A Partial Guide to 4x4 and Windows XP64

I have tried a number of configurations for the install of Windows and I thought I would share what works and what does not on XP64.

Things to know before starting

*Do not install nTune*
Under windows XP64 nTune does not work with this motherboard and will cause a full system halt (no BSOD, mouse will stop functioning system will go unresponsive).

Format new drives
It takes forever, and seems like a total waste of time - but do it. A WD Raptor 150 will format in 45 minutes. Ideally, format each new drive that you are putting into your computer individually. Simply following this procedure would have saved a solid 6 hours during the install process for me. The default drivers provided by ASUS do not deal well with faulty drives in your RAID array - and the latest nVidia drivers do a much better job at hiding the problem. However there are no SMART utilities installed by default - so you have no insight into drive statuses and problems.

Remove USB card reader devices
So I was on my "last install". I install XP only to find that when I boot into windows that my main drive is labeled "E:" LOL. Turns out the USB card reader that I had connected to the computer was detected as a fixed drive even though there was no card installed during the installation. At the time I also had Plug and Play OS set to "No" in the BIOS which may have caused this issue. Regardless USB devices cause trouble (see my previous post) so remove them before starting your install.

Setup the RAID ahead of time
Using the BIOS options, setup the RAID array. There are some posts kicking around on message boards that suggest that the array should be setup post OS install. I have found that this does not work with this particular piece of hardware. If the OS is installed without the RAID controller enabled, XP will fail to boot when the RAID controller is enabled post install. XP will fail to boot properly *even if the drives are not assigned to the controller*. The relevant settings were: MediaShield Enabled (BIOS, First Screen, IDE Configuration), No drives enabled, Sil BIOS enabled (BIOS, Screen Two, Other Configuration). Also of note is that when no drives are assigned to the RAID F10 is not an option.


Before you begin

If you are using a RAID Array, you will need the RAID drivers to boot and install the OS on the new array. This will require one of two things: A slip stream image created with nLite or a floppy disk, and drive attached to the system that contains the F6 drivers. The ASUS disk has these files under \Drivers\Chipset\64bit\IDE\WinXP\sataraid. Optionally you can download the latest nForce drivers and then extract the EXE file using Winzip and grab the drivers under \IDE\WinXP\sataraid.

If you are not using the RAID, turn off the RAID options in the BIOS and you will be able to install without any problem.

My Process

Drives
The drives were plugged into SATA ports 1 and 3. I have enabled RAID for ports 1 - 6. Under the F10 menu the RAID method set is to striping, using the the two drives on ports 1 and 3.

Overclocking
No overclocking was used during install.

Boot Sequence
CD-ROM, Hard Drive, Floppy Disk

Drivers

Motherboard
The asus provided drivers were not used. The latest nForce drivers for the motherboard were used, Version 9.53 released December 21 06. WHQL Certified.

Audio
The ASUS provided drivers were used.

Graphics
The latest 8800 drivers were used, ForceWare Release 95Version: 97.44 Release Date: December 8, 2006.

Networking
My local LAN is domain based. As part of the initial install domain membership was added.


The Install

Time required

The install from F6 to cd-key request will take about 15 minutes. From the cd-key request the login prompt will take roughly an additional 11 minutes. This will total somewhere around 26 minutes for the complete install. Pretty fast!

The sequence

Install Method: The non-slip stream, F6 method was used to install Windows on the machine.

F6 was pressed at the initial load screen and at the the prompt "S" was used to install the two nVidia RAID (Class and nForce) Drivers.

The installer asked which drive to install the OS. Only one, the RAID array, was listed. The drive was selected and "Format partition (Quick)" was used (The drives had been previously formatted to verify their integrity).

After copying and installing the files the system rebooted.

The install prompted for a number of pieces of information the requested information was provided. Upon completion of the forms a few more operations complete and the system rebooted.

System boot after the BIOS finishes takes about 14 seconds at this point.

After the system boots and the main user account is logged on the nVidia nForce drivers were installed. The Ethernet drivers were not installed due to issues with my on board devices. However, I would recommend just installing only the Ethernet package and not the second optional install (I forgot its name).

The system was rebooted.

Hard Drive Benchmarks were run on the RAID array. See my benchmarks post.

The 8800 Drivers were installed.

The system was rebooted.

Windows update was run, 51 updates (174.8 MB) were downloaded and installed in 16 minutes over a 6.0 Mb DSL connection.

The audio drivers were installed.

Normal operation of the computer commenced.

BIOS Bugs, Ethernet Problems

There are two BIOS issues that continue to plague my system.

The first is related to the use of external USB drives. I have an external 200 GB LaCie drive. When it is plugged in and turned on it shows up in the BIOS as a bootable device. By default this drive is booted BEFORE the RAID array. The problem arises from the fact that when the USB drive fails to boot the system it halts the boot process and no other bootable hard drives are checked. You can however, change the boot order in the BIOS so that it prefers your RAID over the USB device. Great, so it would seem there is a way to deal with the problem... And yet, not really. The problem arises when the system does not detect your USB drive - the settings for the USB drive are removed from the BIOS if the system boots and does not detect the drive. When it is connected again you'll find that the system will try to boot from the USB drive (which does not work) and not the RAID array. The only real solution that I have found for this is to leave the USB hard drive off until XP starts to boot.

The second issue is related to USB device initialization. The system seems to hang when initializing the USB bus, usually after a software reboot. A push of the reset button seems to do the trick, however this makes automated or remote reboots difficult.

The Ethernet saga continues. Although, I'm now 90% certain that it is a software issue and not a hardware issue. XP shows that the Ethernet ports fail to get an IP address from the network. However XP also shows that the the interface is receiving multicast packets from the network. So something is working... Windows defender also showed a reference to the ActiveArmor dll - which makes me think that it is the nVidia hardware/software firewall at work. Funny thing is none of the control panels show a way to manage these settings. The only weird thing is that the MAC address for both ports appears in an ASUS product manual (they end in F7:F7:F7). But since I cannot get support for the board at this time I'll have to keep plugging along with my NutGear GbE card. It works - but doesn't have a lot of options (namely frame size adjustment).

Despite these problems, I'm pretty happy.