Just a shot in the dark, but have you installed the latest bios firmware?

[Melvin451]

Yeah, both card and mobo have the latest available.

 

[unevent]

Go into the SATA card bios and make sure no raid options are set up.  If the bios on it is a raid bios, might try reading this thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1547.0 for help in flashing a base bios without raid.

 

[Melvin451]

I haven't been able to access the card's bios, but I've flashed the bios to the non-raid version from a windows box. Still no joy.

[Melvin451]

I'm hoping someone with knowledge of this mobo can help with a last ditch attempt to get it working for more than 9 drives.  I decided to try downgrading the Mobo bios to 1016 as I read a post about the 1805 bios limiting the number of drives, however, I'm having a heck of a time trying to get a USB Flash stick to boot (I don't really want to hook up a floppy or CD drive on the outside chance that a bios downgrade will work).  I've tried the HP tool and Rufus for a flash drive with DOS, but nothing seems to work.  The closest I can come is a message about NETLDR being missing.  Any ideas?

 

On the upside, at least my Unraid server is still working.  If I can't get this going, I'll probably buy a server mobo, CPU and memory when I can get a good deal somewhere.  I just hate having to either  upgrade now or let drives sit around idle because I have no place for them.

[unevent]

http://www.overclock.net/t/115855/asus-a8n-sli-deluxe-usb-boot

 

No need for a server board, just something more recent would make life easier.  Check out the build area of the forum, lots of ideas on the cheap that work.  My first unraid was a Zotac mini-ITX and a Sempron 140 that I got for $50 as a bundle deal from Newegg. I later upgraded as I started running more addons.

 

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Unraid 5.0-rc8a - Asus M5A78L-MLX Plus - AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz - 8GB DDR3 - Antec NEO ECO 620W - Antec Three Hundred - 1x Rosewill RC-211 - Parity: 1T Seagate ST1000DM005/HD103SJ - DATA: 3x WD Black 750G - 1x 1T Seagate ST1000DM003 - 1x 500G Seagate ST500DM002, Cache: Intel X25-V SSD 40GB, 44W idle w/drives spun-down

 

 

 

[scottshaw]

Hello Melvin,

I have the same board and the same problem as you with my server. Maybe this will help Asus A8N-SLI Premium i found it in the form. Here is his zip file.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3412

Gary

syslog-2009-03-05.zip