> WD 74GB RAPTOR 16MB CACHE INCOMPATIBLE, Previous generation with8MB of cache work fine.

I have five A-Bit IC7-G motherboards, each of which is equipped with 4
SATA ports,

2 are on the Intel ICH5 controller
2 are on a separate SiI 3112 chipset

My old raptors:

1- WD740GD-00FL
2- WD740GD-00FL

Work fine in this motherboard, on either chipset.

The newer ratpor drives (16MB cache) are NOT seen at all.

Their model numbers are:

1- WD740ADFD-00LR1
2- WD740ADFD-00LR1

The only way I can even get the machine to see them is if I enable the
RAID BIOS on the SiI chipset, that is the ONLY way to recognize the drives
on the motherboard itself.

I plugged in the two 16MB cache drives into a Promise SATA 150 TX2 Plus
card, no issues. Perfectly recognized. Does anyone know if WD will / can
send a firmware update to fix this issue? Or can anyone recommend anything
else? I've tried all of the various BIOS settings imaginable and like I
said I have several of these A-Bit IC7-G motherboards and _ALL_ 74GB
raptors with 8MB of cache work fine, no issues.

Any ideas/recommendations on what to do next?

Thanks,

Justin.

I have the same problem. I originally plugged 2 raptor 74gig
drives(16meg cache) into the secondary(Sil) SATA controller to clone
the drive from my older bootable raid 0 SATA drives, on the
mainboard(Intel) SATA controller. This worked fine for me since I did
set the Raptors up in raid 0 format. After cloning the drive, I swapped
my old SATA drives to the secondary SATA contoller(Sil) and put the
Raptor drives on the mainboard SATA controller(Intel) and this is where
the problem started. When the machine boots, it reads the memory and
tells me Hyperthreading is enabled, but then just freezes at that
point(the next step would be to recognize the IDE drives). No matter
what Bios settings I change, it will not get past that point UNLESS I
disconnect BOTH Raptor drives, which I can actually do on the fly, when
it's frozen, remove the plugs and the machine will immediately continue
to boot.

There is something not right with either these drives and/or the IC7
Intel SATA controller bios(I'm betting it's the latter). Unfortunately,
since the IC7g is discontinued, I doubt this will ever get fixed. The
only way around it is to leave the Raptor drives on the secondary
SATA(Sil) controller and tell the bios to boot from that.

If anyone knows a way around this, please post.

Thanx

Chuck


Justin Piszcz wrote:
> I have five A-Bit IC7-G motherboards, each of which is equipped with 4
> SATA ports,
>
> 2 are on the Intel ICH5 controller
> 2 are on a separate SiI 3112 chipset
>
> My old raptors:
>
> 1- WD740GD-00FL
> 2- WD740GD-00FL
>
> Work fine in this motherboard, on either chipset.
>
> The newer ratpor drives (16MB cache) are NOT seen at all.
>
> Their model numbers are:
>
> 1- WD740ADFD-00LR1
> 2- WD740ADFD-00LR1
>
> The only way I can even get the machine to see them is if I enable the
> RAID BIOS on the SiI chipset, that is the ONLY way to recognize the drives
> on the motherboard itself.
>
> I plugged in the two 16MB cache drives into a Promise SATA 150 TX2 Plus
> card, no issues. Perfectly recognized. Does anyone know if WD will / can
> send a firmware update to fix this issue? Or can anyone recommend anything
> else? I've tried all of the various BIOS settings imaginable and like I
> said I have several of these A-Bit IC7-G motherboards and _ALL_ 74GB
> raptors with 8MB of cache work fine, no issues.
>
> Any ideas/recommendations on what to do next?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Justin.

I'm having the exact same problem with a new WD740ADFD 16MB raptor
bought a couple of days ago for my IC7-G. So far the only way I can ge
it to work is by running it from the Silicon Image controller
Absolutely a no go on the ICH5 channels. The ONLY way I've been able t
get it to get detected on the ICH5 is to reset the BIOS with the jumper
When it reboots and you get the checksum error press F1 and it actuall
detects perfectly. However, as soon as you go into the BIOS, even i
you change absoutely nothing it will stop detecting again. Thats how
was able to install windows on it. I couldn't get XP to find th
drivers for the SIl on the floppy during install so I had to install i
through the ICH5 and just press F1 every time it rebooted. Onc
everything was installed and the the SIl controller was detected an
installed in XP, then I moved the drive over to the SIl controller an
set all my BIOS settings back to normal. I'd really like to get th
drive to work on the ICH5 normally so if anyone has any ideas... A
least I'm glad to hear its not just my system

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On Jan 13, 6:17 am, Velosapien <Velosapien.2kc...@nospamplease.com>
wrote:
> I'm having the exact same problem with a new WD740ADFD 16MB raptor I
> bought a couple of days ago for my IC7-G. So far the only way I can get
> it to work is by running it from the Silicon Image controller.
> Absolutely a no go on the ICH5 channels. The ONLY way I've been able to
> get it to get detected on the ICH5 is to reset the BIOS with the jumper.
> When it reboots and you get the checksum error press F1 and it actually
> detects perfectly. However, as soon as you go into the BIOS, even if
> you change absoutely nothing it will stop detecting again. Thats how I
> was able to install windows on it. I couldn't get XP to find the
> drivers for the SIl on the floppy during install so I had to install it
> through the ICH5 and just press F1 every time it rebooted. Once
> everything was installed and the the SIl controller was detected and
> installed in XP, then I moved the drive over to the SIl controller and
> set all my BIOS settings back to normal. I'd really like to get the
> drive to work on the ICH5 normally so if anyone has any ideas... At
> least I'm glad to hear its not just my system.
>
> --
> Velosapien
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Velosapien's Profile:http://www.futurehardware.in/member.php?userid=559
> View this thread:http://www.futurehardware.in/showthread.php?t=560145
>
> Future Hardware -http://www.futurehardware.in

I have an IC7-max3 and the following worked: In the bios, under
softmenu setup, change CPU operating speed to user defined. Then
change The AGP ratio to fixed. Leave all other values the same. The
board will now recognize the raptors.