Promise ATA 66 controller

[wildwarren]

I just installed this card and I need to know where to get the drivers. I didn't see them on the Promise website only for ATA 100 cards. Any help is appreciated.

 

[bacillus]

it would seem that the ata66 & ata100 card uses the same drivers. you can get the latest ata66 driver from here!

 

[Boobers]

I would suggest that you get you money back now, if you still can. I think the promise controller is a POS. Once you experience the data corruption, stuttering audio, BSOD, etc, etc, you'll see why.

If you want faster IDE peformance, buy a new motherboard. You can get a 750 Duron for $30 if you're worried about processor costs (and overclock it to around 1Ghz). The IWill KK266RAID has 2 ATA100 channels and 2 ATA100RAID channels (using the AMI RAID chip). All this for $119...

 

[Raincity]

Yes Bacillus is correct, thye use the same driver.




<< I would suggest that you get you money back now, if you still can. I think the promise controller is a POS. Once you experience the data corruption, stuttering audio, BSOD, etc, etc, you'll see why >>



I would sure love to know how you managed to screw up a simple Promise Ultra install. I have never in my life encountered any of your described issues in any operating system that I had a Promise Ultra installed in it. Ultra 66/100 cards have been a godsend for me on systems running Intel 815 boards in Win2k that needed true ATA 4/5 speed without having to install the buggy Intel Storage drivers to get it. Then you recomend that the poster spend 150$ and a new Mainboard cpu combo and to set up software raid to increase his ide performance over a 25$ Ide controller card. What the f@ck have you been smoking. Next your probally going to tell us that the Highpoint HTP366 controller is better and more stable than the Promise Ultras.

Rain

 

[billyjak]

I would suggest that you get you money back now, if you still can. I think the promise controller is a POS. Once you experience the data corruption, stuttering audio, BSOD, etc, etc, you'll see why.

I have used both the 66 and 100 and never experienced any of the symptoms you describe.
Maybe you didn't install the drivers right or your Power supply was not quite up to Par, or your Motherboard had a faulty PCI slot.
I can't even beleive you would say such a thing.

Ignore those comments, because they simply aren't true.
Many people here use the 66 or 100 card without a lick of problems.

 

[Jace]

Luckily a lot of people have used them successfully. I also had problems with the Ultra66 in particular, on my home system. On another, no noticeable problems. The latest drivers in particular gave me poor support at home for my DVD-ROM drive, a Pioneer 104S. I ended up going back to the original drivers that came with the controller card, which were many revisions earlier and had a laundry list of bugs that were &quot;fixed&quot; by the later revisions.

I hope you had better luck than I did. As with all hardware, mileage will vary.

 

[MGMorden]

I would guess that the people complaining about the Promise controller haven't ever used a Highpoint based one. I've used a Highpoint HPT366, a Promise Ultra66, and a Promise Ultra33. The Promises: both reliable products for me. The highpoint: worst POS I ever owned. If it hadn't been soldered onto my BE6 I'd have hit the thing with a hammer.

 

[BFG10K]

I had a Promise IDE Controller (ATA 66) in my old BX mobo and I never had any problems with it. I was still using the drivers that shipped on the original CD.

 

[Boobers]

The Promise ATA100 controller on the Asus A7V is a POS. If it wasn't a POS, it would work for everybody. If you don't believe me, read all about it (just do a search for &quot;promise&quot:
A7V Troubleshooting Forum

Especially this post:
A7V Troubleshooting Forum

They hack their own BIOS's to get it to work. You can even make it a shabby RAID controller with a simple BIOS flash...

Personally, I like the AMI Raid on the KK266.
To each his own.

 

[Raincity]

I dont think one experiance with a flawed mainboard thats full of issues is enough experiance with the controller chipset to make a fair judgment of the product. I have not heard anybody bitch before about the Promise Ultra cards untill you come along. I dont see the MSI newsgroup flooded with complaints with the onboard Ultra 66 controller on the BXmaster model when it was being produced and sold.

Rain

 

[Jiggz]

The installed mobo Promise ATA 100 is totally different from the PCI card. I've used the ATA66 for almost three years and even went as far as converting it to FastTrak 66 and never had a single issue. Your recommendation of new mobo+CPu blew me off. The original question was about a driver for the Ultra66 which probably cost less $25.00 and was probably bought for the purpose of having additional IDE connections and you went to recommend a mobo+cpu! I wonder what you'll recommend if he ask for a harddrive controller driver? Dell Inspiron or IBM system? As for the people having problem with the Ultra 66/100 and have connected ATAPI devices, i.e. CD-Rom, DVD, ZIP, etc. . read manualor FAQ pages. It'll tell you the Ultra 66/100 is not compatible with these devices.

 

[Boobers]

My mistake. The Promise FastTrak100 uses the PDC20267 chip. I'm talking about the PDC20265 chip. I couldn't find out which chip the ATA66 card has. However, they all exhibit the same problems in Win98. Here is the most damaging evidence yet:

BSOD Errors during bootup

The only Promise controller I could quickly find was the Fasttrak 100TX2 Card, which costs $75+$6S (newegg). Not cheap. I forgot I'm probably dealing with a bunch of kids that are penny smart, but pound foolish. I bet I was hacking my Commodore PET before some of you were even born. BTW, adding a ATA100 controller to your Commodore 64 won't make it any faster.

I am not trying to belittle anyone. I just thought that if I could save someone the headaches Promise has given me, and MANY others, that posting this would be worth my time. I see I was mistaken, as you all seem to be dead set that Promise has no problems. It may be that your startup routine is such that the true problem is &quot;masked&quot; and you never encounter it. Consider yourself lucky and I applaud your &quot;expertise&quot; at accidentally getting it right the first time (just like the people with SB Live!5.1 cards that work perfectly).

Check this out. It's from Promise's own site!

Promise Support

 

[Mday]

i don't know what chip my card uses. my promise card is 2 years old. i modded it to raid a year ago (roughly). the only problem i had so far was one of the drive in my array had a fart, it's working now, and i am currently in the midst of preparations to migrate out of RAID 0 should any further problems occur.