Once again.... Abit is a major let down for me.

[jonnyGURU]

WetWilly: Yeah. I JUST got this month's Maximum PC and saw their comparison between the Promise and the AMI. I was disappointed to not see the Highpoint.

Why? Even a respected company like AMI, with it's nifty looking blue card, sucked when compared to the Promise. Sandra scores are very close, and that seems to be what most people are using, but upon closer look you find:

Average sequence reads were slightly lower and read burst speed was considerably lower. CPU usage was nearly THREE TIMES the Promise!

Despite all this, MPC still gave the card a rating of 6, but closed by saying "what's the point when you can get the Promise card for the same amount of money?"

I do like how the AMI and Highpoint have Linux support for their monitoring software, but natively; Linux has ATA100 support with the newest kernel and the RAID is treated as one drive anyway (all hardware configured by the card).

I'd be curious how the Highpoint stacks up. The Sandra scores are only slightlyl lower, but those are Sandra scores. They only tell a small part of the story.

SmackDownHotel: Your link was dead... but I don't know what the heck you're doing greasing down bastards!!!!! :Q :Q :Q

 

[Plester]

as jonnyGURU mentioned, sandra isn't really an appropriate benchmark for hard drive performance. atto, winbench, hdtach actually give you useful information.

 

[UncleJessie]

Plester is exactly right. Sandra is perhaps the worst disk benchmark ever. From the best on down, I'd say IOMeter, WB99, & HD Tach. I haven't decided on ATTO, but at least it's consistent, unlike Sandra. Maybe Samantha will be better.

 

[Dyflam]

I hope to be a Dink some day.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Actually, now that I have my rig built up:

jonnyGURU's rig

I'm going to run RAID 0+1 with 2+2 drives.

1. I like redundancy. I like backup. I currently run 2 drives ANYWAY and use Ghost to mirror them every week.

2. The RAID 2 drive, overall, will somewhat make up for the performance hit of the redundancy.

Does it make a noticable difference? OH HELL YEAH!

Installing Windows alone, my install time was cut in HALF. I know it by heart now because I am in the process of writing an article on RAID for one site and an article on SE vs. ME on another site and had to install on these poor IBM drives 5 or 6 times. I figure this will be emulated with other large read and writes like bringing in large files like 800dpi photos, installing programs, etc.

 

[jakinney]

Am I the only person who has had no problems with the Abit KT7-RAID??

My new system went together without a hitch and consists of:

T-bird 800
128MB Mushkin PC133 CAS2
2 x 20.4GB Maxtor 7200 rpm ATA/100 Drives
VisionTek Geforce2 MX
SB Live Value
3com v.90 isa
Alpha PAL6035 heatsink

I consistently get 56,000kps in HDTach. Unreal Tournament plays at about 60 fps, and I'm totally happy with it.

How does this compare with a Promise FastTrak?

 

[Lehmann]

I'm surprised to hear so many negative things being said about the Abit-KT7 RAID. I bought it largely because of the awesome reviews it was getting at almost every tech site. Fortunately it sounds like most everyone only hates the RAID controller. I wasn't planning on using it for RAID anyways, but I do have a question on it. I cannot make any cdrom drives work on it (the RAID controller). I used an UltraATA 66/100 cable, set the drive as master and connected it to the last connector on the cable, but no luck. It's recognized in Windows but says it can't find a disk. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Btw, my KT7-RAID is running very happily with a Duron 700@1000 with only 1.8 volts using a GW-FOP32. I could probably do 1050mhz, but I was really only after the four digit number.

 

[jonnyGURU]

<< I bought it largely because of the awesome reviews it was getting at almost every tech site. >>



You have to realize that any motherboard that gets sent to a review site from a manufacturer is cherry picked. Aside from that, also, regardless of brand the odds are WITH you that you get a &quot;non-defective&quot; model. Furthermore, most of the complaints seem to be the lack of performance of the HP370 controller, which looking around the web I've found that Highpoint has NEVER made a satisfactory IDE controller.



<< I cannot make any cdrom work on the RAID controller. >>



Question: Why are you running a CDROM on an ATA100 controller?

 

[Lehmann]

I'm trying to run a cdrom on the ata-100 controller because all of my other channels are full. Thanks for the info.

 

[Isaiah]

Abit sucks
I am glad I'm geting an Asus A7V





Isaiah

 

[Netopia]

jakinney, why don't you post for us the version of the drivers you are using and the BIOS version. Also any other settings you may have tinkered with. If there is a &quot;right&quot; combo to get 50-60 mb/s, we'd all like to know!

Joe

 

[Lehmann]

Isaiah, saying that they use a poor RAID controller is one thing, saying that Abit &quot;sucks&quot; is another. Have fun fumbling around inside your case with your dip switches.

 

[WetWilly]

jonny,

Nice setup with the RAID 0+1 and pretty decent work with the Dremel . I'm curious - what are the system temps running with the four drives/coolers in the case?

jakinney,

I've been very happy with the KT7. Went from a BX to the KT7 in less than an hour with no problems at all (well, except that PS2Rate program glitch I noted above). Gave up my membership in the 1GHz club to run my Duron at 978MHz (8.5x115). Goes like a champ and noticeably zippier than 10x100. Sandra 2000's memory benchmarks are definitely up there - 562 CPU/653 FPU. Only problem I've noted is the heat - high 40's with an Alpha 6035 and Arctic Silver.

Lehmann,

Most outboard IDE controllers are notoriously finicky with ATAPI (CD-ROM/Zip/LS-120) devices. I know that one of the older Promise controllers wouldn't support ATAPI devices at all unless there was a hard drive attached to the controller. The controller's BIOS wasn't activated unless there was a hard drive attached, and if the BIOS wasn't activated the OS didn't see any devices attached to the controller. I believe Abit and Highpoint still have a warning somewhere about ATAPI devices on the Highpoint. Your easiest alternative is to move your primary IDE chain from the system board to the Highpoint, attach your CD-ROM to the system board, change the BIOS options and boot from the Highpoint. Also, if your CD-ROM is attached to the system board, you can always boot from it.

 

[jonnyGURU]

The case is a split style where the power supply is mid mounted. The drive's fans all suck in, but there are two case fans just behind them to immediately exhaust the heat from the drives. The power supply is a Enermax 430W, which has two fans. One of which is just above the board to exhaust heat off the board in the lower half. Of course, there is the mandatory lower sucking fan in the front.

There will be more pictures posted to illustrate that.

 

[DaddyG]

WetW.

&quot;Supports all hard disks and ATAPI CD-ROM,
DVD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW,
LS-120, MO, Tape, and ZIP devices&quot;
Cut and paste from Highpoint Site HPT370.

 

[jonnyGURU]

oh... where there you go. It's just another bad board.

 

[WetWilly]

DaddyG,

&quot;Support&quot; unfortunately doesn't mean that it works like you'd expect, i.e. like the system chipset's native drive controller. From the Unofficial KT7 FAQ:


<< How should I connect my hard drives and other storage devices on my KT7-RAID?
ABIT advise that hard drives should be connected to the HPT370 controller (IDE 3 and 4), which supports ATA 33, 66 and 100.

ATAPI drives such as CDROM, DVD, CD-RW, Zip, LS120 and tape devices should be connected to IDE 1 and 2, as should additional disks when IDE 3 and 4 are fully occupied. CD-DVD and CD-RW devices may perform best when each is connected as IDE Master. So, if you have a CD-DVD and a CD-RW, connect each one as the Master on IDE 1 and 2, and use slaves for other devices like the LS120, tape, Zip, etc. Ensure the DMA-box is checked for your CD device properties under System Properties. Set the BIOS for the four primary IDE channels to AUTO to see your ATAPI devices correctly on the IDE 1 and 2 ports.

Note that despite Highpoint documentation to the contrary, it appears that many users are unable to successfully use ATAPI devices if they are connected to the HPT370 controller (IDE 3 and 4). (My emphasis) >>


This isn't new at all. For example, with the HPT-36x ATA/66 controllers, Highpoint uses the exact same &quot;support&quot; language - in fact, the FAQs are virtually identical for all of their HPT3xx chips - for ATAPI support. However, with Abit's HotRod66 controller, you couldn't enter the BIOS at all unless there was an ATA/xx drive attached. Abit's rather longstanding unofficial policy for ATAPI devices on Highpoint controllers has been to put ATAPI devices on the system chipset's native drive controller. Like I said above, it's not that it won't work at all, but it doesn't work like the VIA's controller. Promise is the same thing - if there's not an ATA/xx drive attached it'll tell you the controller's BIOS isn't installed. I'd expect that Lehmann's problem would go away if there's a hard drive attached to the Highpoint. I learned this the hard way. I bought a Promise Ultra33 controller because of the &quot;completely backward compatible with ATAPI devices&quot; language. Plugged it in, and voila! Same symptoms as Lehmann. Two hours later, literally buried in Promise's rather sucky support pages, it says (my paraphrase) &quot;Oh, by the way those ATAPI devices we said we support don't work at all unless you plug a hard drive into the controller.&quot; My solution was to get a BIOS-less non-bootable IDE controller. That way, I don't have a delayed boot and all of my devices show up just fine in Windows.

Not only that, you're giving jonny more anti-Abit fodder

 

[Lehmann]

WetWilly, thanks a lot for the info. I have two hard disks, a cdrw, dvd, cdrom, and a zip. I put the two hard disks on the RAID controller and the rest on the on-board controller and it works fine. The only thing is it's an annoyance to boot from a floppy or a cdrom now because, according to the manual and my experience, all three boot options in the bios have to be set to the raid controller to make it boot from the raid controller. Btw, what kind of controller can you get that doesn't have a bios like you were talking about? Sounds interesting. Thanks again.

 

[WetWilly]

Lehmann,

I'm taking a guess here since I've got a non-RAID KT7, but it seems like you shouldn't have to set all three boot options to the ATA100 in the BIOS, especially since you're not running RAID. I suppose you could do a quick check by changing the boot order to Floppy | CDROM | ATA100, make sure Boot Other Device is Enabled and see what happens for the heck of it. Worst that should happen is that it won't boot at all and you'll have to put the BIOS back the way it was.

I'm in a similar boat as you when it comes to IDE stuff - a CD-RW, DVD-ROM, LS-120, ATAPI Zip, and currently three hard drives. The BIOS-less card I found was made by SIIG called the Easy IDE that has a controller chip from ACard. The card has a socket for a BIOS chip but shipped without it. Has DOS, Win9x and NT drivers. I've set up the three hard drives plus the CD-RW on the onboard IDE, the Zip &amp; LS-120 on one channel of the SIIG card, and the DVD-ROM on the other channel. I don't use the Zip or LS-120 that often and obviously the DVD-ROM is of limited use in DOS, so they're only available in Windows. I paid something like $18-20 for the SIIG. Last time I checked though, they discontinued it, probably because it only supports up to ATA/33. Too bad, because it supports ATAPI like you'd expect it to, unlike Promise and Highpoint. Great thing is that you'd never know the card was there - no BIOS splash screens, no device enumerations - nothing. Just the devices in Windows' Device Manager. Curiously, unlike other auxiliary IDE controllers, the card doesn't show up in Device Manager as a SCSI card, but as a Hard Drive Controller and is enumerated with the onboard VIA IDE controller.

Glad I could help.

 

[WetWilly]

Here's the official goods on the Highpoint vs. Abit views on CD-ROMs on the HPT-366 (ATA/66) controller:

Highpoint's supported features of the HPT-366 from http://www.highpoint-tech.com/hpt366.htm:

<< Supports all ATAPI CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, LS-120, Tape and ZIP devices >>


Abit's BE6-II Manual (has onboard HPT-366):

<< HPT 366 IDE controller is designed to support high-speed mass storage. Thus we don't suggest you connect non-disk devices that use ATA/ATAPI interfaces, such as CD-ROM to HPT 366 IDE connector (IDE3 &amp; IDE4) >>

 

[DaddyG]

Willy, you REALLY think that Jonny needs my 2 cents for his ANTI-ABIT feelings ?? He just has to go to work each day!!. Not speaking for Jonny, but the design of the KT7 with 3 phase power, overclocking support in the bios and active chipset cooling are all very positive BUT ABITs idea of quality is 'Send us back our defective board and $25 and we'll send you another'. Quality doesn't cost, if they cared, they would analyze EVERY failure and accept ZERO defects as the only measure.

 

[WetWilly]

DaddyG,

Note the smiley I had next to that statement and lighten up a little.

 

[jonnyGURU]

<< Not only that, you're giving jonny more anti-Abit fodder >>



I thought it was funny.

 

[DaddyG]

If ABIT really gave a sh!t, hehe hoho, they'd get a ha ha QC department. LMOA hehe.

BTW i'm not anti ABIT, i'm ANTI piss poor quality from any vendor. hehe

Willy, you should my posts WHEN THE MEDICATION BEGINS TO WEAR OFF !!

 

[Mem]

I like Abit but they are not in my favourite top three brands,anyway if they could improve their quality control, &amp; have a lower RMA &amp; use better components they could be one of the best brands out there I know this probably will never happen(A shame)but if they want to improve their reputation things must change.