X38 and Areca cards

[oiler]

Using an Areca 1231 in a DFI x38 LT, 2nd PCI-xpress slot with no problems.

Pressing TAB to get in to the Areca BIOS works just fine. I just did it to build an array.

I heard there was a problem with the x38 and areca cards can anyone confirm/deny this?

I'd like to go X38 but I will not if I can't use my areca card.

[Ace-a-Rue]

COOL!...i just got the board a few minutes ago...glad to know that...BUT...what speed is it working at?..that might be the next biggest question.

[shawn1998]

I'm telling you, mine worked in that slot, pressing tab worked as well, but the speed was at 1X, not 8X. Check it in the 1231's bios. Post back what you find.

[safan80]

Well I can tell you right now if its from DFI it will work as I have yet to have a incompatibility issue with my Areca Controller as of yet

so how do you like 1X?
at least on my board it runs at 8x.
for those that want a work around to getting into the bios to have faster array building/rebuilding speed use a regular hard drive on the motherboard controlller and have an OS installed and access the web interface. remember 1 hour and 27 minutes is better than 8 hours and 52 minutes.

edit: for those wanting to know what speed the areca card is running at check the upper left hand corner on the bios screen of the areca card and it will list the speed.

edit: old picture but it gets the point across.

[shawn1998]

That's not on the DFI board though, is it? oiler pm'd me with a pic that shows his running at 8X oon his DFI X38 board, so I have to wonder what the heck is going on with mine?

[shawn1998]

I tried everything to get that slot to see the card at 8X. After a bios clear, the board doesn't even recognize that there is a card in it!!! I'm beginning to wonder if my board is faulty. I say this because the #1 Lan doesn't work either. It is enabled in the bios, but it is not seen in Vista. #2 works just fine. Should I RMA this thing back to motherboardpro?

[oiler]

I wonder if it is just because I have a newer model card (1231), maybe they fixed/updated something in the newer models?

Attached is a pic of my screen with the 1231 and DFI x38.

I tried everything to get that slot to see the card at 8X. After a bios clear, the board doesn't even recognize that there is a card in it!!! I'm beginning to wonder if my board is faulty. I say this because the #1 Lan doesn't work either. It is enabled in the bios, but it is not seen in Vista. #2 works just fine. Should I RMA this thing back to motherboardpro?

[shawn1998]

Well, after 2 hours of trying "everything", I figured it out. Can you believe it was because I had both of the floppy power connectors on the motherboard plugged in to floppy power connectors??? That was it! As soon as I pulled both of them, walla! It was magically booting again, and best of all, at 8X!

So, it seems that if you plug those in, you can only put video cards in the 2 pci-e 16X slots. Weird, but everything is running like a champ now. Thanks, oiler, for pointing out that it does indeed work, or else I would have just let it ride the way it was.

Shawn

[oiler]

Actually, I do have both floppy connectors plugged in as well

But, at least we figured it out. Something must change in the x38 BIOS when you have both floppy connectors plugged in, and the older model Areca cards dont seem to like it.

Nice find!!

If you have your video card in the top slot and have that top floppy connector plugged in, does your Areca work at 8x in the second slot, if you have the second floppy connector disconnected?

Well, after 2 hours of trying "everything", I figured it out. Can you believe it was because I had both of the floppy power connectors on the motherboard plugged in to floppy power connectors??? That was it! As soon as I pulled both of them, walla! It was magically booting again, and best of all, at 8X!

So, it seems that if you plug those in, you can only put video cards in the 2 pci-e 16X slots. Weird, but everything is running like a champ now. Thanks, oiler, for pointing out that it does indeed work, or else I would have just let it ride the way it was.

Shawn

[shawn1998]

Actually, yes it did. I thought about leaving it that way, but continued troubleshooting to narrow down the issue. Now, something else that could be related.. I am using one of the new 8800GTS 512 cards, which is a pci-e 2.0 card, yours is a pci-e 1.0 card. Maybe this could have something to do with how the slots work with the two types of cards? With my 8800GTS 512 installed, the card is being run in the slot at 16X pci-express 2.0. With your Ultra, it is running at 16X as well, but at pci-e 1.0. Maybe some different power requirments, or a bios bug of some sorts with the newer 2.0 cards?

Just something to think about. Bottom line is, though, I finally got it working and if someone else runs into this issue, they have a starting point.

Shawn

[Ace-a-Rue]

here is another solution for the DFI X38 board:

i plugged my 8800 GTS in the 2nd PCIe slot and then plugged my Areca 1210 card into the 1st PCIe slot with no addtional 5/12v power plugged in...everything is booting fine.

it's the weirdest thing...don't really see any real tweak areca performance going from 4x to 8x performance...maybe the burst speed is getting a little boost...that is all i can tell from looking at HDTach bench.

[Polizei]

yes because enthusiast hardware is not meant to be with enthusiast chipset/mobo

what a bunch of retards, those intel ------

I wouldnt really call it enthusiast hardware, I would call it server/workstation hardware.

[oiler]

Does anything change if you plug either or both of the floppy connectors in on the board?

here is another solution for the DFI X38 board:

i plugged my 8800 GTS in the 2nd PCIe slot and then plugged my Areca 1210 card into the 1st PCIe slot with no addtional 5/12v power plugged in...everything is booting fine.

it's the weirdest thing...don't really see any real tweak areca performance going from 4x to 8x performance...maybe the burst speed is getting a little boost...that is all i can tell from looking at HDTach bench.

[work_permit]

yes because enthusiast hardware is not meant to be with enthusiast chipset/mobo

what a bunch of retards, those intel ------

Luckily, there is a work around MB makers can make in BIOS.

Here's the issue

PCIe 1.1 cards in PCIe slots off the MCH lead to boot failures.
Problem: The Intel® X38 Express Chipset sets the TS1 Ordered Set - Symbol 4 Bit[6] to 1b when a PCIe 1.1 card is plugged in. This is a reserved bit which is used in PCIe 2.0 to broadcast support for selectable de-emphasis. PCIe 1.1 Specification states that Bit[6] should be set to 0b. With some 2.5 GT/s PCIe 1.1 I/O cards of widths x8/x4/x1, system restarts and hangs were exhibited during PCIe link initialization when populated in MCH slots.

Implication: System unable to train some 2.5 GT/s PCIe 1.1 cards that don't comply with the PCIe 1.1 Specification. Failures have occurred across multiple vendors and different types of PCIe 1.1 cards.

Workaround: Contact your Intel field representative for the latest BIOS information. Modification to the Link Stability/Recovery Algorithm will fix this issue when using non-compliant cards but customers should continue working with their card vendors for PCIe 1.1 Spec compliancy.

Status: No Fix. For affected steppings, see the Summary Table of Changes.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/chip...t/31761101.pdf

[Ace-a-Rue]

Does anything change if you plug either or both of the floppy connectors in on the board?

what it does for me, it stops the warm re-boot failure..it goes into a black hole with nothing happening; stuck on C1.

[Ace-a-Rue]

Luckily, there is a work around MB makers can make in BIOS.

Here's the issue

PCIe 1.1 cards in PCIe slots off the MCH lead to boot failures.
Problem: The Intel® X38 Express Chipset sets the TS1 Ordered Set - Symbol 4 Bit[6] to 1b when a PCIe 1.1 card is plugged in. This is a reserved bit which is used in PCIe 2.0 to broadcast support for selectable de-emphasis. PCIe 1.1 Specification states that Bit[6] should be set to 0b. With some 2.5 GT/s PCIe 1.1 I/O cards of widths x8/x4/x1, system restarts and hangs were exhibited during PCIe link initialization when populated in MCH slots.

Implication: System unable to train some 2.5 GT/s PCIe 1.1 cards that don't comply with the PCIe 1.1 Specification. Failures have occurred across multiple vendors and different types of PCIe 1.1 cards.

Workaround: Contact your Intel field representative for the latest BIOS information. Modification to the Link Stability/Recovery Algorithm will fix this issue when using non-compliant cards but customers should continue working with their card vendors for PCIe 1.1 Spec compliancy.

Status: No Fix. For affected steppings, see the Summary Table of Changes.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/chip...t/31761101.pdf

that means to the user that you are sh*t out of luck!

[shawn1998]

Well, I am running my Q6600 at it's usual 9x333, which is all I plan on running it. Having both floppy connectors disconnected doesn't affect my system stability at all, so I suppose I am good with it the way it is. I am away from home now until next Friday, so maybe I'll play around with this issue a bit more then.

So, Ace, you're saying that there is little to no difference between 4x and 8x? If not, I guess it wouldn't be a big deal at all then. Hmm... This is going to kill me, not being able to mess around with this issue for then next 6 days! Let me know if you figure something new out.

Shawn

[tiro_uspsss]

Luckily, there is a work around MB makers can make in BIOS.

Here's the issue

PCIe 1.1 cards in PCIe slots off the MCH lead to boot failures.
Problem: The Intel® X38 Express Chipset sets the TS1 Ordered Set - Symbol 4 Bit[6] to 1b when a PCIe 1.1 card is plugged in. This is a reserved bit which is used in PCIe 2.0 to broadcast support for selectable de-emphasis. PCIe 1.1 Specification states that Bit[6] should be set to 0b. With some 2.5 GT/s PCIe 1.1 I/O cards of widths x8/x4/x1, system restarts and hangs were exhibited during PCIe link initialization when populated in MCH slots.

Implication: System unable to train some 2.5 GT/s PCIe 1.1 cards that don't comply with the PCIe 1.1 Specification. Failures have occurred across multiple vendors and different types of PCIe 1.1 cards.

Workaround: Contact your Intel field representative for the latest BIOS information. Modification to the Link Stability/Recovery Algorithm will fix this issue when using non-compliant cards but customers should continue working with their card vendors for PCIe 1.1 Spec compliancy.

Status: No Fix. For affected steppings, see the Summary Table of Changes.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/chip...t/31761101.pdf

[safan80]

I wonder if it is just because I have a newer model card (1231), maybe they fixed/updated something in the newer models?

no keep dreaming. I have a 1280ML which is the same onboard cpu.

can you post a bios pic?

[oiler]

A pic of the x38 BIOS or Areca BIOS, and what page of the BIOS?

no keep dreaming. I have a 1280ML which is the same onboard cpu.

can you post a bios pic?

[safan80]

A pic of the x38 BIOS or Areca BIOS, and what page of the BIOS?

a pic of the areca bios. the page does not matter.

[Ace-a-Rue]

Does anything change if you plug either or both of the floppy connectors in on the board?

i guess i didn't answer your question very well in my previous post after re-reading it...

i unplugged both 5/12v leads and it posts just fine...i found out from another poster that increasing the NB voltage takes care of the warm re-boot.

[oiler]

Here is that pic you asked for, let me know if you need anything else.

a pic of the areca bios. the page does not matter.

[safan80]

thanks. hopefully areca or somebody will fix this issue on other boards.

[shawn1998]

Alright, what is the verdict on the difference between 4X and 8X? Is there any real-world difference in performance? I have 3 150gig Raptors now and just got a 4th to add, I will be running them (4) in raid 0 on the Areca 1210. Will I be bottlenecking it if I left the 1210 in the upper 4X pci-e slot?

Shawn