New Motherboard

[Hardball]

Hi Guys, A very very good friend of mine has just given me his old pc, due to his new pc purchase, i got all this minus hes hard drive, which is a great improvement from my currnet pc im running now, heres what he gave me


Case: Thermaltake Xaser2
PSU: 500W
MOBO: Gigabyte GA 7N400 Pro 2
CPU: unsure, either AMD 2600 or 3000, i have a 2800 in mine now
RAM: 1 Gig
DVD Rom
CDRW
Video Card: GT6600
4 case fans and kick arse heat sink fan
Also on the case in a drive bay is a Thermaltake hardcano12, which is like a digital readout of all heat stuff and fan speeds etc

My first problem after i clean it and buy a new hard drive would be getting the mobo going as i dont have any driver disks for nothing, ive searched on the net, but cant seem to find any,
is this an easy process?, as ive tried to i think flash my bios?, on a earlier machine and blew the motherboard, hence i dont want to do this again, could anyone please point me in the right direction to get all the drivers i will need to get the mobo going, i should be ok after that, but unsure about this bios thing, i think i have came across some drivers, but not 100% confident, hense asking for some proffesional advice

im pretty sure this is the actual mobo, hence the (Rev 2.0) thing as there is a Rev (1.0), but the cover fan over chipset is deffinatly rev2
GIGABYTE GA 7N400 Pro2 (Rev 2.0) Bios 1.10F

hope ive given enough info, and appreciate any help on the matter:) Thx Boys

[MaxRat]

Welcome to PcMech....

The Gigabyte 7N400pro2 is a Nforce 2 chipset...

Just go to nvidia.com and download NF2 platform drivers....thats all you'll have to do...

It will take care of board drivers, sound drivers, lan drivers and pretty much all of them Except the sata drivers if you plan to use sata to install the OS on via the F6 install route....

I may have those drivers in my cabinet as i still have one of those boards in service...

I use chipsetr drivers from the chipset makes site to keep current...;)

link to goodness.... http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1756

[Hardball]

Hi Maxrat, thanks for the welcome and the help, i just wanna make sure i get this right, here is a link at what im about to download

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf_pro_winxp_6.70.html

I became a little confused at the search section
when it asked for product type i clicked on..... nforce?
when it asked for product series? i clicked on.... nforce professional 2000 series?
xp operating series

and then it went to the above link is that what i need and just that? Seems to have sata drivers in there as well? sorry for the precauiton but as i said ive allready blown up 1 motherboard and dont wish to do that again. So will that take care of the bios stuff as well??

since posting this, ive just seen the link u put down the bottom of your first post to me, so ill have a look at that now to, thx again,

[MaxRat]

Yes....

Those are the platform drivers for your board...those DO include Sata drivers for once the OS is installed....

NOT the ones needed to install the OS...those drivers I think will be SIL3112 for the Silicon Image chipset....

The link I posted was for the motherboard itself and getting any driver you might need...like the SIL driver if you wish to install the OS on a Sata drive....;)

[Hardball]

Ok Thx Maxrat, i think im on my way, first time ill ever of used sata but thinking that this will be my games machine it will be the go. Its been a long long long time since ive mucked around with pc's but have put together a couple of older type machines, this is getting a little bit more into it than ive experienced, so basically buy a sata drive, put on win xp, then load drivers from above link im gonna download and then after that, then search for the other sata (sli) drivers?, Sorry if im stupid and annoying

Edit, sorry again, ill need the sli ones first to install xp on sata then after operating system is on then install drivers that come with the bundle pack im about to download, ok thx mate

[MaxRat]

to install a OS on a SATA drive you will need to supply the SATA drivers via F6 during the install proccess...

what you do it this....

download the Sata "Floppy" driver (may be called F6 drivers) from the Gigabyte site...

read the instructions and put them on the floppy as it states....

If memory serves....you just need to format a floppy and run the file you downloaded and it will make the floppy for you....

then you build the rig with the Sata drive installed....boot to the XP CD and at the beginning of the blue screen it will say to load additional driver press F6...

Do so a few times them wait for it....then supply the floppy in the drive and select the correct drivers....

you will have drivers for SATA as a base or RAID....you'll want the regular SATA drivers....

Also make sure you set the bios up for all the satas as a base...or you'll always get the raid boot screen....

Boot order must be set to SCSI to boot from Sata and then set the sata type in the overclocking utility to BASE....

hitting Ctrl+F1 gives you all the advanced options in the bios....;)

[Hardball]

Ok Max, thx for the prompt info, very much appreciated mate, think im on my way:)

[Hardball]

ok problem , when the bios boots its not detecting my new sata hard drive, any ideas boys?

anything in bios maybe?, its just not dectecting it, have unplugged and replugged connectors all good???

[glc]

Check the bios, the SATA controller must be enabled and NOT set to RAID.

[Hardball]

BIOS under intergrated peripherals

onboard H/W serial ATA.......enabled
Serial ATA function..2 choices raid or base....set to base

any other ideas boys?

[Hardball]

and another question, i have the one new 320gb western digital hard drive, so does it matter which plug i plug it into on the mobo sata 0 or sata 1, does it matter which one?

[glc]

Your drive may be DOA.