P5GDC-V Deluxe Raid 1 Hang on First Boot

Recently purchased a P5GDC-V Deluxe. 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB DDR-2. Trying to
config 2 120 Gig Sata drives in a Raid 1 (Mirror) configuration. .
Install of Raid Driver/OS (XP Pro) goes off without any issues. On
First boot, the system, hangs. Specifically on mup.sys . Tired
disabling mup.sys as i'm not planning to connect to a novell env, and
it would proceed to hang on the next file in line. Tried using
original, older raid drivers, updated the bios, swithed the SATA
channels, multiple installs, disabled all onboard devices, no pci card
installed, os installed on single sata drive without raid successful.
Any ideas would be appreciated. Solutions Preferred.

Thanks

Brass


--
Brass

In article , Brass
wrote:

Recently purchased a P5GDC-V Deluxe. 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB DDR-2.
Trying toconfig 2 120 Gig Sata drives in a Raid 1 (Mirror)
configuration. .Install of Raid Driver/OS (XP Pro) goes off
without any issues. OnFirst boot, the system, hangs.
Specifically on mup.sys . Tireddisabling mup.sys as i'm not
planning to connect to a novell env, andit would proceed to
hang on the next file in line. Tried usingoriginal, older
raid drivers, updated the bios, swithed the SATAchannels,
multiple installs, disabled all onboard devices, no pci
cardinstalled, os installed on single sata drive without
raid successful.Any ideas would be appreciated. Solutions
Preferred.

Thanks

Brass-- Brass

Dunno why, but this sounds a lot like a "WinXP SP2 microcode
problem". This is caused by mixing SP2 with a BIOS that doesn't
have a sufficient minimum revision of microcode for a
Prescott processor.

Find an OS you can get to boot, then follow this recipe:

http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=...GP15.phx. gbl

Latest beta BIOS:
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/downl...05.zip~zaqwedc

Latest official release BIOS:
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/downl...06.zip~zaqwedc

Now, something interesting happened when I dissected 1007.005. I
extracted the microcode segment from the BIOS, with AMIBCP75.exe .
Normally, it would be a simple matter, to use "cmtc microcod.exe /store"
to parse the microcode segment and spit out the microcode revisions.
CTMC processed a few and then bailed.

It seems either the microcode format has changed, to support newer
processors, or the microcode segment is really screwed up. My bet
is this is a new format. It looks like some microcode segments have
a hex length of 0x0800 (2K) and others look longer.

The format is documented here (PDF page 306):
http://www.intel.com/design/pentiumi...s/24319202.pdf

To hand parse the file, I use a hex editor, and look for "0x01"
on a 2KB (0x0800 hex) boundary. If I find one, chances are the
other header fields will line up. This is what I find.

1007.005

offset Family Update_revision
0x0000 0F25 2C
0x0800 0F37 02
0x1000 0F34 14
0x3000 0F34 08
0x4800 0F40 06
0x6000 0F41 06
0x7800 0F41 0D
0x9000 0F44 01

1006

offset Family Update_revision
0x0000 0F25 2C
0x0800 0F31 0B
0x1800 0F32 07
0x2000 0F33 0B
0x3000 0F34 13
0x4800 0F34 08
0x6000 0F40 06
0x7800 0F41 09
0x8800 0F43 04

Use the FrequencyID utility from Intel, and see what revision
of processor and Update_revision claim to be running. You
can actually look up the Family, by plugging the SSPEC off the
box the processor came in, here. SSPEC is a five character
field, like "SL123".

http://processorfinder.intel.com

If the microcode revision turns out to be zero, that means
that the BIOS didn't find a microcode to match your
processor family.

AFAIK, just running WinXP SP1 instead of SP2, will also fix this.

HTH,
Paul

In article ,
(Paul) wrote:

In article , Brass
wrote:

Recently purchased a P5GDC-V Deluxe. 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB DDR-2.
Trying toconfig 2 120 Gig Sata drives in a Raid 1 (Mirror)
configuration. .Install of Raid Driver/OS (XP Pro) goes off
without any issues. OnFirst boot, the system, hangs.
Specifically on mup.sys . Tireddisabling mup.sys as i'm not
planning to connect to a novell env, andit would proceed to
hang on the next file in line. Tried usingoriginal, older
raid drivers, updated the bios, swithed the SATAchannels,
multiple installs, disabled all onboard devices, no pci
cardinstalled, os installed on single sata drive without
raid successful.Any ideas would be appreciated. Solutions
Preferred.

Thanks

Brass-- Brass

Dunno why, but this sounds a lot like a "WinXP SP2 microcode
problem". This is caused by mixing SP2 with a BIOS that doesn't
have a sufficient minimum revision of microcode for a
Prescott processor.

Find an OS you can get to boot, then follow this recipe:

http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=...GP15.phx. gbl

Latest beta BIOS:

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/downl...05.zip~zaqwedc

Latest official release BIOS:

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/downl...06.zip~zaqwedc

Now, something interesting happened when I dissected 1007.005. I
extracted the microcode segment from the BIOS, with AMIBCP75.exe .
Normally, it would be a simple matter, to use "cmtc microcod.exe /store"
to parse the microcode segment and spit out the microcode revisions.
CTMC processed a few and then bailed.

It seems either the microcode format has changed, to support newer
processors, or the microcode segment is really screwed up. My bet
is this is a new format. It looks like some microcode segments have
a hex length of 0x0800 (2K) and others look longer.

The format is documented here (PDF page 306):
http://www.intel.com/design/pentiumi...s/24319202.pdf

To hand parse the file, I use a hex editor, and look for "0x01"
on a 2KB (0x0800 hex) boundary. If I find one, chances are the
other header fields will line up. This is what I find.

1007.005

offset Family Update_revision
0x0000 0F25 2C
0x0800 0F37 02
0x1000 0F34 14
0x3000 0F34 08
0x4800 0F40 06
0x6000 0F41 06
0x7800 0F41 0D
0x9000 0F44 01

1006

offset Family Update_revision
0x0000 0F25 2C
0x0800 0F31 0B
0x1800 0F32 07
0x2000 0F33 0B
0x3000 0F34 13
0x4800 0F34 08
0x6000 0F40 06
0x7800 0F41 09
0x8800 0F43 04

Use the FrequencyID utility from Intel, and see what revision
of processor and Update_revision claim to be running. You
can actually look up the Family, by plugging the SSPEC off the
box the processor came in, here. SSPEC is a five character
field, like "SL123".

http://processorfinder.intel.com

If the microcode revision turns out to be zero, that means
that the BIOS didn't find a microcode to match your
processor family.

AFAIK, just running WinXP SP1 instead of SP2, will also fix this.

HTH,
Paul

There is a newer microcode spec on page 353 here. That
would explain the funny stuff I found above.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pent...s/25366814.pdf

Paul