More about the 9500S-4 issues with the MoBo and FreeBSD...

[ray at redshift.com]

At 10:45 AM 11/29/2005 +0100, Olaf Greve wrote:
| Hi again,
| 
| Well, the plot thickens... Yesterday the machine was brought to my place 
|   (unfortunately without the user manuals :( ), so I could give various 
| things a try.
| 
| Bottomline: still no solution.

Hi Olaf,

  I would try flashing the BIOS on the 3ware card, although that's a long shot.
I would also check to see if there is a more recent BIOS for the motherboard.
I've cursed "very strange problems" in the past by flashing the motherboard bios
on supermicro motherboards a couple of times over the years (mainly on
workstations however).

  I wouldn't rule out a motherboard brand change.  While ASUS is "good", I
personally have avoided them for server use.  I've never had any direction
problems with them, but over the years we have had such good luck with Tyan and
Supermicro.

  I recall a situation some years back on a Workstation running Windows XP.  I
built the machine using an Intel 845 motherboard.  It was a nightmare.  I
couldn't get anything to work and the driver installation was a mess, etc.  So
many conflicts I couldn't keep track.  I returned the Intel MB and upgraded to a
Supermicro board and "presto" all the problems vanished.  Chipsets can have a
huge impact on things. 

  While I don't have any first hand experience with the motherboard you are
using, you may be knocking your head up against a wall with something relating
to the motherboard not liking the 3ware card or something with FreeBSD not
liking the chipset.  That's just a guess, but it's very possible.  

  I've used the 3Ware card in a number of servers and have never had any problem
with it while running under either Linux or FreeBSD.  

Ray