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ASUS PC4C800-E deluxe - Promise controller

M

MovieKing

Junior Member
Hi,

since May 2004, I've got the following configuration running under WinXP prof (all fixes installed):

ASUS P4C800-E deluxe with 4 HDs and 1 DVD burner attached to the following channels:
SATA1: WD740GD (Raptor) = system drive
SATA2: unused
PRI_IDE: NEC DVD_RW ND-2500A
SEC_IDE: Maxtor 7Y250 P0
SATA_RAID1: Maxtor 7Y250 M0
SATA_RAID2: Maxtor 7Y250 M0

The latter two drives are connected to the Promise controller and are configured as Raid 0. Therefore, during boot the FastTrak controller shows them as Array 1 (stripe with 500GB). In BIOS however, both drives are invisible.

Since a couple of months FastTrak reports IRQ problems und then hangs. Initially, this happened only sporadically, but more recently this is nearly standard. This can sometimes be resolved by pressing the reset button, but normally I have to disconnect power physically and wait a minute or two before starting again. During the last couple of weeks, more and more blue screens appeared (pretty much reminding me of the "good" old Win 98 times...). Today I was even unable to boot in the protected mode. The message most frequently observed during the last few months was:

"Driver_IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"

A few days ago I deleted the Raid0 array (using the FastTrak Controller) - didn't help. Although no Raid array is to be managed anymore, FastTrak still complains about not getting proper interrupts.

Today I configured the Promise controller to IDE mode (instead of Raid) - didn't help, only the error message is different (something like "general HW problems, check your configuration"). In cases, where no IRQ problems occur, the two drives attached to the Promise controller are not detected by Windows (nor by Partition Magic), although they are detected by BIOS - e.g. all four HD's are available in the boot sequence menu point.

Then I disabled the Promise controller completely. Now the 2 drives are missing also in BIOS (of course), but the remainder of the system is running stable since 5 or 6 hours.

Here's now my question: Is there any (BIOS or other) setting which causes or pretends IRQ problems to the Promise controller ?

Unfortunately, my dealer can't help me anymore - he's bancrupt meanwhile... 🙁


Is there anybody who can help me please ?
 
looks like I've solved the problem, but have now idea how and why ...

I changed drive configurations (at random) several times and finally restored the initial configuration (the one which was increasingly stumbling over the last few months). And now it seems to work.

Could it be that this reconfiguration exercise happened to fix an inherent IRQ conflict? I have now a printout of the new IRQ configuration so that I can compare, should the problems come back again.

But nevertheless: Can anyone help me understand what's going on with Promise and IRQ conflicts ?
 
it happened again.

In a second attempt the system booted correctly, the IRQ looked the same as yesterday, when everything looked fine. Unfortunately FastTrak hangs whenever the IRQ problem is detected, so I can't analyse the IRQ configuration in that case.
 
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