RocketRAID 640 + GA-890GPA-UD3H Issue

Hi guys ..

Had to do some setup re-arraignment on account of low funds so have combined my general use PC (does a lil bit of gaming, lots of multimedia & web use) and HomeServer (4TB of storage, encoding jobs) into one machine.. On the cheap for the moment then with performance upgrades coming to increase its gaming and encoding power ...

So.. I picked up a Gigabyte GA-890GPA-ED3H, a HD5450 and a case with enough 5.25" bays. I also grabbed another OCZ Vertex 30GB (1st Gen) to put in RAID0 for better OS performance..

I checked both Vertex SSDs were running the latest firmware (1.6) and gave them both a garbage sweep, then set them up in RAID0 on the boards SB850 Southbridge and reboot. The SB RAID BIOS page (ROM: 3.2.1.020.39) detected my RAID0 array and indicated that everything was healthy so I went ahead and installed Win 7 64-bit without any problems.

Booted, installed all the system drivers and windows updates then powered down to install the RAID card in the mobo's 2nd PCI-E slot. It's a full length slot that runs @ 8x while the RR640 uses a shorter 4x connector (however this shouldn't make a difference) and after making sure the SATA cables and power to the HDDs and card were all AOK I successfully powered back on.

The system posts and displays the RR640s BIOS page which detects my RAID10 array and reports it as Healthy then moves onto the SB RAID BIOS page and attempts to detect my Vertex RAID0 array.. And it hangs. Entirely freezes by my account, stays like it for hours (I fell asleep in fact) and CTRL+ALT+DEL doesn't cause a reboot..

So I've tried updating the motherboards BIOS to the latest non-BETA version (FF) and will try the BETA version after posting this but otherwise I'm stuck for ideas

Any input and idea's appreciated - Cheers!

There are absolutely n0 lack of posts in forums all over with the very same problem you have when attempting to use raid on the onboard controller 'and' put in a raid card. Giga's P55 boards and 790 and 890 boards do it as well. No user with the problem posting in a forum has had the issue fixed. Most put in a raid card that had enough ports and did n0t try to run raid on the SB850 at all and that worked. Oh by the way, one user even put in two raid cards and that seemed to work fine but using onboard 850 chipset raid and add-in raid card is just a plain n0 from all the many posts I just g00gled up.

what he said ^

there is one way though, and it is posted one time like a needle in the haystack of error.

when the RR bios comes up hit the END key.
you of course cant boot to it now, but there it is, both of them working together, one as storage, and one for the boot.

that aint gonna work for a Server, that is self restarting, unless you can setup some way to hit the end key automatically.

we have done somewhat the same thing when having multi bioses in conflict, i accidentally broke the bios on an adaptec raid card, and ever after that i didnt have to deal with the bios problem.
once in the OS , the bios doesnt much matter, cause it is drivers at that point.

hoghpoint is supposed to Have a bios (flash) that changes thing, but it isnt on the web, and people who claimed they used it didnt post it. and hipoints tech support is so bad, the board should be returned to them tied to a brick
.

Ahhh... Seems I should of done a bit of research then lol .. Hitting the END key at any point through the BIOS takes me the Q-Flash Screen, so isn't really much use.. Is this HighPoint BIOS update that makes a difference not anywhere to be found online?

Otherwise my options seem to be :-

1. Switch to a mobo which doesn't use the 850 SB? (LONG! But if AMD's newer SB doesn't have this problem then I'll just get a new board. Any suggestions?)
2. Get a lil 2-port RAID card to run me SSDs off (Will cost me in the region of £60)
3. Sell both SSDs n go to a non-RAID boot setup (Not the best, 2 used 30GB Vertex drives don't fetch much)

oh nooo, well we will give highpoint another rasberry for picking a key that is in use already

did you wait till the blue RR bios screen comes up, then you got about 6 seconds, and hit the END key ONE time. and hopefully it passes this command to only the RR bios and not the motherboard bios.

.. Is this HighPoint BIOS update that makes a difference not anywhere to be found online?
I could not find it, but people claim that after they talked to tech support they got it via e-mail or something.

if you get it , post it.

rr64x/bios/rr640-bios-v1.0-100107.zip

Compilation:
GA-X58A-UD7 using RAID (XHD) and add-on controller card.
BTW: the reason I am doing this is I want to run RAID on the MB for the OS - and have the RAID card completely seperate for other stuff).

For HighPoint card ( RR620 ) i have no problem ( similar Gigabyte BIOS in my motherboard GA-X58A-UD5 )

Exist a little utilility for programming HighPoint BIOS parameters for resolve compatibility

You can found utility with Firmware upgrade ( run load.exe /C ) for the RR640 to :

http://www.support-highpoint-tech.com/Main/rr64x/bios/rr640-bios-v1.0-100107.zip

I think that you can test the option : disabling Reallocate EBDA in the HPT BIOS

xxxxxx

Thanks, this worked perfectly!

It's really too bad about this card only having 2 Marvell controllers, especially for $200!

You can only use 2 SSD's on it, one on each controller, otherwise it suffers the same problems that motherboards with one controller do.

I tried using 3 SSD's and scores drop under the performance of two, and I know if you use both ports on one controller(IE 1+2 or 3+4) it's terrible like onboard too.

Ohh well, I didn't have to pay for it so I can't complain to much, but I do feel bad for those who buy this intending to RAID 0 with more than 2 SSD's.

THAT LINK above does NOT work. I tried many times to find that rr64x/bios/rr640-bios-v1.0-100107.zip file and n0where I have looked does it actually exist for current download or so it is for me. Maybe HighPoint will answer a customer query as to where it might be obtained. No idea for real.

the bios itself has settings you just cant adjust them Normal, only when you flash the bios. you makes settings then, by flashing a certian way.

the realocate and INT13 can be turned off , when you flash the bios with the settings flash.
( i still cant say it right)
you can do that with any bios, which they do supply a bios and a flash program, both on the CD and via the WEB.
turning off those 2 things will also change it around so it cant boot, and doesnt conflict.

but for some reason for many people making these 2 changes to the bios was not enough, or causes one more problem?

weird system,

All of this problem between the add-on raid card option rom and the onboard raid option rom is why I have always tended toward the Areca card as they generally can make a bios for their raid card that works with the motherboard raid option rom. But dang they do charge for their cards.

I really can't be ar2ed with this, need my storage back ASAP really .. Just gunner pick up a RocketRAID620 (the 2-port version of my current card) to run my SSDs in RAID0.. When someone

My only thought was, will the BIOS's of the separate RR640 and RR620 cards conflict at all??

Why not sell them both and get a real RAID card? For cheap, the Perc 5/i is hard to beat.

Yes, it takes down the array for a bit, but you do RAID the right way. Not half way. It will save you headaches in the future.

thideras said:

Why not sell them both and get a real RAID card? For cheap, the Perc 5/i is hard to beat.

Yes, it takes down the array for a bit, but you do RAID the right way. Not half way. It will save you headaches in the future.

Click to expand...

That's what I'd love to do thid but I don't have the funds to back up my array onto anything.. Unless I wouldn't have too ???

You would certainly have to rebuild the array. It won't transfer between makes.

I would how much data you could recreate (movies, music) and delete. I recently had to do this and fit all my data onto a 1tb drive so I could rebuild my array.

Well there are couple of things I see after going back to the first post and re-reading it.

1. Use one SSD for windows and forget raid. Of course you can use both SSD's just not in raid. Tell the programs to install to Drogram files which could be the second SSD. Then onboard raid is not in the way.

2. Get on the 'horn'/whatever, to HighPoint Tech and get the dang raid bios file that allows to turn off the offensive hooks and option rom so the onboard raid will boot.

3. Know that sadly this issue crops up more times than I cared to read the hits in g00gle.