Asus A7V Ultra ATA/100 IDE

Sorry for the long post, I'm trying to be detailed here
The other day I bought a new HD
Western Digital 30 GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM w/2MB buffer
I Ghosted my old HD on to this and plugged into the Ultra ATA/100 on the MB using the cable that came with the drive.
This (after some jumper setting issues on the drive) worked and booted into WindowsME as normal. The problem is...When I launch a program it will hang, when connected on-line the first app I open (Outlook or IE) will work but any other app will fail to respond.
Puzzled I tried disableing ATA/100 detect in the BIOS (which turned off the Ultra port making me switch the cable to the standard IDE).
After doing this switch, everything worked good again. Now Being that I have an Ultra ATA/100 drive I want to use it's full functionality, does anyone know about this problem with the A7V's Ultra ports?
Or any driver updates that I should consider? (it has the original BIOS on the board, I think from January this year and the drivers are all original from ASUS)
I hate doing BIOS updates, that last time I did one I lost the floppy drive...so, lets try not to consider it please...)

Did you cofigure the drive itself for ATA100? This is done with the Western Digital utility that you can download. The bios will detect the drive as ATA100 even if it is not configured as such. Also, you may have to temporarily connect the drive to an IDE channel as the WD utility might not detect the drive when attached to the A7V ATA100 SCSI port. After setting the drive, reconnect it to the end plug of the 80 wire ribbon cable and you should run the latest VIA 4in1 drivers. Let us know how you make out.

Have you installed the promise drivers in windows it will show up as a SCSI device in device manager

Tim, I ran the Ultra ATA software on the drive and it was already set as 100
Club, the Promise drivers do show up as a SCSI in the Device Manager.
I could run the Via 4in1 update, but last time I did that on this machine (before I formatted last month) I lost OpenGl functions in some applications...odd yes, but very Via.
Whould having a non-ultra drive on the same channel be causeing these problems? Stupid of me not to think that before, but if so, I have a minor problem of fitting a CD-RW, CD-ROM and a HD on one IDE channel...or no, I would have the primary standard IDE open with the primary HD on the primary Ultra, ok that might work then. *sigh* I'm loosing it again...

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Originally posted by mahdi:
Tim, I ran the Ultra ATA software on the drive and it was already set as 100
Club, the Promise drivers do show up as a SCSI in the Device Manager.
I could run the Via 4in1 update, but last time I did that on this machine (before I formatted last month) I lost OpenGl functions in some applications...odd yes, but very Via.
Whould having a non-ultra drive on the same channel be causeing these problems? Stupid of me not to think that before, but if so, I have a minor problem of fitting a CD-RW, CD-ROM and a HD on one IDE channel...or no, I would have the primary standard IDE open with the primary HD on the primary Ultra, ok that might work then. *sigh* I'm loosing it again...

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You might be on track here. Isolate that ATA100 on its own cable (even if you have to temporarily remove something else) and see how it goes. You might also have to bite the bullet and install the VIA 4.29 drivers as well.

I can't belive this...I tried the drive solo on the ultra channel, same thing. Swaped back (still solo) to the standard, I'm trying to download the 4in1 Via drivers and the Via page will not load...I'm doomed to my fate if not getting this working right :(

oh and now it keeps asking for the CD for Deus Ex when it is there...

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"I'm doomed as doomed can be" - Ed Grimley

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There are updated drivers available for the ATA100 SCSI but this shouldn't be causing your problem. Make sure the blue connector on the 80 pin cable is connected to the board and the black cable at the opposite end to the HDD. Put all your other drives on the standard IDE channels. You might try another ribbon cable as I would imagine the 80 wire ones are more fragile than the 40. The only problem I've had with these boards is with ME and IE5.5sp1. The ATA100 should be simple with the appropriate drivers.

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The only problem I've had with these boards is with ME and IE5.5sp1.

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Umm...that just happens to be exactly what I have :rolleyes:
Via 4in1 did no good, did a complete re-install of Deus Ex to get it working again (my saves survived! :D)
Blue connector on board = yes
Black Cable on Drive = tried that, didn't even see the drive...hooked up the grey part in the middle and worked on ultra (but only standard worked flawless)

I have the same board with 2 ultra ata 100 Maxtor I am using the current 4 in 1 drivers and the updated promise drivers running on WIN ME.How about the bios is it under (other boot devices) scsi/ata 100 selected. Is your CD connected to the other IDE connecters not the Primary ATA100 connecter. Is (onboard Ata device first) selected. I updated to 1004D bios. Good luck .

AHA! A clue! If the drive doesn't even show up when hooked to the end of the cable, you should start looking there. The first rule of fixing anything is to fix what you know is wrong before writing it off as being unrelated to the problem. Sounds like a bad cable because the controller doesn't know whether the drive is on the middle or the end connector and should detect the drive in either position. It is recommended that you put the primary drive on the end, but this is probably to eliminate resonance.

Go to the Asus site and make sure you have the latest Promise drivers (build 33, I think).

Here's a quick one...I have a Maxtor ATA66 drive and an Asus a7v133 mobo. Can I connect this drive to the ATA100 controller as my primary device?

Boricuamed, Yes, you can connect almost any EIDE device, but it is probably best to put harddrives on ATA 100 and other drive on IDE. The drive will run as ATA 66, but you must run the utility for the drive to be certain that it is configured as such. You may have to temporarily connect the drive to IDE for the utility to work, it might not find the drive on the ATA 100 channel. Once the drive is configured, you can swap it back to ATA 100 and it will retain the setting.