KT3 Ultra2-R without using RAID?

I have an KT3 Ultra2-R and have a RAID-1 setup with two IBM Desk/deathstar 75GXP 30GB HD's. However, the drives are starting to fail (this problem) and i'm thinking of replacing the RAID setup with just one big chunky drive.
I want to know if I can put a single drive on the raid channels without running it as a raid setup? I don't have enough normal IDE channels spare to put it there, and i can't afford to pay for two new HD's for a new RAID setup.
Thanks for any help.

Thanks
One final question, is it possible to plug one of the Raid-1 drives into say IDE2 so that I can boot from the remaining drive to allow me to apply the IBM patch for the HD problem to the other drive? (the patch can only be applied to drives not in a RAID conf)

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Can MSI K7N2 DELTA use SATA harddrive without using RAID??

Can MSI K7N2 DELTA use SATA harddrive without using RAID??
THNAK YOU

well sort off as although if you attatch a single drive you have to create an array in the raid bios ,its not a true array more a means for it to work with the drive
but if you mean without creating an array in the raid bios then no

KT3 Ultra2-R, RAID - single disc array

There are threads on this forum that discuss how to create a single disc array using onboard RAID to free up IDE1 and 2 for non-HDD devices.
What exactly does the following taken directly from the KT3 Ultra2-R page on MSI.com mean?
"Note: Only two hard disk drives will adopt the RAID function."
Does this mean that only a maximum of two arrays can be created using either 2, 3 or 4 physical hard drives?

My guess is that the wording of that warning is poor. What it is trying to say is that while four physical drives can be attached to IDE RAID those four physical drives can only be configured as 4 single disc arrays, 2 two disc arrays, or 2 single disc arrays and 1 two disc array.
Instead of "Note: Only two hard disk drives will adopt the RAID function." perhaps "Note: Each array can contain a maximum of two physical drives."
Also, risk_reversal, have you noticed whether or not the physical location of the connection to RAID affects the array? I currently have one single disc array on IDE3 master. If I move a new drive to that location and connect the current drive on IDE4 will that affect the array currently created for that physical drive?
I assume that the drive letters will change but other than that, is the RAID BIOS identifying the drives by some id other than just which IDE they are connected to?

How can I flash the bios of a MSI kt3 ultra2 without a floppy drive?

How can I flash the bios of a MSI kt3 ultra2 without a floppy drive?
I used the msi live update software to download the bios update programe...when I run it gives 2 options dos and windows
but the windows option is greyed out and the dos option requires a floppy drive (mine does not work)..what can I do?

I can tell you what you need to do but unfortunately - not how to do all of it.
You will need to make a bootable CD with the neccessary files on it .- Somewhere on the www you should be able to find the instructions. I have flashed from a CD with no problems on a K7S5A board . The CD image was available as a complete download and just needed burning to the CD so - apart from the obvious ( BIOS file , BIOS installer ,command.com,msdos .sys, io.sys)I don't know what else might be needed on the CD- unfortunately the disk I made is long gone.
I'm sure a search will find what you need to know.
Once you have the disk -just insert in CD Drive - restart and follow the instructions.
Dave

KT3 Ultra2 Raid Problems

when the raid is enabled and hd attached the boot sequence stops after the raid harddrives have been found and ctrl-f to enter setup has been displayed.
the drives are ok, they work fine on the standard ide connectors.
if someone can help, i would be very greatful.
system ;
kt3 ultra2-r
amd athlon 2000xp+
ati radion 9200 pro
herculese muse 5.1
3com network card
300w power supply

drives are 2xhitachi deskstar and 1xsegate baracuda, all 80gig, all are used as individual drives and the driversfor raid were installed while installing xp.
don know max amps, it just says
+3.3v - 20A
+5v - 30A
+12V - 15A
-12v - 0.8A
-5V - 0.3A
but the system doesnt even get chance to load the drivers because it hangs

KT3 Ultra2 (problems with raid).

I have 4 80gb hard drives set up on my pc, and am trying to set them up as plain jbod drives, but the fastbuild utility that creates the arrays wont allow me to do anything besides a 1+0 stripe. Ive looked around for information on the controller itself (mbfasttrak133 lite), and really cant find anything useful on it at all. The 1+0 stripe seems to result in 4 80gb hard drives, but ive heard that if one drive fails in this setup, ill lose the info on 2 drives.
My specs:
Windows 2k Pro SP4
4 Seagate 7200 rpm 80gb (ST380021A) drives (2 hard drives on ide1, and 2 hard drives on raid1)
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.753ghz)
1024 MB DDRAM
GeforceFX 5600 256MB

That could be a problem then, my board just came with the standard kt3 ultra2 manual, and a few cool extras (some kind of cut out), but no manual on raid, and nothing in the kt3 manual about raid beyond a basic description.

MSI KT3 Ultra2 uses VT8235 with KT333

MSI KT3 Ultra2 uses VT8235 with KT333. Can this be possible and what North/South Bridge Link is used?
VIA site illustrated VT8233(A) with KT333 and VT8235 with olny P4X400. ?(

The standard KT333 southbridge on MSI's KT333 boards is a VT8233A, which already supports ATA-133. USB 2.0 in the southbridge is the real difference. Hope it works as well as the NEC chip, which is rock solid with my USB stuff. Love it.
Regards.....

Can\'t boot without clearing cmos (kt3 ultra2)

Hi,
My kt3 ultra2 board won't boot up unless I clear the CMOS. I am using the following basic configuration:
Athlon 1800+ w/ alpha pal8045 heatsink
256 mb of samsung pc2700 ram
Radeon 8500LE graphics card
My psu is a 400W powmax. Here are the specs from the side of the unit:
3.3V 28A
5V 30A
12V 25A
my cpu temp peaks at 40C and the cmos battery is at 3.39V.
I am running at default settings w/ cpu fsb=100. Everytime I power up the computer (from cold start) I need to clear the CMOS. Otherwise, the D-Link lights hang on memory detection test.
Doing a soft reboot (ctrl - alt - del) once it starts up does not cause it to hang.
Either way once the thing boots it says:
CMOS/GPNV Checksum Bad
(does any one know if this could be why it's scewing up)
What could be causing this problem? Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you

I bought one of these boards about 2 weeks ago and have had terrible problems with my geforce 4 concerning exactly the same issue. Now from the support forums i have been reading, everyone seems to say different things. Either change your ram, power supply, graphics card (how would you feel if someone told you to change your geforce 4 ti4600 that you paid £300 for?)
Now lets face it, motherboards shouldn't have to be picky about components should they? Power supplies are "power supplies" at the end of the day, and yes sometimes there are good and bad makes and models, but it shouldn't stop someone from using a regular bog standard power supply. My thoughts and concerns about the KT3 Ultra 2 is that the motherboard manufacturer is in the wrong here and do not seem to be doing anything about it.
I've worked with PC's for about 4-5 years and have used many makes and models of motherboard and been able to get them working successfully every time, however the MSI KT3 Ultra 2 board is plagued with problems and it's about time someone did something about it. How would you feel if i sold you a car that would only go 10 miles and then stop working?
Matthew

KT3 Ultra2 R Raid Controller TIMEOUT

Can someone help me.
My problem is:
After a few minutes running WinXP-pro freezes for a few seconds.
In management console the event viewer shows an Error reported as "\device\SCSI\FASTRAK timeout... the controller didn't response to..." (I dont have the excact frase)
I've just installed XP pro on two WD Caviar 80GB IDE ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM in striping mode on my KT3 ultra2 r.
The disk reports as they were supposed to: 160gb.
I tried to follow the instruction, however I had some problems...
1. With the settings on the disks, the instructions told me to set both disk in master, but then "FastrakBios" didn’t recognize them. After changing the disk to CS, they where reported Ok.
2. Under normal formatting the computer froze..8 hrs formatting. I restarted the process, and selected quick formatting.
From this point everything went Ok.
I updated all MSI drivers, XP-Sp2, Fastrak drivers and all bios except Motherboard BIOS..
I've spent hours searching for troubleshoting/fixes or guidelines....

WD disks in stand alone mode can't be set to master, they need to be in CS or stand alone (no jumper) mode.
So that is not a problem.
I would recommend that you possably try changing the IDE cables and make sure they are not low quality rounded cables or over 50cm long because that can create problems.

KT3 Ultra2, XP2200+ lock up problems.

Hello there, I am having a lock up problem with my PC.
System Info;
MSI KT3 Ultra2 (6380E) (Non RAID)
Athlon XP 2200+ (.013 micron TB)
Enermax 350 Watt PS
Samsung PC2700 DDR (512MB)
Thermaltake Volcano 7 CPU cooler
Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra
And I am running Windows 2000 PRO.
Bios shows to be version 1 (I don't know how to check the version correctly) FSB is set to 133mhz. The PC runns stabile when set to 100mhx FSB, but when swithed back to 133, It locks while trying to run programs such as Norton AV 2003 , or SETI@home. Have not tried gaming yet do to this problem. Note too that in WIndows system info, processor shows to be AMD 1800+. Any advice would be greatly appriciated!! Thanks!! Jeepin_247 ;(

Those temps are definitly getting high. I can loop 3dmark for an hour and still only get up to about 43 c. If I understand you correctly you are running your cooler without and gease or thermal pad between your cpu die and cooler. That can definitly cause problems with heat transfer. I imagine your temperatures are continuing to rise a little causing lock ups. Apply some grease when you get it and your temps should drop a bit. A lot of people swear by artic silver. I am just using the standard gease that came with my cooler and it is working fine. I would probally use the artic silver if I started overclocking though.
There is a good sticky for bios settings in the MSI section at http://www.amdforums.com There sight is down right now so I can't provide the link. The setting are for the KT3-aru but they are good for the KT3 Ultra2.
Good Luck.

Problems w/ KT3 Ultra2 w/R

I think the best thing to do it's to explain the problem from the beginning.
A couple of months ago I bought my computer by components and put it togheter myself. Everything was fine, but there was a problem. Back then, my mobo was an ABIT KX7333R and it wouldn't boot if I changed the processor speed in the bios (it booted allright with the defalut -XP 1500- but when changed it to the real one -XP 2000- it didn't boot at all). So I used it for about 3 weeks with the default setting (I was too lazy at that moment to change the damn thing) and one night, the computer died while I was using it. Anyway, I assumed twas the mobo, so I requested a RMA from Abit, and had my motherboard replaced. The replacement worked fine for about 10 minutes, and when I was writing an email, puff, died again. At that time I was swearing and cursing, and blamed Abit. By then, I was tired of waiting and everything (just got stressed) so I ordered an MSI KT3 Ultra2 with raid. When I first booted the PC, the motherboard didn't recognized my HDD when I entered the Bios. I tried restarting, but the pc would not respond. So I checked the D-Bracket lights and they say that the problem was in the IDE controller or device. So I replaced my HDD with another one, but nothing happened.
So, my questions are:
1- Am I the guy with the worst luck in the world and got three defective motherboards in a row?
2- Could it be that something else in my PC is causing the problem?
If you have any questions, please post it here and I'll answer them. Here it's my computer components:
Athlon XP 2000
MSI KT3 Ultra2
Gainward GF4 TI4200
SB Audigy Gamer
3COM Ethernet card
Corsair XMS PC2700 512MB (Silver heatspreader)
Turbolink 420W PS
Lite-On CDRW
PS: Sorry for the length...

Have you tried with another CPU ? If not, please do so ; or return the CPU for RMA.

KT3 Ultra2-R new - running well 3000+ 512/PC3200

Well I've finally upgraded one of my machines from seriously poor to really quite good with this motherboard.
Wanted to upgrade the machine at minumum cost (other than processor) without throwing out quite a good (though old) AGPx2 graphics card. So I found a KT3 Ultra2-R on ebay. Had trouble finding a fast athlon to go on it. Even used no warrantee ones were selling for mad money on ebay-uk. Found a chap who could supply a new OEM XP3000+. Found the memory at ebuyer where it was cheaper than on ebay!
My existing PSU looked iffy for an athlon 3000+ so I found a good enermax one. A bit pricey but good. Its an older model so suitable for a 3.3 & 5v loading system such as this. Oddly there appear to have been two versions of the EG465P-VE. The older ones had 38/44/20 according to several places on the net, but this version has 35/35/35. It had me worried for a bit as I found the higher specs before I ordered it and the lower specs afterwards.
All running quite nicely.
Any recommendations to get the best performance out of it all. I may not want to madly overclock though as the old setup was notoriously unstable and I want this one to be rock solid.

I've left the BIOS on auto mostly - so the memory should be doing 333 (PC2700) - but its got headroom if I want to try clocking it up a bit AND it was cheaper than the memory rated PC2700, and its slightly more future proof.
I'm still trying to check the bios version at the moment. It goes past too fast to read on the first bios screen. Live update seems unhappy with Mozilla as a browser? Can't get sense out of it yet.
All seems stable although the onboard sound has disappeared in the last 24 hours. It was working before. sigh.

KT3 Ultra2 R and VGA problem

I wonder if I could please get some ideas as regard this rather odd problem which I am encountering. This problem occurs when while the pc is 'shut down' if I disconnect the power supply ie switch off power by way of the switch on the psu. When I switch power back on again and boot, the pc begins its booting sequence it begins to launch windows and then it stops and a little red square (with a bit of green) appears in the top left hand corner of the screen. Now this problem does not occur if I shut down the pc normally (but don't cut off power supply). I have several partitions on my HDD and they are all affect at the same time. The end result is that I boot into safe mode I look at the refresh rate which is set to 'unknown' change it to 'adapter default' then reboot but upon reboot I get windows displaying screen at 640x480 with standard vga colours. I check in device manager under 'display adapters' what driver it's showing and it's the driver which I last loaded ie the correct one. I cannot change screen resolution , bit colour and the refresh rate only allows for 2 options, either 'optimal' or 'adapter default'. In order to get back to where I was, I have to remove and re-install my VGA driver and then everyting is back to normal (until I switch off power again at psu then back to square one). I have spoken to the manufacturers of the graphics card and they say that if the card works ok when I shut down pc normally and restart then cannot be the card. I described my problem in greater detail to MSI support and they said either VGA or O/S.
In essence I wanted to isolate the problem to, is it 'hardware or 'software'.
I would be grateful if anyone can shed some light.
KT3 Ultra2 R (5.5 not the right one but the cpu clock speed is correct at post)
XP 2600+ 333 T'Bred
Crucial 512 Mb PC 2700
Leadted Ti 4400 128 MB Vivo (det 44.03)
Creative Audigy
Enermax 432W
Windows 98SE (via 4-1 v 4.34)
Seagate 60Gb 7200rpm I am running the HDDs as independant drives on the
Seagate 40Gb 7200rpm Raid controller ie one on IDE3 & one on IDE4

Odd as it might seem I have to follow the proceedure listed below if I want to switch off power altogether to work on my pc.
1. Cold boot system with 166FSB and let O/S install
2. Reboot enter Bios and reduce FSB to 133 make sure to set memory speed as HCLK and let O/S load
3. Shut down and switch off power supply
4. Reconnect power and boot system. Enter bios set FSB to 166 (the mem speed will be HCLK)
5. System continues to boot and loads O/S
From that point on, cold boots (without cutting power supply) are not problematic as once the 166FSB is 'registered' everything works ok (at every cold boot). So anytime I wanna work on my pc I guess I have to do the above 5 steps. They seem to work but need to try it out a few more times before I am confident that this process will always work.
I am sure you agree that this is one strange mother of a problem.
I suppose the only 2 things left are a total O/S reload or trying another 333 cpu because I have tried everything else. I guess I will have to live with it.
I have also cut some additional front vents so that front fan draws more air in and it appears to have dropped my idle Temp to 40.5C on CPU (running at clock 2083Mhz).
As as said earlier in my post my system ran perfectly with XP2000+ and 512Mb PC2100. I merely upgraded the CPU to XP2600 and mem to PC2700 and it has thrown up this very odd problem. And to boot (if you will pardon the expression) when I first installed new CPU and memory it booted first time at 166FSB. osnavi, in case you upgrade your CPU to a XP2600 and you get this weird problem at least you can come back to to this thread and find this workaround.
I wonder if anyone can fathom out why this is happening.......If not as I said I can live with it.
wonkanoby, I will try the link to the memtest. That is the only thing I have not tested so will give that a try.
-MSI KT3 Ultra2 Raid
-AMD XP2600+ 333 T'Bred
-Evercool CUD 725 Cooler
-2x256 Mb PC 2700 Crucial
-Leadtek Ti4400 128Mb Vivo
-Creative Audigy
-LiteOn DVD 16x
-Liteon CDR48125w
-HP CDR 9710i
-Seagate Barracuda IV 60Gb (I am running the HDDs on the raid
-Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB controller as 2 independant drives)
-2 Case fan
-Enermax 431W

KT3 Ultra2-R no boot/no beep D-Bracket 1&2 Red

I assembled a system with a KT3 Ultra2-R and an AMD XP 2100+ with 300W CodeGen-PSU.
The system ran well for 4 weeks without any crashes. Because i had the noisy AMD-boxed CPU-cooler, i installed a very silent noiseblocker-CPU-cooler. The first power-on bootet up to initialization of raid-controller an then the system hang.
The next boot, nothing happened: black screen, no beep, nothing. Only the fans are running. I reassembled the hole system x-times now, all with the same result.
I even changed the mobo to a brand new one -> same problem. I changed PSU to a 420 W -> same problem.
The D-Bracket says: 1 & 2 red, 3 & 4 green ("Initializing Hard Drive Controller"). The same result when i deattach everything from the board except PSU (yes: everything). No beep at all...
How can a brand new mobo and a brand new PSU with nothing else attached the same problem as the first mobo with my old PSU?
I have not changed the CPU or Ram yet, but how can the problem be there, when the error occurs when these parts are not attached.
What should the D-Bracket show, when I power on an empty mobo with PSU?
thanks in advance
(ps: i assembled all my pcs for the past 12 years by myself; so its no beginners problem for sure...)

a new cpu (now only a XP 1800+) took me one step ahead: windows xp is now coming up with a message (white on black) saying that the system tried starting unsuccessfully last time. then there is a choice how to boot now. but even if i choose "safe mode", the pc is booting again...
also, i cant get the floppy to work. in bios, the mobo says, its an 1,44 flopp (correct) but i dont get it in the boot order or boot menu.
so i cant install windows new, because raid-drivers are on the boot disk X(
another hard disk with installed windows xp also comes up the the scrren mentioned above and then hangs with a cursor blinking in the left top cursor of the screen.
i tried another graphic-card: an old "Interactive 3dfx Magix Twin Power": the pc beeps once long an then 3 times short on power on but keeps on booting.
the result is the same as above (pc hangs).
very, very strange

KT3 Ultra2-R w/Barton 2500+ will not run at 166FSB

hello again all . well in light of MSI's recent Bios revision for the KT3 Ultra2-R coming with support for the Barton up to 3000+ and the cost of the 2500+ coming down to $96 dollars (retail) at Newegg i couldn't resist the headache i now have. so far every attempt i have made at 166FSB has crashed and burned.
currently the system is running at 12.5x156 given that when i try to run at 11x157 to 11x160 the system locks during PCMark2002/3DMark2001SE benching. what's even more amusing is that if i go to 11x161 to 11x165 the system will not even fire up the drives on the Promise ATA133 RAID controller. at 166FSB the system outright doesn't post. MSI has responded to me and told me that it is my memory which i find comical as both sticks have been tried separately and that boot issue to the RAID doesn't read as a memory problem to me (not to mention Corsair would laugh at that as well especially since the sticks are capable of 200FSB and backed with a lifetime warranty to do such).
so aside from trying every memory timing configuration possible on the board, stripping it down to just the video card, memory, and drives, without any luck any other notions as to what would be the problem would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance!

Quote from: Bas on 07-November-07, 18:37:37
You should leave memory speed at spd/auto...
When you set the FSB, need to reboot before it kicks in.
If you check the memory speed after the reboot it should be upped as well.
This is the problem; the BIOS won't let me do what you've described.
If I reset the CMOS, the SDRAM settings look like this. So I go into Frequency/Voltage Control and change the FSB to 166MHz, like this, then the SDRAM settings have automatically changed to HCLK+66, like so and there are no longer any other options in the list, like so.
Saving the settings and exiting the BIOS causes it to fail to POST.

KT3 Ultra2-R without using RAID?

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