crucibelle
Senior member
To anyone who has this board: Did it come with a sata cable? I'm wondering because on the pics shown of the bundle on newegg, it doesn't look like it comes with one. Thanks!
My MSI RS480M2-IR from Newegg came with one SATA cable that combines a SATA data connection with an ATA to SATA power adapter.
Quick RAID questions for those with the board:
Does this board let you configure 1 SATA drive by itself and 2 or 3 SATA drives in a RAID config? What about 2 SATA drives in RAID-1 and 2 in RAID-0?
I can't seem to find a copy of the manual online. . .
Does this board let you configure 1 SATA drive by itself and 2 or 3 SATA drives in a RAID config? What about 2 SATA drives in RAID-1 and 2 in RAID-0?
I can't seem to find a copy of the manual online. . .
- Aug 22, 2001
- 31,719
- 31,629
- 146
@$94 shipped with all the features including good IGP+ surroundview capability, this is a sweet little board. I think a supporting version of corecenter or clockgen will end up allowing some fsb increase for a little overclock too.
I'm afraid you'd find the manual a bit disappointing, LOOPY. The manual contains no detailed descriptions of the SATA RAID functionality.
- Aug 22, 2001
- 31,719
- 31,629
- 146
Did you check the CD that comes with the board? Often to save costs, they will put it there in .pdf.
The CD with the various drivers for the motherboard, the integrated sound, the integrated video, the integrated gigabit ethernet, etc. has no mention of the SATA RAID controller. The system BIOS has an area to change the SATA controller from disabled to active or to RAID. The BIOS also shows the 4 SATA channels for drive detection purposes, but that's about it.
The motherboard came with a 3.5" floppy disk that contains the Windows XP/2000 SATA RAID driver. It's listed as a Silicon Image Sil3112, but I don't have any SATA drives so I don't have any practical way to install or test this feature.
A bit of quick reading seemed to indicate that a lot of the functionality surrounding the Sil3112 chipset controllers is software based. The controller's feature set varies a good deal depending on what it was programmed to do.
Short of somebody actually installing and testing a RAID configuration on an RS480M2-IL, it's going to be pretty tough to guess what it can or can't do.
The motherboard came with a 3.5" floppy disk that contains the Windows XP/2000 SATA RAID driver. It's listed as a Silicon Image Sil3112, but I don't have any SATA drives so I don't have any practical way to install or test this feature.
A bit of quick reading seemed to indicate that a lot of the functionality surrounding the Sil3112 chipset controllers is software based. The controller's feature set varies a good deal depending on what it was programmed to do.
Short of somebody actually installing and testing a RAID configuration on an RS480M2-IL, it's going to be pretty tough to guess what it can or can't do.
i;'ve got that board, with 1 gb of nanya originals pc3200, a 3200 athlon 64, in a uATX compaq overstock case with SL350 antec PSU. NEC 2510 DVD writer.
i have it running win2k pro. 1 , it craps out all the time randomly because cool and quiet basically ruined my entire computer . need to install xp to see if it not broken. it also randomly reboots sometimes upon booting win2k sp4.
anyhow, hopefully xp sp2 is a lot better. if i try to play a dvd it just stutters because it seems like there is some sort of problem with it reading the dvd drive. it is very slow reading the dvd. oh well , i will try it later this week with a 36gb raptor drive and a new install.
I'm curious if other owners of this MB using WinXP have problems with Cool and Quiet like hans007 is having with win2k? I'm interested in this board, and would like to use CnQ. Thanks.
No problems with CnQ at all with WinXP. Works like a charm and can barely hear the fans while it is throttled down.
oh yeah. in the bios you can set the SATA to act as IDE drives in windows, or as sata raid. i only have 1 sata drive (36 gb raptor), so i set it as IDE drive, and in windows it just detects it as a standard IDE drive
Built a machine with this board to try out for our shop, and honestly, it's the most impressed I've been with an IGP board since my first NF2 IGP board a couple of years ago. Very complete feature set. We're using it with an Athlon 64 3000+, and it's been fairly solid so far. Loaded up Far Cry to see if I could stress it, and with 1GB of RAM in dual channel, it ran beautifully in 1024x768. Color me impressed.
We're not interested in overclocking, so I can't comment there. Definitely the most economical Socket 939 board out there right now as it allows you to go ahead and upgrade without having to spend additional money on a video card (around $70 being the cheapest I've seen for PCIe) while leaving the option open for the future.
Only problem I ran into was with installing Windows on a SATA HD. The floppy that ships with the mobo is labeled Sil3112 for RS480, but Windows setup bombs out with a blue screen using that driver. The driver date on the floppy is Sept 2004, so I think MSI may have accidently used an old image when creating the floppies at the factory. Just download the driver from MSI's website (which shows a Feb date code, and has a driver file size of 22k vs 17.5k on the floppy) and overwrite what came on the floppy originally, and it should work. Took me a few minutes to figure this one out, but other than that, it's been smooth sailing.
We're not interested in overclocking, so I can't comment there. Definitely the most economical Socket 939 board out there right now as it allows you to go ahead and upgrade without having to spend additional money on a video card (around $70 being the cheapest I've seen for PCIe) while leaving the option open for the future.
Only problem I ran into was with installing Windows on a SATA HD. The floppy that ships with the mobo is labeled Sil3112 for RS480, but Windows setup bombs out with a blue screen using that driver. The driver date on the floppy is Sept 2004, so I think MSI may have accidently used an old image when creating the floppies at the factory. Just download the driver from MSI's website (which shows a Feb date code, and has a driver file size of 22k vs 17.5k on the floppy) and overwrite what came on the floppy originally, and it should work. Took me a few minutes to figure this one out, but other than that, it's been smooth sailing.
I'm running the RS480M2-IL with XP Home SP2 and the C&Q functionality has been terrific so far. I've got an Antec SLK1650 super mini tower case with a TruePower 350 watt power supply and a 120mm case fan. Combined with the C&Q functionality and a Radeon X800XL video card, the system is always reasonably quiet and often whisper quiet at idle.
I'm pulling slightly better 3DMark05 scores than folks with X800XLs on nForce4 Ultra boards.
I have no complaints about the RS480M2-IL and I would happily buy another one of these boards if given a reason.
I'm pulling slightly better 3DMark05 scores than folks with X800XLs on nForce4 Ultra boards.
I have no complaints about the RS480M2-IL and I would happily buy another one of these boards if given a reason.
i wish i could afford a x800xl. i've been playing world of warcraft with the onboard video at 1024x768 and its actually not bad. but well.... bought a used x700 pro 256mb on ebay ($145 shipped, half a x800 =( ), should make a good match
rbV5
Lifer
- Dec 10, 2000
- 12,632
- 0
- 0
Well, my X800 XL is here and no rig to pop it into, looks like I'll be ordering one of these + 90nm AMD64 3000+ to plop it into in the morning. I plan on sticking it all into an Antec Aria unless someone has a better SFF or Cube case to look at.
I won't be overclocking the card or CPU in this rig, so I'm "hoping" the 300 watt Antec PS will work OK, and the stock AMD cooler will be adequate. The X800 XL will only stay in the rig untill a good overclocking RS480 w/ULI southbridge (like the jetway) board comes out, then it will be strickly using the onboard in a HTPC solution.
I won't be overclocking the card or CPU in this rig, so I'm "hoping" the 300 watt Antec PS will work OK, and the stock AMD cooler will be adequate. The X800 XL will only stay in the rig untill a good overclocking RS480 w/ULI southbridge (like the jetway) board comes out, then it will be strickly using the onboard in a HTPC solution.
Have the same mobo and about to do the honors of installin it. Ready with 939 3000+ and 1giga 2-3-2 HyperX. Will also use onboard for now but itchin for gettin powercolor x800 xl. I got inwin case, mini mATX black tower, helluva case, got 300w atx12v with 120mm fan. Waitin for zalman 7000 alcu led with arctic silver from ZZF to start it. Reading this post i am prepared for issues with sata (have fresh deathstar 120 
).
had aiw 9800pro before that in Athlon XP sytem, now one thing that I wish was there that RS480M2 had DVI. Have VB912B and it's kinda sad to use it with VGA. Lookin for anythin minimum of aiw 9800pro equal (256-bit, DVI, core/mem speed) plus future proof... I stopped at powercolor x800 xl, seems like worth extra $xxx to kinda get set for coupla years u think? To cover aiw portion i got powercolor theater 550, separate tv/vid solution seems to be the best. Plus its 550 is better than 200 on aiw x800 xt, will take the unnnecessary load of proc, plus loks better aaand ati HDTV seems to suck for now. Will tell how it is in few days after I install everythin, post few pics too probably....waited for this board since november
).had aiw 9800pro before that in Athlon XP sytem, now one thing that I wish was there that RS480M2 had DVI
. Have VB912B and it's kinda sad to use it with VGA. Lookin for anythin minimum of aiw 9800pro equal (256-bit, DVI, core/mem speed) plus future proof... I stopped at powercolor x800 xl, seems like worth extra $xxx to kinda get set for coupla years u think? To cover aiw portion i got powercolor theater 550, separate tv/vid solution seems to be the best. Plus its 550 is better than 200 on aiw x800 xt, will take the unnnecessary load of proc, plus loks better aaand ati HDTV seems to suck for now. Will tell how it is in few days after I install everythin, post few pics too probably....waited for this board since november Yeah i suspect it's not a good oc material. It's seems to be solid product though, and maybe with different bios it has potential coz Xpress 200 chipset seemed to have one. I got zalman with arctic silver anyway coz I hope to get 3000+ to 2.0 ghz and even if I don't in silent mode it's gonna be quiter than stock HSF.
Did anybody try to use Core center to oc or somth else? Is it like completely non oc?
Did anybody try to use Core center to oc or somth else? Is it like completely non oc?
From what I've been reading elsewhere, this board does not have gigabit ethernet, correct? Also, by no overcloacking options does that mean ram will only run at SPD and nothing else?
Has Realtek 10/100 Ethernet.
You can play with CAS timings on the Ram, but nothing more. There are also NO voltage adjustment options at all.
Anxiously waiting for the day a "Real" Bios is released for this board.
Onboard video is not that bad. I have been playing HL2 @ decent quality for the past week with no issues. Sure I would love a 6600GT or even better an X800-XL, but I don't have the money to spend just yet. In the meantime, the OB video is enough to get me by... bet integrated video to ever hit the market
That's what I thought, not that I have any use for gigabit ethernet anyway since I usually only have one computer : ) So you can play with the CAS timings? That's cool. I found some Mushkin memory that will run at 2-2-2-5 at 2.5v so will this board let me set all those timings? I have no need to overclock, I just want my memory to run at those timings since I'll be paying for it : ) I'm assuming the board runs at the JEDEC standard 2.5v for DDR 400, correct? Thanks : )
i will let you adjust just the CL timing , not the ras or anything else.
so you can choose 2 , 2.5 or 3
Oh, forgot to check this thread.
I encountered something very strange, there are no SATA drivers for this board. The SATA ports are handled by ATi's chip however, MSI includes a driver disc that has a Silicon Image driver for it. I tried to install Windows using those drivers and it would not recognize the disc. I looked both on MSI's website and ATi's and I cannot find drivers for this board on either one (SATA drivers).
Has anyone been able to get SATA to work? It was on a build for a friend and I ended up buying an IDE 80GB drive to install on instead. Since my friend now has his system, I won't be able to try out anything, but thought I'd offer my experience in case anyone else might be thinking to do the same.
I encountered something very strange, there are no SATA drivers for this board. The SATA ports are handled by ATi's chip however, MSI includes a driver disc that has a Silicon Image driver for it. I tried to install Windows using those drivers and it would not recognize the disc. I looked both on MSI's website and ATi's and I cannot find drivers for this board on either one (SATA drivers).
Has anyone been able to get SATA to work? It was on a build for a friend and I ended up buying an IDE 80GB drive to install on instead. Since my friend now has his system, I won't be able to try out anything, but thought I'd offer my experience in case anyone else might be thinking to do the same.
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