Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
Well, I fixed it. Did I repair on windows and then of course I had to
reinstall a bunch of drivers and such and that seemed to do the trick and it
seems to be sticking. Still not sure why it was acting that way.
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:nospam-2908040838180001@192.168.1.177...
> In article <X6adnQ8YPtq0LazcRVn-pA@comcast.com>, "Mark G."
> <cadman_meg@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > The IDE controller is a Promise Ultra 66. Connected to it is an Iomega
Zip
> > 100. When these both work, I can see it state something right after the
ram
> > count finishes. This is for both the SATA drive and the IDE PCI
controller.
> > Does this paint a better picture? So you see, it seems to me that it may
be
> > somewhere with the BIOS or the liking. It is weird, but it seems simple,
but
> > I just do not know the answer. If I understand correctly, the SATA
itself
> > has it's own BIOS or something similar, is this correct? Please assist
ASAP
> > as this is driving me nuts.
>
> There is a RAID BIOS for the SIL3112. It is supposed to check
> for drives, and if it doesn't find any drives connected, I think
> the RAID BIOS unloads.
>
> The Promise Ultra 66 probably has a BIOS as well. AFAIK, the BIOS
> would provide INT13 services, so the OS can be booted from a disk
> connected to the card. Without the BIOS on the Promise card working,
> you could probably run a disk off it in data mode, but not boot
> from it.
>
> So, the common ingredient is they both have BIOS code associated with
> them. And, a known shortcoming of devices like this, is they
> won't always play nice with one another. About all I have read on
> the subject, is these BIOS like to allocate memory for themselves,
> and the memory has to come from the 640KB region. If two or more device
> BIOS load at boot time, they can conflict in their use of memory.
> But, there seems to be more to it than that - after reading the
> same descriptions of problems from people, it almost seems as if
> you cannot have multiple of devices like this available for booting
> at the same time. I don't know if I'm reading too much into it or
> not, but it seems like there is more to the issue than just a
> fight over low memory.
>
> Things that seem to work, are Adaptec cards, where when one Adaptec
> BIOS loads, it can control multiple cards. That neatly side-steps
> the "multiple BIOS" being active at one time.
>
> So, the thing that is throwing me the most, is how your computer
> boots properly sometimes and not others. Kinda shoots the above
> theory all to hell, as a fundamental disagreement between devices
> should be reproducible indefinitely. I've never heard of the BIOS
> detecting hardware out of order - hardware should always be discovered
> in the same order every time.
>
> The best place for researching interactions like this, is the
> forums on 2cpu.com -
>
>
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=20747&highlight=multiple+controller+cards
>
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=42798
>
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=39784
>
> The first thread mentions IRQ routing, and your Promise should go
> in slot 1 or slot 5. The thread also mentions juggling slot positions
> for two PCI cards, which you cannot do with the SATA SIL3112 bolted
> to the motherboard. A third thing they mention, is only enabling
> the BIOS on the device you plan on booting from. I don't know which
> of your controllers you boot from, but that is another option to
> investigate.
>
> The first thread implies more than one cause of problems, which
> is not encouraging. Especially the email from Promise tech
> support, using the "_should_ work" language.
>
> Well, try messing around and tell us how it goes. I hope this
> isn't some other kind of problem, because it will be impossible
> to debug.
>
> Paul
>
> > "Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
> > news:nospam-2908040431540001@192.168.1.177...
> > > In article <T_KdnQNXAo-FwKzcRVn-vA@comcast.com>, "Mark G."
> > > <cadman_meg@comcast.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > How can I get my SATA drives to always be loaded when I restart
> > > > my computer? I am running an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and for some
> > > > reasons, it does not always load the drive. Even when I open
> > > > Partition Magic 8, it doesn't even recognize it. I did downloaded
> > > > what I thought was the latest and greatest from ASUS. Is there
> > > > something I am missing? TIA.
> > >
> > > I know you are frustrated, but the symptoms you have described in
> > > the past, aren't common ones.
> > >
> > > Your symptoms:
> > >
> > > 1) System was working, and after a save and exit from the BIOS,
> > > problems began.
> > > 2) Problem is intermittent. The system sometimes boots properly.
> > > 3) SATA drive and PCI IDE controller go missing at the same time.
> > > SATA is Maxtor 250GB. PCI IDE has ZIP 100 connected to it.
> > > PCI IDE card type and chip used are unstated. Slot used for
> > > PCI card is also unstated.
> > >
> > > You didn't mention what kind of PCI IDE card you have, or what
> > > slots it has been tried in. If the PCI IDE card uses a
> > > CMD 0648 chip, that chip seems to be a bit weird, in terms of
> > > how it makes its appearance in Device Manager. For example,
> > > when it works, you might find the Device Manager listing two
> > > "Primary IDE" and two "Secondary IDE" entries. It seems with
> > > the CMD 0648, both the Southbridge and the PCI IDE card, claim
> > > to be motherboard chipsets some how. Now, maybe that even
> > > means they fight over IRQ14 and IRQ15 ? Most IDE cards would use
> > > SCSI emulation, and not make such a claim.
> > >
> > > As for a slot for the PCI IDE card, try it in slot 1 or slot 5.
> > > Those two slots share an interrupt line, so if you put a card in
> > > one slot of that pair, leave the other slot blank. By doing this,
> > > you are experimenting to see if the sharing of an IRQ has anything
> > > to do with it. (Normally, if you had a third party sound card,
> > > it would get the royal treatment of slot1 or slot5, but treat
> > > the PCI IDE card like it doesn't share interrupts nicely.)
> > >
> > > As for the symptoms themselves, when I first read your post, I
> > > could not think of a mechanism where those two pieces of hardware
> > > would suddenly refuse to enumerate.
> > >
> > > Perhaps a little more detail would help -
> > >
> > > a) When the board works, do you see the SIL3112 BIOS load
> > > during POST ? And, perhaps it mentions detecting whatever
> > > disk you have connected ? Does the PCI IDE card have a
> > > BIOS that loads at POST time ? What does it say about the
> > > ZIP drive ? Does it identify the ZIP drive properly ?
> > > b) When the board fails, what goes missing from the BIOS
> > > screen.
> > >
> > > If you can paint a little more of the picture, maybe more
> > > ideas will come to mind.
> > >
> > > If the PCI IDE card does contain the CMD 0648, the first thing
> > > I would do (personally), is replace that card. It is old
> > > technology, that for some reason Silicon Image is still
> > > selling into the market. (Silicon Image bought CMD, as near
> > > as I can tell, and is flogging that old 0.35u part. They
> > > use that chip for PCI IDE or as a RAID card, and it is a
> > > software RAID, whereas most customers think they are buying
> > > a hardware RAID chip. Apparently, it can also give low
> > > benchmarks, which is something else you can test.)
> > >
> > > HTH,
> > > Paul
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