P5B Deluxe Slow Boot

I have a P5B Deluxe MB with an E6600 cpu and 2 Gig of memory. The BIOS has
been updated to 0804. The only thing that has been modified in the BIOS is
the Voltage for the Corsair Memory (2.1V) and the DDR2 timings (4-4-4-12).
The system is set up with a Raid 0 array using two Maxtor Maxline III 250
Gig SATA II drives. A Samsung SATA DVD burner is also in the mix. The
JMicron controller has been turn off. The two ethernet controllers are turn
on but only one is used (seems ASUS has got either the manual screwed up or
the board - 1 is 2 and 2 is 1 according to WinXP). Finally, I have seen
several problem postings concerning the time it takes the P5B Deluxe to
boot. I have that problem. The system posts all the good information and
then the curser goes to the top left corner and blinks for several seconds
and then moves down 3 or 4 lines and then blinks for several more seconds
then the disk light starts to blink and WinXP load in a couple of seconds.
My question is - what the #$%^ is going on for 18-20 seconds while the
cursor is blinking? It seems like the BIOS is in there trying to figure
something out and then moves on. I have seen postings that said turning off
the Q-Fan(s) makes the problem go away - not on my system. Anybody out
there got some other suggestions on what I need to do to fix this problem.
Other than the boot up delay the system is every bit as good as I
anticipated.

Have you tried booting with the JMicron controller on and
an IDE device attached? I have a P5B Deluxe WiFi with
E6600 and 2 Gb OCX 800 Mhz RAM, and very fast booting
with IDE DVD/RW and DVD ROM attached to the JMicron.
Also have a floppy attached. The board Rev is 1.03G. The
BIOS seems to give preference to the JMicron over the
Intel SATA controllers. If you put an IDE HD on the
JMicron it becomes Drive 0, and SATA 1 becomes Drive
2.

I found the same issue with the LAN designations. I am
connected to #2 on back panel with #1 LAN disabled in BIOS.
XP thinks I only have one LAN. If you connect to #1 and
disable #2, XP sees both for some reason and complains
that #1 is not connected.

One aditional piece of information I forgot to mention in the original post.
This machine has an XFX NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS video card installed. The
driver version is 9.1.4.7 dated 8/11/206. I think that is the latest and
greatest driver. The WinXP Device Manager says everything is "OK".

"Ken" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
>I have a P5B Deluxe MB with an E6600 cpu and 2 Gig of memory. The BIOS has
>been updated to 0804. The only thing that has been modified in the BIOS is
>the Voltage for the Corsair Memory (2.1V) and the DDR2 timings (4-4-4-12).
>The system is set up with a Raid 0 array using two Maxtor Maxline III 250
>Gig SATA II drives. A Samsung SATA DVD burner is also in the mix. The
>JMicron controller has been turn off. The two ethernet controllers are
>turn on but only one is used (seems ASUS has got either the manual screwed
>up or the board - 1 is 2 and 2 is 1 according to WinXP). Finally, I have
>seen several problem postings concerning the time it takes the P5B Deluxe
>to boot. I have that problem. The system posts all the good information
>and then the curser goes to the top left corner and blinks for several
>seconds and then moves down 3 or 4 lines and then blinks for several more
>seconds then the disk light starts to blink and WinXP load in a couple of
>seconds. My question is - what the #$%^ is going on for 18-20 seconds while
>the cursor is blinking? It seems like the BIOS is in there trying to
>figure something out and then moves on. I have seen postings that said
>turning off the Q-Fan(s) makes the problem go away - not on my system.
>Anybody out there got some other suggestions on what I need to do to fix
>this problem. Other than the boot up delay the system is every bit as good
>as I anticipated.
>

Initially I had an IDE DVD/RW that I used to Boot the WinXP install disc -
trying to be ultra conservative since I had never used a SATA DVD/RW AND the
SATA DVD/RW did not want to boot some discs correctly until I updated the
BIOS to 0804. As I recall, the system still went into the cursor wait loop
with the IDE DVD/RW disc. I have not tried installing WinXP on an old IDE
hard drive - but even when I boot from a Floppy to DOS it does the cursor
wait thing. I have tried turning the JMicron controller on and off with the
same result.

Also, somewhere along the line I have lost the boot Intel Raid display and
the JMicron display. I can get at the display with the CTL-I for Intel at
boot and have not tried the JMicron CTL keys. I think this changed (for the
better) with the 0804 BIOS update.

The LAN issue makes you really wonder what is going on at ASUS letting a
problem that obvious get into mass production! But then I fought my P5P800
board for almost two years until someone told me to turn off the onboard LAN
and all my system crash problem went away!

"Ian D" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> Have you tried booting with the JMicron controller on and
> an IDE device attached? I have a P5B Deluxe WiFi with
> E6600 and 2 Gb OCX 800 Mhz RAM, and very fast booting
> with IDE DVD/RW and DVD ROM attached to the JMicron.
> Also have a floppy attached. The board Rev is 1.03G. The
> BIOS seems to give preference to the JMicron over the
> Intel SATA controllers. If you put an IDE HD on the
> JMicron it becomes Drive 0, and SATA 1 becomes Drive
> 2.
>
> I found the same issue with the LAN designations. I am
> connected to #2 on back panel with #1 LAN disabled in BIOS.
> XP thinks I only have one LAN. If you connect to #1 and
> disable #2, XP sees both for some reason and complains
> that #1 is not connected.
>

I guess I should have know... IT'S THE SATA DVD/RW DRIVE!! When I take it
out of the Boot sequence the cursor delay goes away. Thanks for the
responses - it led me to the source of the problem. So much for the
wonderful world of SATA DVD Drives. Any suggestions (ASUS/Intel) other than
the obvious?

"Ken" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
>I have a P5B Deluxe MB with an E6600 cpu and 2 Gig of memory. The BIOS has
>been updated to 0804. The only thing that has been modified in the BIOS is
>the Voltage for the Corsair Memory (2.1V) and the DDR2 timings (4-4-4-12).
>The system is set up with a Raid 0 array using two Maxtor Maxline III 250
>Gig SATA II drives. A Samsung SATA DVD burner is also in the mix. The
>JMicron controller has been turn off. The two ethernet controllers are
>turn on but only one is used (seems ASUS has got either the manual screwed
>up or the board - 1 is 2 and 2 is 1 according to WinXP). Finally, I have
>seen several problem postings concerning the time it takes the P5B Deluxe
>to boot. I have that problem. The system posts all the good information
>and then the curser goes to the top left corner and blinks for several
>seconds and then moves down 3 or 4 lines and then blinks for several more
>seconds then the disk light starts to blink and WinXP load in a couple of
>seconds. My question is - what the #$%^ is going on for 18-20 seconds while
>the cursor is blinking? It seems like the BIOS is in there trying to
>figure something out and then moves on. I have seen postings that said
>turning off the Q-Fan(s) makes the problem go away - not on my system.
>Anybody out there got some other suggestions on what I need to do to fix
>this problem. Other than the boot up delay the system is every bit as good
>as I anticipated.
>