Soyo 6BA +4 and Promise ata 66 controller card.

[Raincity]

I would like to try using a promise controller card instead of the Highpoint controller on this board to possibly clear up some issues that I think are being caused by my Hardrive and the Highpoint controller. Soyo tech says to just dissable the Highpoint in the device manager and it should work fine like a scsi card. Has anybody done and gotten it to work properly. Thanks

Rain

 

[Mem]

I can only give you info on the Promise ATA-66 controller card,hopefully someone will help you out,anyway I have my hardrive set to none in BIOS on my Abit LM6 board ,& have my harddrive linked direct to the Promise controller which is 100% stable ,no problems at all,the only thing connected on my motherboard is my DVD-DRIVE.You could try the same setup , you should disable your highpoint controller in windows.

 

[peemo]

Rain,

What up with your board? Mine seems to work just fine. I have an IBM Deskstar DPTA-372050 20.5GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA 66, Firmware Revision P760 and it appears as a SCSI device. I didn't set it up so I don't know much about installation but would be glad to ask questions of the guru who did.
My HDTach scores:
Random Access Time = 10.8ms
Read Burst Speed = 53.8mbps
Read Speed: max 23673kps, min 21081kps, avg 22331.9kps
CPU Utilization: 12%
So I think I'm actually operating at ATA66, at least in WIN98. Can't find a prog to verify ATA66 performance in WIN2K.

Cheers.

 

[Raincity]

Thats funny peemo since Im using the same ibm hardrives also. It just locks up in win startup. Sometimes it will lock up before the desktop loads other times it will lock up right as the sys tray starts loading and its getting real anoying. Im still not sure if its the HP controller or the SBlive or some device driver causing the problem. I tried dissabling sb16 emulation no luck, took out the sblive programs from startup including that quicklanch bar no luck. Tried knocking down the hp controller settings to udma 2 in the hp bios and no luck. here is what I have in startup loading Scan reg, task monitor,sys tray,ms intelle pro the keyboard button drivers,Seti,true vector and zone alarm. I have all the lastest drivers for the hp version 1.25 and the lastest drivers for the sblive. well Peemo what would be your guess to the problem. The pc runs like a top when it boots up but this 1 to 5 times to boot is getting real anoying. Also when ever I install a new prog, the machine will die every time on the restart. If anybody has an idea on what the problem may be, I would love to hear it. thanks

Rain

Oops I forgot to add system spec for trouble shooting

Soyo 6BA+4 2ba1 bios
p3600e@600
256 micron cas 2 ram at 222
Antec 300 watt supply
Asus 6800 deluxe with Asus 5.22 beta drivers
SBlive with latest drivers on pci slot 4 sharing with the pci to usb host on Irq10
ATI tvwonder on slot 5 sharing with the video card on irq 11
pioneer dvd 114 on master ide 1
Hp 9110 on master ide 2
I have tried moving the two pci cards around on different slots seeing if it was a irq problem and it still happens if I put either card on pci 2 to share with the hp or pci4 to share with usb or pci 5 to share with the video card and no luck. Pci slot 3 seems to share with the ide udma 33 secondary controller and the machine wont even boot if the sblive is on it and if the Ati sits on it the HP drive wont even show up in the device manager. Sorry for the long post folks but im just trying to give all the info I can on the issue.

 

[mcbiff]

My guess is you have a IRQ channel conflict involving the SBLive. On my BXMaster the Live only works correctly in PCI2. So I'd try some more rearranging if I were you.

 

[Raincity]

Every pci slot will share a irq with a device on the mobo so where ever i Put it It will share with something and windevice manager lists no conflicts with anything.

Rain

 

[LarryJoe]

Rain you are correct we have very similar systems. This is a very strange one. I get the same results as Peemo with HDTach which = ATA66. I use Maxtor hard drives. Can you tell me your IDE configuration? I also assume you have checked the obvious things like IRQ's and removing everything but your video and main hard drive, kind of drastic, but it can save alot of time sometimes when you just start with the basics. What about your win.ini and sys.ini? Anything odd in them? Anything in your autoexec.bat? The Live will put dos crap in there during install if you don't deselect install dos drivers. Here is my IDE config:

HP
IDE 1
PM HDD
PS Zip

IDE 2
SM HDD
SS Empty

Mobo
IDE 3
PM Pioneer 104S
SM Acer 8x4x32

IDE 4 Disabled (saves an IRQ)


What about the new BIOS? 2ba2 - 6/22/00??


Also.......ygm

LJ

 

[LarryJoe]

Do you know how to use the system config utility to rem out line in your Autoexec.bat, sys.ini and win.ini files? If so, start with the autoexec and rem out (uncheck) various lines one at a time to see if this helps.

LJ

 

[Raincity]

Ya Hoo, your the man LJ. I just uncecked the load autoexec in msconfig and that cleared up the restart problem right up. I guees it was those sb16 drivers mucking up windows, now Nortons doesnt check the mbr on startup now but I can live with that. Now Can somebody please tell me what the exact settings in the award bios to let me managethe irqs in windows. I have two free irq,s and I want to put them to use since win wont assign a device to them. I have os plug and play enabled acpi enabled. No what about the resources controlled by setting should it be auto or manual and the reset config enabled or dissabled. And where can i download this hdtach to check my hardrive score since im going to reset the hp bios back to udma 4 now
Thanks Rain

 

[LarryJoe]

It sounds like you installed Windows this way, without Pnp OS enabled and without auto PCI/ISA. I would delete all my hardware in device manager. There is a registry key you could delete in 98 to delete all devices, but I can't think of it right now. Anyone?? Then reboot and change your bios to the above enabled/auto. Let 98 find everything and install the drivers. They will still be in your inf directory. Know where your drivers are just in case. Careful with the Live!. Don?t install dos drivers, if something happens you know what to do.

The ATI Tuner and the Live! are both fickle about IRQ's, let Windows put them where they want to be.

LJ

 

[peemo]

I agree with LJ, enable auto settings in the bios and let Windows detect everything. You aren't trying to use Liveware 2 are you? It is incompatible with PIII from what I have heard.

Do you have "Assign IRQ for VGA" enabled in the bios?
The bios PNP/PCI Configuration setup will let you assing IRQ/DMA if need be, but Windows should do the job. Note the setting "PNP OS installed", which should be "Yes" for Windows 95 or later.

Can't think of anything else right now. Good luck.

HDTach: http://www.tcdlabs.com/hdtach.htm

 

[Raincity]

Oh boy what a mess. I went and deleted all the devices in safe mode then went to restart the machine and made the changes in the bios for os plug and play and then it all went to hell. Windows would give the bsod about some vxd dynamic link and I needed to reinstall win to fix it and so I dug out the win disk and tried to do a reinstall on top and still no luck, so I went off to the store for beer and take out chinese knowing my fate would be reinstalling windows all night. I did a c format and clean install and everything went well untill I went to install the Ati tv tuner and the install program would keep crashing on me. Tried changing the Asus driver back to the original driver thinking the Ati didnt like the new driver and no luck, Moved it to pci slot 4 and boom no more install crashing on me. Then the 10/100 usb ethernet adapter took a $#$# on me during the install not installing properly causing all these errors during boot up. Uninstalling and reinstalling the ethernet adapter did help all these dam errors in win load so back to square 1 after wasting 2 hour running a win install and adding the pci devices one by one and installing office 2k again. This time I got smart and installed the usb ethernet adapter first incase it took another $#$# on me during the install so i wouldnt have to back track so far incase another win install would be needed again. But It installed without a hitch this time. SB install went fine and no more sb16 dod drivers for me thank you. Then that stupid ati install crash again came back. After the 15 try,s it would finally install without crashing,dam ati and there piss poor drivers. Damm look how long this post has become due to my ranting from a bad win install day, sorry all but I had to get this frustration out rrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Now the lockup issue on startup is cured. Those sb16 dos drivers was the problem all the time, Frenchie if your reading this post, Do I have a case to sue creative labs for all this hassle, guess not, But windows still wont let me change the resources settings. I have os plug and play enabled and the auto setting for pci/isa and have reset resources settings disabled with acpi enabled. These are my current irq settings after win allocated everything.0 System timer
1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
2 Programmable interrupt controller
3 Intel(r) 82371AB/EB/MB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
3 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
4 Communications Port (COM1)
5 Creative SB Live!
5 Highpoint Technology Inc. HPT366 Ultra DMA 66 Controller
5 Highpoint Technology Inc. HPT366 Ultra DMA 66 Controller
5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
7 ATI-TV Wonder Bt878 - Audio Driver
7 ATI-TV Wonder Bt878 - Video Driver
7 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus
10 Creative SB16 Emulation
11 ASUS AGP-V6800 DDR SGRAM v5.22e
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
Everything looks good and the sb is the only major device sharing with the Highpoint so I will live with it but im still curios why I cant manage the resources like I should be able to. I have the printer port and com 2 shut down since I dont need them,if your wondering what happend to them. Thanks for the help LJ and Peemo I have been battling this lockup issue after building this machine last spring, The only other issue I have had with this machine was cured with a 325$ shot in the #@#@ ridding myself of the CLAP. Thanks all, it looks like I got a machine that is finally runs right now.

Rain

 

[LarryJoe]

Wow, sorry you had all this trouble. I didn't think my advice would have caused a BSOD. On the ATI Card, I too can't install the 2.0 software off the CD, it crashes. ATI screwed up here. I copy the CD to my hard drive and then install it in safe mode off my hard drive.

Look at the bright side, your system is clean and installation is the way you want it. Don't worry about IRQ sharing, if you take a look at my email, you will see I am sharing the Live! with the HP in IRQ 11 too. No big deal.

Let me know if you need help with the ATI, I have the program in a 30mb zip file that installs off the hard drive. We could test out the new cable modem and I could send it to you over ICQ. Also Rain, after everthing is installed and the way you want it, you should use Norton Ghost and take an image of your hard drive. Then when something goes wrong, you just reinstall the image and boot up in about 20 minutes. Even if you had an image before this, you could have kept reloading it and messing with it.

LJ

 

[peemo]

I remember a day like that when the sewage system backed up and my basement started overflowing with sh!t. Sorry you had to go through that but, like LJ says, you now have a clean machine.

First the CLAP and then then SB Live! Your box really doesn't like Creative Labs does it?

Glad you're back in business.

 

[Raincity]

Ya Peemo Creative labs is not one of my favorites at the moment. After all that trouble we had with the clap scared me off from buying a creative gf2 when that excellent deal went around for a day or two. Thanks LJ I was planning to ghost over a final image when all my progs are installed a tweaked to my preference. It seems that I had to go through hell to get to heaven.


Rain