Need Help Running Adaptec ASC-29320LPE SCSI Card

[midiquestions]

I recently bought an ASC-29320LPE PCIe x1 card for SCSI duties in my PC, an HP Compaq dx7200 Microtower running Windows XP. (Normally I would use my 2920, but currently I am using both PCI slots.) However, after I've installed it, plugged the PC back in, and press the start button, it won't boot up past the BIOS screen. It says:

"Adaptec SCSI BIOS v4.31.4
Copyright 2007 Adaptec, Inc.
Press <Ctrl><A> for SCSI Select Utility"

Then it pauses for a few seconds, whether or not I've pressed anything (it's unresponsive -- but eventually beeping when I press a key, so I know it's registering the keystrokes), and then gives me this screen:

"Slot CH ID LUN Vendor Size Bus
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A         0    0

v01.56"

It also throws up some boot options at the bottom of the screen, F9, F10, and F12. I've tried all of them, and they don't advance me anywhere (although they do register that I've pressed one of the F-keys). I have left it unattended at this point for 15 minutes, and there's never any change. The only way I can get out of it is either a CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart, which just loops me back to this point, or by unplugging, removing the SCSI card, and restarting. Any suggestions?  I have also tried disabling the option ROM, but it still didn't boot into Windows.

[DaveLembke]

A         0    0

Are there any SCSI drives connected internally or externally to this card, if so what do you have their address set to, and is the terminator set or is one of the drives or ribbons auto termination?

Boot order if you want the SCSI drive to be the boot drive needs to have the SCSI controller at the top of the list before IDE or SATA HDD port in BIOS.

From within the <CTRL><A> SCSI utility you will set up which RAID setup your using if any etc.

Some off the shelf computers are very picky with their BIOS to support added SCSI controllers etc. I have seen some that wont run the SCSI controller because of a compatibility issue supporting the card, but most times it comes down to a very touchy BIOS config, in which once you find the sweet spot for it to work, you want to take note of it in case you ever reset your BIOS etc. Sometimes you need to go into Legacy Support options or advanced config options to mark the controller to have a higher priority than that of the integrated drive controller so that it wants to boot off the addon controller card and not the integrated to motherboard default.


Did you buy this SCSI controller new to where you can return it of its flawed?

[midiquestions]

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply.  To answer your questions:

There are no drives hooked up to it yet.  I will be hooking up a sampler (musical instrument) to it eventually.

I don't need to boot from it.

The CTRL+A doesn't do anything; the PC is basically unresponsive.  I get about ten keystrokes after that, and then it starts beeping every time I press a key.  When the card is in, F9/F10/F12 make it say, "Setup Boot," or whatever, but it doesn't actually take me anywhere useful.

I bought the card secondhand from a reputable (99.9% positive) commercial electronics seller on eBay.  It arrived packed in pink, anti-static bubble wrap and was well-cushioned, so I assume they know what they are doing in terms of testing it.

Sounds like it is finding the sweet spot that is the challenge?  I really don't know where to look.

[Lisa_maree]

Reading thru the manual which I found here

http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/installation_guides/scsi_installation_and_user_guide_02_07.pdf

It says
To avoid causing unstable operation, do not attach a cable to the SCSI card unless the
other end of the cable is attached to a least one disk drive.

Also if you can remove the PCI card next to the PCIe slot and see if it changes the out come.

The PCIe slot needs to be compliant with PCIe rev. 1.0 to use that card

[midiquestions]

Thanks Lisa.

I have not hooked up any cables to it yet; it's just there in the slot.

I can't remove the PCI cards next to it.  (There are two.)  Actually, if I could remove one, I would just use my PCI SCSI card, but I currently need both and can't see a way around using them at this point.

How would I find out if the PCIe slot is rev. 1.0 compliant?

[patio]

Did you happen to find XP drivers for the card and install them ? ?

[Lisa_maree]

Hi

The motherboard manual should confirm the PCIe compatiability.
Removing the card next to the scsii card was just to test not a solution.
Perhaps if you post the motherboard model I will check this all for you.

[DaveLembke]

Patio

Did you happen to find XP drivers for the card and install them ? ?

Doesn't appear to get that far to be a XP driver, sounds like its hanging at the BIOS due to temp SCSI controller BootROM and BIOS config issue and locks the system up. Might be a hardware compatibility issue as Lisa stated. However for the fact that the SCSI controller temp BootROM appears to start, but hang seconds later, it appears to initialize the SCSI card for the temp BootROM of the SCSI controller to display to user the <CTRL><A> SCSI controller config option to adjust SCSI controller config.

Thinking this card might have an old config in it that is incompatible with the new hardware that the card is placed into. But there is no reset jumper for the SCSI controller card to set it back to default and other than booting off of a floppy disk and using a SCSI flash ROM utility, that's the only way to get it back to default. I ran into a similar issue with some Intel 100 Managed NICs once that I bought 30 of them on ebay used. I ended up having to reflash the NICs using an intel flash rom utility for the cards to get some to behave as for someone flashed the Boot Rom on about 9 of them to a config that would cause the system to hang at boot and the hot key control to get into the card config at post was hidden and wouldn't take. After flashing the NICs clean, they were like new and wouldn't hang at post in the system they were in. I needed them to look for PXE and so they had to be at the top of the boot order, otherwise the fix would have been just placing the C: drive before PXE Network Boot for people not using PXE etc.

SCSI Controller and Managed NIC might be comparing apples to oranges, but they both have their own boot Roms and act the same if misconfigured for the hardware they are in. I have never locked myself out of a SCSI controller yet to this extent, but it could be possible if its configured in such a way that a hardware address conflicts through a legacy config.

[patio]

Page #54...

[DaveLembke]

Page #54...

  Cool... your ahead of me then on this. I didn't get that far in the manual. 

[patio]

Speedreading...

[DaveLembke]

Try flashing the adapter to reset to default factory settings and undo whatever config someone had prior.

http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/downloads/bios_fw/bios_fw_ver/productid=asc-29320lpe&dn=adaptec+scsi+card+29320lpe.html

[patio]

Their Driver page also...See Here...

If i remember correctly XP did not have native support for Adaptec devices...
They had sound vid SCSI and other device cards way back when...

[midiquestions]

Did you happen to find XP drivers for the card and install them ? ?

Yes, I did that at the beginning.