I have an A8N32-SLI, and have connected 2 SATA drives to the respective connectors on the motherboard. In DM I had an uninstalled hardware component simply called "Mass Storage Device". When asking about this on the ASUS forums, one person siad that if I was not using RAID (I am not), then to disable the SI controller in BIOS and the uninstalled hardware item would go away- which it did, and my SATA drives now appear to be working better too as far as data transfer is concerned.I've looked at Tomsharware and the SI controller appears to be some enhancement of the SATA protocol. Even though I am not currently using a RAID confogeration, am I loosing out on functionality without the SI controller installed? What does it do, since my SATA drives appear to be working OK now without it, although this is my first step into these drives so I have nothing to compare against other than "it works".Thanks- Bruce.

Hi Bruce,Previous iterations of nVidia chipset motherboards required that the SATA drivers be installed if one was using SATA drive(s). Such is not the case with our NF4 motherboards. SATA drives (non-RAID, of course) will work just fine without the SI controller or it's drivers. The advice about disabling the SI controller in the BIOS was wise (and you should disable anything else you're not using, too).Hope this helps,GregP.S. Have you had a chance to play with the memory timings on the A8N32 yet? I like 'em alot. Great flexibility.

Hi Greg,Thanks for the helpful reply.No- I haven't had a chance to investigate the timings on the mobo yet, I built this machine about 3 weeks ago but have been away from the PC for most of that time on other matters. Somewhere I lost my driver CD, and I can't even recall if a seperate manual came with the motherboard and I have lost that too, or if it's on the CD. I have downloaded the manual from the (very slow) web site, and also downloaded what I thought was the chipset driver (Chipset_WINXP32_V665.zip), but understand from a post at ASUS that the correct file is "6.56_nforce_win2kxp_international_whql.exe". I have other uninstalled components too, one being "Other PCI Bridge Device" and the other "Unknown Device". I'm hoping that when I get around to uninstalling the first chipset drivers and use the correct one that I may get these uninstalled hardware elements to be resolved.Other than the DM issues, I am also experiencing freezes for about 10 seconds in FS9. I'm still trying to see a pattern, but think it may be when there is required HD activity. Actually, I haven't seen them since I uninstalled the SI controller in BIOS, so maybe that's the issue.I'm running an AMD 64x2 4500+ CPU, with a 7600GT/256MB video card, and twin 1GB Kingston matched memory sticks. I'm getting a lousy 3DMark06 score, so figiure I have a bit to do here yet :)Thanks for your help and interest, Greg.Bruce.

"Other PCI Bridge Device" and the other "Unknown Device"This indicates that your chipset drivers are not properly installed, specifically the SMBus drivers. I have the same MB and just checked the SMBus drivers on the CD (which are the version I'm using), and they are the 4.5.0.0's. The V6.56 drivers may or may not be the same (nVidia's SOP is to update just one or two drivers... say the audio and or ethernet, for example... and leaving all other drivers the same but giving the package a new version number). So, don't worry if the SMBus drivers in your V6.56 package are the same version as mine. They are very stable.The nVidia chipset drivers include SMBus, Ethernet, and IDE. I recommend against installing the IDE, as Microsoft's are more stable and you won't experience any loss of performance. If you're not using onboard Ethernet (I'm not... using an add-on NIC card), then all you need to install are the SMBus drivers.Good luck,GregEdited because I orginally typed "V665" instead of the "V6.56" now shown.

Hi Guys, just to inform you there are newer nForce4 drivers (v.6.86 - July 2006): http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_win2k_6.86.htmlIf the mainboard drivers don't help and the 'Unknown Device' pertains, it could be a thing called ACPI_X64. I'll attach the driver for your convenience. Pls note that I'm unaware whether ACPI_X64 is winXP64 specific. Hope this helps and kind regards Jaap

Aww jeez, Jaap, now I had to go and try those new drivers (thanks for the heads-up). FWIW I only install the SMBus drivers on my system, and they were the same 195kb size as the previous 4.5.0.0. The new ones are 4.5.7.0 but I've not seen any difference between them and the originals I had on my system. Still need to do a bit more testing though.I checked my Devices and do not see anything having to do with the "ACPI_X64" on my 32bit XP install. Not sure, but I think those are for 64bit OS rather than AMD 64 CPUs.Cheers,Greg

Thanks Jaap and Greg,As I have somehow lost my driver CD, I am limited to downloading drives. On the nVidia site, I can get the nForce drivers for the AMD CPU ( 6.86_nforce_win2kxp_international_whql.exe ). Does the executable just unpack the drivers, or actually install them? The reason for asking is that I don't wish to install the IDE drivers, nor the NIC ones that are currently working fine, only the chipset and the other parts that I am missing.Thanks- Bruce.

Yep, Bruce, the installer will let you choose what to install. Simply "check" the drivers you want and you're good to go.Greg

Thanks Greg.Bruce.

No worries, gentlemen. :-) >>I checked my Devices and do not see anything having to do with the "ACPI_X64" on my 32bit XP install. Not sure, but I think those are for 64bit OS rather than AMD 64 CPUs.<< Thanks for the info, Greg. As you can probably imagine, this ACPI_X64 thing was somewhat puzzling with my 1st nForce4 system. Seems like ages ago..! :-) The Device_ID eventually helped to solve it and get rid of the question mark. 'Best' of all, this dll wasn't even on the Asus-CD whilst all the other xp64 drivers were. Regarding SIL SATA-interfaces: AFAIK, they're 'added' and use a PCI-connect. Therefore, nForce4 SATA-interfaces should offer a significantly higher (combined) performance. If memory isn't failing, the difference is 1xx MB/s(SIL) vs ca 200MB/s(nF4). In total, the nF4 'Southbridge' is good for ca 300MB/s (onboard sound, onboard NIC & nF4 ATA-interfaces). Cheers and kind regards Jaap

So- if I can still trouble you guys:I reinstalled the chipset drivers and did a reinstall of the video driver too. I was careful to select the SM Bus, and the main chipset driver, and did not check the sound or NIC drivers (sound chip is disabled due to sound card being installed, and my NIC is working OK).The "Other PCI Bridge Device" and "Unknown Device" are still uninstalled. I did a web serch on the term "Other PCI Bridge Device", and found this:http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=390682".....Did you ever figure this one out?I have the same problem and i'm just as stumped as to wth this 'other bridge device' is. The only input I can give is that it's likely not related to the sli mod, since i've not done that................Ignore previous request, it's the Network Bus Enumerator"If this is what is causing my problem, what is this device- and should I be disabling it in BIOS- or where can I find a driver for it?Thanks for any ideas...Bruce.

Well- I did deduce that the network bus enumerator is a fancy word I guess for NIC. My motherboard has 2 onboard, and I guess I have only loaded drivers for one- so the other is now disabled in BIOS and the "other pci bridge device" item is no longer on the list of disabled hardware items.All I do have now is the "Unknown Device", and I'm guessing that there's really nowhere to start with that one :) . Anyway- just an update.... I do appreciate all the help from you guys.Bruce.

I would make sure you're using the nVidia NIC and that the Marvel is disabled in the BIOS. Also, that "Unknown Device" could have something to do with the nVidia Firewall, NCQ, and that sort of stuff. I have it all disabled in my BIOS, and I use an add-on NIC card.I'm convinced that the "Unknown Device" is something that needs to be disabled in the BIOS.Greg

Perhaps it's the nF RAID-controller? :-) If you aren't 'raiding', maybe disable the nF-raid instances in the bios as well? Case you can't make anything of it, go into the properties of the problematic device and select 'Details'. You'll see a 'Device Instance Id'. Punch that mention into a search engine and it will likely return what it stands for. For example: PCIVEN_8086&DEV_244E&SUBSYS_etc_etc_etc. '8086' is the manufacturer (Intel in this case) and the second number should be device specific (the i845PE PCI bridge in this example). 'PCIVEN_8086&DEV_244E' should suffice to find out. You're almost there, Bruce! :-) Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Thanks guys,I downloaded a freeware app that identifies "unknown devices". It tells me that it's a PCI-ISA bridge device. That's about as clear as mud to me- I recall ISA busses years ago, but my system doesn't have one.Thanks for the good ideas, I will follow up on them too.Bruce.