Budget Box Bios Settings - How to enable SATA Type to AHCI - SOLVED

[Vibe]

Hi everyone,

 

Recently I have made the plunge and built the Budget Box (BIOSTAR A760G M2+, AMD Sempron 140 etc.) as listed in the Wiki.  Everything has been working perfectly - I'm very pleased with the results.  When I originally built the new server, I didn't make the recommended Bios changes (from the Wiki) - Rather, I just set it up to get unRaid up and running in order to migrate from a Dell SC-440 server.

 

Today I decided to make the additional Bios changes and ran into a roadblock with regard to setting the On-Chip SATA Type to AHCI.  Whenever I set this to ACHI, the system boots, a message is quickly displayed on the screen (too fast to read - and my digital camera is on the "fritz"), and eventually the hardware monitor page pops-up where the system remains until a reboot.  In order to have unRaid fully load I currently have SATA configured for "IDE->AHCI" - which appears to work just fine.

 

I'm sure there is something basic that I am overlooking - does anyone know if there is an additional step I am missing?

 

(P.S.  The drives were not formatted during the build of my budget box - they were simply migrated from another server).

 

Thanks for any assistance anyone can provide!  

[Vibe]

Finally got a photo of the error message using my cell phone  .

 

During the boot process a new screen appears (less then a second in duration):

 

Bank interleave requested but not enabled

Checking NVRAM..

 

I checked the memory settings under the Performance tab - and the Interleave setting is set for AUTO.

 

I am using two sticks of 667 ECC 240 Pin 1GB memory.  Any thoughts?

[Vibe]

Problem Solved!

 

I previously searched the forums and missed the thread regarding Rajahal's initial testing with the budget box.  Printingdude posted his findings - after setting AHCI within the bios, it appears that the boot order can be rearranged http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4496.15.  Just checked and sure enough, my flash drive was not listed.  A quick change to re-enable and all is working fine. 

[kizer]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. It kicked my butt for a day or so too until I figured it out.

[Vibe]

I know what you mean kizer!  At first I thought it had something to do with the ECC memory I was using and started making changes there - no luck.  It never occurred to me to check my previous settings for boot order.  This would definitely be great information to add to the Wiki - may help others using the same motherboard  .

[Rajahal]

The wiki already covers all the steps you need to configure that motherboard.  It shouldn't really matter if you do it immediately upon building the server or later on, as long as you do them in the order stated.  It covers the boot issue you ran into in this section:

 

On the Boot tab

 

    * Choose 'Hard Disk Drives'

          o Choose '1st Drive', select the USB Flash drive, and press enter

          o Disable all other boot drives

    * Choose 'Boot Device Priority'

          o Set the 1st Boot Device as the USB Flash drive.

          o Disable all other boot devices

 

So what do you propose be added to the wiki?  Maybe just a mention about the order being important?

[Joe L.]

The wiki already covers all the steps you need to configure that motherboard.  It shouldn't really matter if you do it immediately upon building the server or later on, as long as you do them in the order stated.  It covers the boot issue you ran into in this section:

 

On the Boot tab

 

    * Choose 'Hard Disk Drives'

          o Choose '1st Drive', select the USB Flash drive, and press enter

          o Disable all other boot drives

    * Choose 'Boot Device Priority'

          o Set the 1st Boot Device as the USB Flash drive.

          o Disable all other boot devices

 

So what do you propose be added to the wiki?  Maybe just a mention about the order being important?

Perhaps that if you change the AHCI setting you might need to redo these steps?

[neilt0]

One one of my motherboards, every time I add a drive, I have to change the boot order back to USB flash again.

 

On the other motherboard, once I got past 16 drives, I had to disable a lot (all) of them in order for the USB Flash drive to appear as an option in the Boot Order.

[Rajahal]

Perhaps that if you change the AHCI setting you might need to redo these steps?

 

Ah, I see.  Will do.

 

neilt0, my Asus P5BV-M does the same thing, quite annoying.  That's definitely one thing I miss about the Budget Board.

[kizer]

Honestly I don't recal why I had such issues. I guess after trying it a few times it finally worked and I more or less moved on. I don't think it's a wiki issue I think in my case it might of been Operator Error, but then again that was a couple of months ago.

[Vibe]

Hi Rajahal,

 

The steps on the Wiki were perfect - very easy to follow and a great help .

 

I'm just thinking that maybe adding something along the lines of the following may help others with the same motherboard (in case they ran into the same issue like Printingdude, kizer and myself):

 

*Please Note: If after setting the OnChip SATA Type to AHCI your system fails to boot (e.g. unRaid will not start), recheck the system boot order and/or boot priority to ensure that your USB flash drive is listed first.

 

 

[Rajahal]

Were you restarting after each step?  You don't need to - you can set all the steps in order as described on the wiki and it will work.  I fear that adding the warning you wrote will make people think they need to restart part-way through the process.  I added a line to the top clarifying that the steps should be carried out in the order listed...do you think that is sufficient?

[Vibe]

Hi Rajahal,

 

If memory serves me correctly, I'm about 90% certain I did follow the steps as you have outlined initially.  However, I did go back to try again and may have changed the order for successive attempts - possibly this caused my issue.  However, once I read the forum post about how the boot order and/or priority setting may not "stick" (e.g. the flash drive being listed) I made the change and everything worked just fine.  In my case, after making the change to AHCI, one of my Western Digital drives was listed as the first boot option as well as the first in boot priority.

 

I totally agree about not adding complexity to the steps...I think letting users know that they must follow the order is perfect.  If anyone runs into the same issue as me - it is now documented with this thread  .

 

As always - thanks for your help!