help with new computer?

[Blackphoenix]

Ok guys, I'm stumped and need your help.
I just put together my new pc and it's acting funny during the boot up post.

Enermax 431watt PSU
3dcool Tornado 3000 with 2x 120mm fans on the side.
Abit IT7
P4 1.8ghz (northwood)
Zalman 6500b-cu with fan
2 sticks of Corsair xms3200 512meg DDR
Sound Blaster Audigy
ATI Radeon 7200 (I'm upgrading it soon)
WD 1200jb Hard drive
Pioneer 16x DVD slot drive
Plextor 40/12/40 CDRW

The wd is plugged into master on IDE channel 1
Plextor into master on IDE channel 2
Pioneer DVD into highpoint master IDE channel 3


I power it on and the post screen comes up.
Shows the 1gig of memory and starts detecting IDE devices on channel 1 and 2 (like normal). Problem is that it sits there for about 20 seconds and then finds the 2 drives, then it sits on the Highpoint detecting IDE devices for a short bit and then continues on. The drives due work because I was able to start an install of Win XP and format the WD.

Once an a while during boot up it will appear to hang on the screen just before it would try booting off of any drives.
"Verifying DMI" I think.

I checked the cpu temps and it's showing 84 F for system temps and 118 F for CPU.... can this be right?!? I'm running a high quality copper heatsink with artic silver 3!

Once it gets past the boot screens it seems to run fine, but it's bugging me.

I did watch the diag numbers on the motherboard as it booted and nothing funny came up, just the normal booting codes.

[Jammrock]

The onboard Highpoint IDE controller is RAID. Take the Pioneer DVD off the Highpoint IDE. Move the HDD to the Highpoint, put the CD-RW on IDE master, the DVD on IDE Secondary.

Set the BIOS to boot the the CD-RW and re-install WinXP. Make sure you have your WinXP IDe controller disk for the setup. Press F6 when WinXP setup first begins to point to the WinXP highpoint drivers. Run setup as normal. After the first reboot, set the BIOS to boot to the highpoint IDE controller first.

Jammrock

[Blackphoenix]

Yes it's raid, but I can still use it like a normal IDE channel.

Installing the hard drive onto it won't speed up the bios hanging through IDE detecting.

Besides I think I may have found the problem.
I'll post it if I'm sucessful.

Thanks for the feedback though.

[Jammrock]

In the Highpoint documentation, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you DO NOT put a CD-ROM device on the IDE RAID controller. It may not speed things up, but it will definately make things more stable to either use the HDD on the HP IDE, and leave the CD/DVD's off it.

Jammrock

[Blackphoenix]

Thanks, I'll do that tonight too.

[Blackphoenix]

Ok, got my system running, had to set the hard drives to cable select and now they're running fine.

Also switched it over to boot from the raid controller

Sweet thing is I popped the fron bus to a 133 and boom, the 1.8 is running 2.4 at 1.5volts and no real change in temps...

Makes me wonder how high I could set it *evil grin*
Thanks guys.

[RichardI]

I would put your hard drives on the RAID controller and leave that DVD-ROM and CD-WRITER on the normal IDE controller.

[UtwigMU]

DITTO

ATAPI (CD-R/RW/ROM, DVD, ZIP) devices on RAID controller is a no-no.

Make sure your CD-ROMs are masters on separate channels and your HDD is master on your master HPT RAID.

Also make sure your CD-ROMs run in UDMA mode and not in PIO mode.

If you have problems with Plextor and UDMA mode do a search since there is a jumper trick that can force UDMA on your Plextor.

If your CD-RW is in PIO mode you are in for coasters burn-proof or no burnproof (that's what I had @ my previous job but that rig had lots of other problems like inadequate PSU and cooling and a crappola GF2MX that shook picture on Sony E500@1600×1200 so I had to run in 1280×960)