Its OK

It's OK if someone wants to say ASUS has had too much trouble with this mobo and has basically abandoned it!

 

Huh?

Bios all of them are here!

www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=P4C800-E Deluxe

 

hmm

I dont know, should I update bios from a P4C? when I have a P4P?

 

I am using the P4P800-E Deluxe without any trouble, maybe because only one SATA drive is used (Maxtor).

and yes Water-Walker, 1002 is the latest Bios for the P4P800-E Deluxe !

Nelis

 

No!

Sorry I thought I double checked that. Stupid letters too many of them.
Your right they do not have anything for bios on there site! I'd give it another month they are usually good with bios!

 

My reply to you was the other one I noticed that got lost in the forum reformatting. Too bad, 'cause it was a long one. Let me try to recap...

It's OK if someone wants to say ASUS has had too much trouble with this mobo and has basically abandoned it!

The volunteers here were all busy, or didn't feel they had any ideas to help with your specific problem. So it just took a while to get to your thread.

There's nothing troublesome about this mobo AFAIK. It's very similar to the P4C800-E Deluxe, mostly just lacking the i875P with its ECC support, and also the CSA Lan chip.

Everything in the Bios is set according to the manual for these hdds to be SATA378. I don't want a raid config so I set the Operating mode to "IDE" not RAID in the bios onboard device config. Which I believe is correct.

First problem. The POST SATA378 says it doesn't see no devices found, bios not installed.

You must have attached the SATA drive to the SATA1 connector. I think that is fine, but if it had been attached to SATA_RAID1, then you would not have seen this message. Almost everybody needs to ignore that informational message. For details on the message, please see the thread Promise POST Message: "No Device is Found! BIOS is not installed." which in the future may be found via a Search from the top of this page.

Bottom line: leave the SATA O/S drive on the SATA1 connector. Ignore the Promise message. You won't need any drivers if you want to load non-RAID in this way.

Second Problem. After Windows boots I follow instructions to update the SCSI and RAID controller in device manager using the SATA378 drivers...that works fine however that then makes windows detect
"Promise SATA Console SCSI Processor Device" to which I cannot find a driver for on the mobo disk.

I don't think there really is a user-installable driver for this phantom device. I think it's a RAID-like placeholder, and the device disappears as soon as real HDD's are detected. IMO you can ignore this, as you'd never use the device anyway.

Clintfan, I read a post of yours on how to update the bios but I got a little confused with the instructions. Can I update the bios in windows? Or do I even use the utilites that came the mobo disk or do I need upgrades of them or what?

You're referring to the thread, Asus P4P800/P4C800 Series: How to Update BIOS. No, AFAIK you cannot update BIOS in Windows (unless AsusUpdate has something for BIOS, which I personally would not trust). You also cannot usually successfully update it via EZFlash; contrary to past impressions this is only for recovery to the factory-installed BIOS. It has to be done via AFUDOS.

I dont know, should I update bios from a P4C? when I have a P4P?

NEVER! Only install the exact BIOS targeted for the exact mobo model. You absolutely have to be careful about this, or you could find yourself paying Asus to ship you a new BIOS chip. With very few exceptions, every Asus mobo I've looked at has its own unique BIOS.

is this the bug that you were refering to?

No I was probably referring to the EZFlash limitation.

Installed WInXP pro, crashes a few times.

That would be something different. Run WindowsUpdate. Think about your processor, memory, programs, and/or power supply having troubles. Probably mark3567 can help more with this.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan

 

You are correct

I understand now that I was trying to install promise drivers when in actuality I am using the southbridge intel chip for serial1 and 2. No drivers needed as Clintfan instructed for a non-raid set-up.

Tech Support said to install windows and then immediately install the update for the chipset that came with mobo. Then install XPservicepk1 and then the Big_Drive_enabler. I did all of that. Still a few crashes from "windows explorer" now, haven't had a major crash yet. They said to diable the promise controller in bios and while I am at it, disable LAN and onboard sound too because again, we didn't want windows trying to load any drivers before updating the itel chipset.

I have:
2 Maxtor 200gig SATA drives Diamond 9 plus.
X2 1gig each of low density ddr dual channel RAM 64X8 184 pin(I can't afford an ASUS official certified vendor).
Pentium4 3.0800fsb HT
Matrox G450 32mb graphics card w/ dual monitor support. (Using this one until my geforce4 card comes in)

Theres seems to be a problem with the 19" display on this set-up, it has a jitter when opening files and so forth. Little like bad connection type jitter but everything is secure. I have this computer hooked up, along with my other one, to a dual monitor support KVM Switch, that enables me to use just one set of monitors for two or three computers (four limit). When I kept getting crashes during win install, I pulled this pc from the switch and placed it on a dedicated monitor and also pulled 1 stick of ram and windows installed no problem. So I placed other stick, other hdd and put it back on the switch and restarted and machine and it wasn't long before Windows Explorer crashed. I have put both these rams through the memtest86 test (at least 2 passes each module) and no address errors.
I am currently trying to format the rest of these partitions on these hdds and assigning them a drive letter hoping this might help windows out a bit, after all windows has a hdd size recognition limit. Other than this, I have spent now 3 days straight trying to figure this out, I don't know what's up.

I ran PowerMAX tests on these hdds but I plan to run System Suite 5 utilities on the hdds again tonight when I go to bed (takes awhile). I really doubt its the hdd because they passed powermax in dos mode.

These are hooked up


MAYBE the p4p800-e deluxe just doesn't like the matrox millineum G450 card?
Could be?
the card is suppose to be able to do 4x but I wasn't able to put it on 4x on my DFI motherboard because it kept making windows crash (apparently a defect of DFI I suppose) but maybe it was the card. I read that this mobo (p4p) only supports 8x/4x.
Thank You for your feedbacks

 

sratch that

I just had a major crash and the pc rebooted, I was partitioning the last partition on the main drive and before it started it crashed. I have removed the pc from the switch and put it back to a dedicated monitor to see if the jitter stops.

 

update:

removed the pc from the switch and the jittering stoped however it crashed again on me when trying to access disk management. The matrox when installed on another pc of mine was working fine on the KVM switch. Have to find out why it jitters. Probably place it on another port. Anyway, I am not too far away from giving up and taking it down to the local PC shop for in depth diagnostics.

 

It's the RAM

I pulled the two sticks of 1 gig each out and threw a 256mb stick from my other pc and now everything works fine. It's hard for me to digest this ram issue and I am concerned what direction mobo manufactures are going with this strict compatibilty usage.


Thanks again for the help. I have already purchased "Kingston" pc3200 ddr ram now....it's on it's way.