5 Comments

  1. Have you had any more luck with this Areca and the Asus A8N-SLI ???

    I don’t really want to go down the Opteron s940, Reg ECC DDR, PCI-X route if I can avoid it.

    Seems like PCI-e support is hit and miss for anything other than video cards. I really dont give a toss about SLI gaming. Stuffed if I can find a PCI-e AMD motherboard with a PCIe x8 or PCIe x4 (with open end and thus physically x8 compatible) slot.

    Those darn s939 Opteron servers boards, except for one limited Supermicro/Aplus model, seem to be nowhere.

    It all make my head hurt.

    Have you tried Linux at all ? I read about a few users with some sort of timing issue when using the Areca PCIe controller.

    Mike…

  2. I’ve installed the latest beta bios from Asus and still no change with the A8N-SLI Premium. It only boots properly every other time. I’ve exchanged e-mails with other users and the A8N-SLI Deluxe version does work properly with the Areca RAID card; not sure why the near-identical Premium version won’t. Very frustrating. I guess I need to “downgrade” to that motherboard. I agree that server boards are too rare and expensive to consider; there are just not many alternatives to consider. It is possible to use an exacto knife to cut the end off of a a 2x or 4x PCI-e slot, but you wouldn’t get the full 8x performance, so I’m not considering that.

    I have not tried Linux at all. I’m using WinServer 2003, though I wish I just would have going with XP as I’m not really using any of it’s extra features. I’ve also read of timing issues with the Areca controller; I’ve haven’t noticed anything with Windows because it apparently takes-over and resolves any issues.

    I do have another problem with the computer. It will just completely turn off for no reason. It won’t reboot or show a Windows BSOD crash screen, it will just completely shut down. It is not due to a power failure, so I’m not sure what the issue could be.

  3. Hey, I randomly found this post while googling. So this raid card works with the premium now? I have 5 WD 320GB’s just waiting for a raid card and apperently the promise offering is terrible. Glad things worked out for you 🙂

  4. Yes, the Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard now works with PCI-E RAID cards. ASUS apparently figured this out in early December, 2005 but didn’t release it to the public until March, 2006. I’m frustrated I had to wait that long, but a least everything is working now!

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