ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev. 2.00 Initial Boot (RAID) problem and questions. Help please!

[Lysimachus]

Hello all! I recently purchased my new ASUS A7N8X Rev. 2.00 motherboard. Everything seems to be running fine. I installed WinXP Pro SP1 and installed my ATI 9700 Pro video card software.

My first question is, in order to be safe, I went ahead to download the latest BIOS from Asus' web site. I extracted the C18d1003.bin file to a floppy disk. However, I'm not sure what I'm doing in order to get to the flash utility. Should I update my BIOS? Or does Rev. 2.00 already have the latest one? Is there a later one?

My second question is, at initial bootup, it says

"Press <Ctrl+S> or F4 to enter RAID utility",

and then after a couple seconds it says something like:

"Primary Channel: RAID utility not found"
"Secondary Channel: RAID utility not found"

I don't have a RAID device and neither do I CARE! I bought this motherboard because of it's features, not because of it's RAID. What can I do so that this does not pop up at initial startup?

Also, I don't see the normal things I usually used to on previous motherboards. At initial startup, I would like to see when the Video card is detected, then is starts counting the RAM, the it displays the drives that are connected, and then from there it goes onto booting into windows.

But instead, it boots up (normally) but with this "Press <Ctrl+S> or F4 to enter RAID utility" message.

My third question is, is it necessary for me to install the latest drivers for this motherboard? If so, how do you install these drivers? After I finish downloading the drive, a bunch of files come in a Zip File that I have no clue what to do with. With my Epox board, the driver was simply a .exe icon, and could easily be installed. But with ASUS, they are all separated and in a zip file! How do you know how to install something like this?

Someone please help ASAP!

Thanx.

 

[rickn]

if no devices are hooked to the SATA then you don't have to worry about it

 

[Lysimachus]

SATA? What's that?

 

[azkiwi]

SATA = Serial ATA - its the port that does RAID. There is a jumper on the motherboard that enables (default) or disables this function. If you set it to disable you won't see that prompt any more.

The stuff you are used to seeing at boot still comes up but its so brief that it may whip by before your monitor powers up - just hold down the delete key at power up and you'll get the BIOS.

My Rev2.0 shipped with BIOS 1003 and 1004 is out but doesn't seem to address critical issues. My board shipped with a MANUAL too.:beer:

 

[ThumpR777]

Also for updating the Bios, Asus has a great utility that comes on your disk and enables you to update the Bios from Windows. Bios ver. after 102 should work OK for most RAM so you should be good to go from the the box.