CUBX Controller Question

[GaseousMacCloud]

Hi all,

I had my CuBX IDE controllers set up thusly: Primary to HDD, Secondary to CD/DVD player, third and fourth controller empty. I thought the third and fourth controller were usable for anything but when I plugged a new Plextor CD-R, it went by during start up but Win98 Device Manager didn't see it.

Questions are: Are the third and fourth controllers on this board only for UltraDMA/66 HDDs? Whether yes or no, how does one set them up?

Thanks in advance.
Gas

 

[osage]

Not familier with this particular mobo, but make sure the controller, or channels are enabled in the bios. I had a similar prob with a different board, check and make sure.

 

[Booty]

Well, theoretically that should work fine, but the CMD controller on the CUBX sucks...I should know, I've got one and bulit 2 systems around it and then I found out how slow it is. CDR software loads slow as hell and there's no fix for it that I know of. If you can, I'd RMA that board and get a Abit BX133 or some other board with 4 ide connections...

Now, if the controller worked properly, I would suggest to you that you set up your system like this:

primary - CD/DVD
secondary - Burner
third - primary HDD
fourth - other hard drive(s) if you have one/them

But my best advice is to RMA that mobo and get a different one.

 

[frap]

Here are couple of snipets from reviews done here on this sote. This site has a lot of information and all you have to do is read.




<< The CUBX comes with an on-board CMD 648 Ultra DMA 66 controller that provides the board with two Ultra DMA 66 channels in addition to the two Ultra DMA 33 channels. >>





<< Another issue we encountered was that on the ASUS CUBX, the CMD controller that provides for Ultra DMA 66 functionality required that we manually enable the Ultra DMA 66 setting, in spite of the fact that we were using Ultra DMA 66 drives and cables.

Regarding all of the boards that feature external Ultra DMA 66 controllers, if the drivers for those controllers were not installed properly or at all from the start, we noticed very erratic behavior under Windows often resulting in random lockups and failures to boot Windows properly, so make sure you get those drivers installed. >>

 

[GaseousMacCloud]

Thanks to all who replied.

I guess I'm a little dense. But are the third and fourth controllers only for 66 HDDs or can they also be used for 33s?

I ask because I have a year-old 10GB Western Digital Caviar HDD on #3 (on a 33 cable) as I type and I've no indication that it's really there.

Is enabling the chip in BIOS all there is to setting up those controllers?

Thanks again.

Gas

 

[badpony]

I don't know if this will help you any but, here's a pretty good link that discusses this issue in depth.Text
Mike S.

 

[Booty]

[/i]&quot;Another issue we encountered was that on the ASUS CUBX, the CMD controller that provides for Ultra DMA 66 functionality required that we manually enable the Ultra DMA 66 setting, in spite of the fact that we were using Ultra DMA 66 drives and cables.


Regarding all of the boards that feature external Ultra DMA 66 controllers, if the drivers for those controllers were not installed properly or at all from the start, we noticed very erratic behavior under Windows often resulting in random lockups and failures to boot Windows properly, so make sure you get those drivers installed.&quot;


The new version of the drivers corrects the detection of the speed of the drive. But it still locks up and stuff...I've installed plenty of drivers, and I don't see how I could have installed them wrong. Maybe I'm missing something...

Someone who's got a CUBX running w/ a burner and cdrom on the ata33 connections and a HDD on the ata66 and has everything running smoothly please post here and let us (me) know what we're (I'm) doing wrong..

 

[GaseousMacCloud]

Thanks for all your help, guys.

After re-reading these posts and checking out badpony's link I realized *hanging head* that I hadn't installed the CMD driver when I installed the board. Juat another case of forgetting the basics, I guess.

Anyway, I enabled the 66 chip on this CUBX, installed the driver, stuck in my extra 33 HDD and the system sees it. So I partitioned it and will format it and drop an OS on it later.

One problem I'm already encountering is system freeze when requesting the Properties of the channel the second HDD is on in Device Manager. That gives me fits but maybe it will clear up when I install the updated driver??

Any more thoughts would be most graciously received.

Thanks again,

Gas

 

[SkinnyPuppy]

ASUS CUBX
CeleryII 533A@800 1.65v
GoldenOrb
IBM 75GXP 30GIG ATA/100
Maxtor 4gig ATA/33
Azzo PC100 2x64MB
SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer
HP8100i CDRW
Memorex CD-322E
Aging Riva TNT
USRobotics Sportster 56k
DLINK DFE-530TX
Win98
Win2K

I have achieved outstanding benchmarks with my IBM GXP-75 30GIG using HDTach. I think the trick is to update the CMD drivers. I am basically seeing ATA/100 performance even though the CMD-648 controller is supposed to be ATA/66. I am running the CMD 3.1.5 drivers and have updated my bios to 1007.001. I consistantly get Random Access Times around 9.3m and Read Burst Speeds of 80mps! The average Read Speed is 34863. This is using HD Tach 2.61 in win98. I haven't tried to benchmark the disk yet in win2k. I have been happy with the CUBX for the most part except for the fact that CeleryII's won't boot at voltages higher than 1.65 and even though I have been running 800 stable in win98 I cannot boot into win2k at any speed higher than the chip default 533.

 

[Booty]

Skinny Puppy -

How long ago did you buy your board? I have updated the bios and installed the newest CMD drivers, and I'm still having lots of problems. Can you give me a little more detail on what order you did what? And does your CD-R software load quickly and run smoothly?

 

[SkinnyPuppy]

Booty -

I've been running the CUBX for about 2 months now, after my trusty old Abit BH6 bit the farm. I don't think I did anything tricky. I just updated all of the drivers per their instructions. I am pretty sure that I did read something somewhere that mentioned it was possible to get ATA/100 performance out of the CMD-648 controller with driver updates and according the HDTach that is right on. As far as my CD-RW goes, it has been working just fine. In fact I just burned a CD from Win2k for the first time over the weekend. No problems at all.

 

[Rob G.]

I was having erratic problems with the CMD drivers in Windows 2000 Pro, but since I updated it's been just fine - and nice and fast too. I had to actually delete the old driver files first, then apply the ones.

I've got the CMD controller to work properly in DOS too, just follow the instructions in the driver help text file. I run two IBM 20gb drives on the '66 channels (booting off IDE 3 - you have to enable the options in the BIOS) and the CD &amp; CDRW drives off IDE 1 &amp; 2. Speed is consistant and I've no reliability problems at all.

 

[Booty]

This is so messed up...I've installed all the newest drivers, bios updates, etc...it boots from IDE3 fine...that's not a problem. In fact, everything seems fine except CDR software...is there a bios that you can get into for the controller itself? This is driving me nuts...did you install the updates after a fresh install of windows? are you guys using 98 or ME or just win2000? Maybe that's the problem if so...maybe it's only a 98 issue, and a nt one...help?

 

[enrell]

at least booty, you can boot onto the windows..i've a problem booting..i've set up everything, even in the bios..updating to the beta .07 version..but it just wouldn't boot..anybody knows what is happening?

thanks...
:frown:

 

[Booty]

enrell -

I didn't have a problem with that...just select enable onboard ata66 contoller in the bios and then set it as a boot device along with floppy and whatever else. Maybe you got a bad board...can you RMA it? I would've RMA'ed mine but they wouldn't take it back, bastards! Oh well, I'll try to sell it or use it in a system that doesn't have a burner...I'm lookin' into the Abit SA6R = ).

 

[Booty]

Skinny Puppy -

Where'd you get BIOS revision 1007?? Asus's site only has 1006? Do you think that's what did it? Because I have the newest drivers...I think...unless they've got a newer version of those that isn't on the Asus site either. Is that a Beta bios? Same question with your CMD drivers?

 

[enrell]

yeah..it is a beta version. I got it from several CUBX websites. The CMD drivers are taken from the CMD website.

nizal...

 

[Booty]

Would you mind giving me links to some of those CUBX sites? Maybe I'm crappy at searching the web, but I haven't been able to find any decent sites dedicated to that motherboard or with really any useful information at all...thanks.

 

[enrell]

one of them www.morningstarcomputer.com/CUBX.htm..

 

[Booty]

Skinnypuppy - if you read this..

http://members.ams.chello.nl/mgherard/

check out the unresolved problem list...this is what I'm referring to. Do you not have this problem? Are you running 2k or 98?

 

[SkinnyPuppy]

Nope. I don't have that problem with my CD-RW or the mouse sound stutter problem. I do see the 30 second boot delay and the voltage problem. This bloody board is starting to tick me off though because I CANNOT boot into win2k at all at ANY FSB speed over 66. I don't know what the hell the problem is. Win98 boots just fine at 100FSB. I finally upraded my aging TNT to an Asus V7700 GeForce2 GTS. That thing is sweet.

The Asus germany site seems to post beta drivers sooner than the US site.
1007.004 is out now.

 

[Booty]

SP-

Which OS are you using for burning? It seems like the latest CMD drivers made Adaptec software load properly under 98se, but Nero still takes forever to load...odd.

I don't have the voltage problems w/ my P3...is that a Cele. only problem? Mine's kinda a slow booter too...

I'm really thinkin' about one of the new 815E mobos w/ onboard raid..especially if they come out with one without the onboard video