KT7-RAID / Tekram DC390 Issues Galore!

[AreEss64]

Well, it USED to work.

I should add this system to my rigs, but I'm lazy. It's similar to eiterra.
Abit KT7-RAID, bios just flashed to 64. 384M, AWE64 Gold, GeForce2 MX DH, Tekram DC390F
15G IDE, 15G IDE, 9G SCSI-UW, 9G SCSI-2, Ricoh MP6201S SCSI-2 CD-RW.

I can't get the frigging Tekram to work in 98SE though. The 'updated drivers' from Tekram (3.21 and 3.23) don't work. I can see SCSI HDDs in DOS and in Windows, but not my CD-RW. I tried flashing my Tekram from the 3.21 BIOS it shipped with to the brand new (12/19!!) 3.23 BIOS, and ended up with a hardware lock-up problem. Keyboard unresponsive, Windows won't even get to the login screen. So I flashed back to my saved 3.21 BIOS, and tried again, with the exact same results. If I remove the Tekram device in Windows, it will boot, find it, and if I don't reboot, run fine - still no CD-RW - till reboot. At reboot, it just goes to hell again. I just reinstalled a few weeks ago, and I -don't- want to have to go through that migraine again. (Finding all the updated drivers takes FOREVER. And the nVidia 23.11 drivers are iffy for me for some reason.)

I haven't got any IRQ conflicts, any existing hardware or driver problems outside of the Tekram. I'm at a loss. I just emailed Tekram's support, but gods know if/when they'll get back to me. Has anyone been through this before? How do I fix this thing? Being unable to burn CDs on the machine I built for it is beyond frustrating.

 

[AreEss64]

Bump for desperation.

 

[AreEss64]

BUMP!

Somebody's gotta have a clue.

 

[Damascus]

More details regarding your SCSI setup, cable configuration, termination, etc please.
I have a DC390F and it used to work beautifully in Win98SE before I upgraded to
Windows 2000 (where it still works great).

 

[AreEss64]

Sorry! You'd think I'd know to DO that for chrissakes. I used to do tech support.

Anyways.. here goes..

Tekram DC390F, NCR 53c875-based. SCSI/SCSI2/SCSIUW support. BIOS v3.21
SCAM disabled. UW neg. enabled. Termination enabled. Host adapter ID7.

ID0, End Of Chain, SCSI-2 Ricoh MP6201S CD-RW - Internal SCSI2 Connector, Termination Active
ID1, Middle Of Chain, SCSI-2 Seagate Wren 5400RPM 9G - Internal SCSI2 Connector, Termination Disabled
ID3, End Of Chain, SCSI-UW IBM DJNS 10200RPM 9G - Internal SCSI-UW Connector, Termination Active

Cables are from Cables2Go. Was working in this configuration - only change made was the reinstall of Windows 98SE. That broke everything. All devices detect in SCSI BIOS, both disks checked out OK, CD-RW tested OK in another system. Tried eiterra's MP6201S, no change on this system. Configuration is close enough to eiterra in software and hardware to make a meaningful comparison, and so far as I can tell, there's no reason for this -not- to work. Eiterra's been working fine for months in a similar config.

 

[AreEss64]

^ - still not working...

[edit] BTW, it's now stuck in a reboot loop as well. 3.21 and 3.23 not making any difference on it. Help!!!

 

[AreEss64]

Oops. CMOS somehow got cleared when I flashed the controller last time, reenabled USB, Highpoint, and ACPI. Bad naughty system. End result, IRQ conflicts galore. (IRQ 5 - AWE64, Video. BAD. IRQ 11 - Highpoint 1 -and- 2, USB, ACPI, and SCSI!) Fixed that, and back to reboot looping. *sigh* IDE controller is doing a soft lockup - activity solid, stays that way, NO disk activity (noisy drives are useful) stays that way for about 4 minutes before rebooting. BIOS is now reporting that Bus0Dev13Func0 (Mass Storage Cntrlr) is the only thing on PIRQ_1, NIC over on PIRQ_2, everything looks like it should work. Agh! And I was up all last night fighting with this too.

 

[AreEss64]

^ - still not working

 

[Damascus]

My experience with this card doesn't include anything close to this. I knew someone
who had problems with a CDRW (it would show up 15 times on boot-up) on this card
.. I'll see if I can find out what he did to fix that. I think it started with a BIOS flash..

What's this reboot loop that you've mentioned?

 

[AreEss64]

A reboot loop is a rare phenomena. Basically, it's like a lockup, but instead of locking and hanging, windows actually -reboots- the system. VERY uncommon to see it, and even harder to figure out what it is, because bootlog.txt doesn't get written correctly in a reboot loop. It's either empty or garbage text. LUCKILY, I found a problem with the VIA 4in1 v4.36 drivers that was causing this - SIX ACPI devices and FOUR IRQ steering devices. Cleared it up, and cleared the reboot loop.

Unfortunately, the driver issue still remains - the driver reports the device as not functioning properly, I still can't see my CD-RW. I keep going back and forth between the BIOSes and driver versions, and I'm not having ANY luck. So, basically, it's down to the driver issue. Thank gods. Any more no-PC would have driven me to insanity I think.

 

[AreEss64]

^!
Tekram support sucks, apparently. No reply, no reply at all...

 

[AreEss64]

^ *sigh*