Boot pause: ECS nForce3 / Samsung SP2504C SATA

BIOS update, EIDE card, or overlay software? (FAQ Hard disk recognition)
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peach1971
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Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:26 pm

Hi there,

I´ve already built four rigs containing mobo ECS nForce3 A-939,
two with P-ATA HD, two with Samsung S-ATA HD.

The rigs with S-ATA HDs came up with an interesting "feature" during and after the WinXP installation:

After the two BIOS screens appearing it takes 30 seconds until the Windows loading screen shows up.
Absolutely no HD activity during this pause.
No further problems. Performance, frequencies, voltages -> OK

Well, after veryfying (100% sure) that it cannot be an issue due any other problem (in coop with ECS Tech Support),
I want to mod my BIOS to get rid of this error.


ECS nForce3 A-939

BIOS Type: Award
Award BIOS Type: Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Award BIOS Message: Nforce3-A939 Ver 1.0D 12/27/2005
System BIOS Date: 12/27/05



SAMSUNG SP2504C:

484521 Cylinders
16 Heads
63 Sectors/Track, 554 Bytes/Sector
LBA Sectors: 488397168

Data for the other Samsung (200GB) SATA not available at this time.
Could post it later (friend´s PC).

CPU: AMD Athlon64 3700+ SanDiego ADA3700KA5CF

Even killing the HD content with Active@KillDisk & start sectors with s0kill.exe didn´t help.
Plus - yeah - disabling onboard LAN has no effect on the problem.

I´m willing to use any helpful hint & software.
Unfort. I´m new to BIOS mods, but I´d call myself a "pro" and have 100% motivation to get into it. :)

Here´s what MODBIN.exe read out of the original BIOS-bin dated 2005/12/27 in the section "Drive Table", if this is helpful:

Image
Looks weird to me, but I´ll be patient. :wink:


Thanks for your help! :D:

P.S.: German language topic @ECS: http://194.122.91.123/deutsch/viewtopic.php?p=1248#1248
edwin
The Hardware Archivist
Posts: 6286
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

sounds like the disk is not responding in time for the bios to pick it up, bios reboots, bios tries to pick up disk and eventually it gets it inside the timing frame.

If you have something like harddisk pre-delay I'd try that first. Is this only with these Samsung SATA disks or do other disks have the same problem?
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
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