Promise S150 SX4 hangs whole system during system boot (POST)... Plz help!

Hi there!

Just bought a Promise S150 SX4 SATA RAID controller, but my frustration and
anger have been growing ever since. :-/

My system detects the card right away, and the card starts to look for
drives. At the moment, I don't have any drives attached to it, so it should
just continue.

I have tried to plug the card into a machine where it works (a Dell Optiflex
270 running with Hyperthreading), so I know what should happen after it has
searched for attached drives. (It should show the amount of installed memory
on the controller card.)

However, after a short drive search, the cursor jumps to the right side of
the screen, and the whole system freezes completely. (Only way out is the
reset switch.)

No other PCI devices is installed, and I have tried to move the card through
all PCI slots, but the result is the same.

I have talked several times with Promise Tech Support. (They told me to
upgrade the MoBo BIOS and the controller's BIOS.) System still hangs.

Today I even went out and bought a new motherboard (A7N8X-X) with CPU and
RAM, but the problem is still the same on the new motherboard. BIOS is brand
new.

I have tried all sorts of BIOS settings, different RAM blocks on the
controller (a 64MB block of SDRAM PC100, and a 256MB block of SDRAM PC133).

Please, does anybody have any ideas on how to solve this riddle? I think it
has something to do with bus mastering, RAM timings, or conflicting
interrupts.... (not sure!)

Plz help anybody!!!

~Morten :-(

Heh... solved the issue after several days:

Just needed to plug in a PS/2 mouse.... (!!!!!!!)

The strangest thing I've ever met on a PC, but it works fine now.....!



Cheers,
~Morten



"Morten" wrote in message
...
Hi there!

Just bought a Promise S150 SX4 SATA RAID controller, but my frustration
and
anger have been growing ever since. :-/

My system detects the card right away, and the card starts to look for
drives. At the moment, I don't have any drives attached to it, so it
should
just continue.

I have tried to plug the card into a machine where it works (a Dell
Optiflex
270 running with Hyperthreading), so I know what should happen after it
has
searched for attached drives. (It should show the amount of installed
memory
on the controller card.)

However, after a short drive search, the cursor jumps to the right side of
the screen, and the whole system freezes completely. (Only way out is the
reset switch.)

No other PCI devices is installed, and I have tried to move the card
through
all PCI slots, but the result is the same.

I have talked several times with Promise Tech Support. (They told me to
upgrade the MoBo BIOS and the controller's BIOS.) System still hangs.

Today I even went out and bought a new motherboard (A7N8X-X) with CPU and
RAM, but the problem is still the same on the new motherboard. BIOS is
brand
new.

I have tried all sorts of BIOS settings, different RAM blocks on the
controller (a 64MB block of SDRAM PC100, and a 256MB block of SDRAM
PC133).

Please, does anybody have any ideas on how to solve this riddle? I think
it
has something to do with bus mastering, RAM timings, or conflicting
interrupts.... (not sure!)

Plz help anybody!!!

~Morten :-(