two IDE PCI contoller cards in one PC?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
(which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.

Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
PCI cards in the same PC?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Tim, good question! I would say the DELL BIOS would recognize that
there were two IDE Controller cards including XP. Drive letters from
A-Z have been around a long time also. Will you still be booting from
the on-board Controller? I would think the Card closest to the power
supply would be recognized first, then any additional ones next.

Oh, you might want to consider better cooling if you haven't already
thought of it.

bigsley

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:53:38 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
<TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote:

>I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
>(which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
>PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
>if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
>able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
>
>Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
>the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
>PCI cards in the same PC?
>
>*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

"Timothy Daniels" <TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote in message
news:7eednYoKifRxJOncRVn-2w@comcast.com...
> I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
> (which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
> PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
> if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
> able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
>
> Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
> the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
> PCI cards in the same PC?
>
> *TimDaniels*

Well, unless the BIOS actually interferes, you should be able to
plug in as many cards as you want, all identical, and they should
work fine. That's because PCI 'rolls' the address as part of the
physical socket, and rotates the interrupt line.

As long as the BIOS stays out of the way of what it doesn't know
about, WIN98 and later, with appropriate drivers, should find
the card, and install more drives than you should ever need.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

"Mike Yetsko" wrote:
>
> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>> I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
>> (which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
>> PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
>> if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
>> able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
>>
>> Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
>> the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
>> PCI cards in the same PC?
>
> Well, unless the BIOS actually interferes, you should be
> able to plug in as many cards as you want, all identical,
> and they should work fine. That's because PCI 'rolls' the
> address as part of the physical socket, and rotates the
> interrupt line.
>
> As long as the BIOS stays out of the way of what it doesn't
> know about, WIN98 and later, with appropriate drivers,
> should find the card, and install more drives than you
> should ever need.


That sounds encouraging. Do you know if the same
currently-installed driver could handle both PCI cards,
or would another driver have to be installed for the 2nd
card?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

<anonymous> wrote:
>"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>>I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
>>(which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
>>PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
>>if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
>>able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
>>
>>Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
>>the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
>>PCI cards in the same PC?
>
> [....] I would say the DELL BIOS would recognize that
> there were two IDE Controller cards including XP.
> Drive letters from A-Z have been around a long time
> also. Will you still be booting from the on-board
> Controller? I would think the Card closest to the power
> supply would be recognized first, then any additional
> ones next.
> Oh, you might want to consider better cooling if you
> haven't already thought of it.



The motherboard-mounted IDE controller would
only be used for ATAPI devices. The 2 PCI IDE
controllers would be used for 4 hard drives - one
HD per channel, only two HDs running at any one
time. One of the HDs will be in a removable tray
used for back-ups. I have 3 removable trays, each
for archiving full system clones of each of 3 internal
HDs. During normal use, only 1 or 2 of the internal
HDs would be powered up. Thus, since the remov-
able tray provides its own cooling fan (which is
actually effective), I wouldn't need added cooling.


I know, I know.... I could run the 4 hard drives off
the one controller card. But I'm getting *really* tired
of the physical procedure to open up my computer
case to do all the shuffling around of HD connectors
when I isolate the cloned system for its 1st boot up -
which must be done in isolation. I've heard about
a cute boot manager called XOSL which I could use
to "hide" the other partitions when doing that 1st
boot-up, but before I add the complexity of another
partition on each HD to hold the boot manager, I'd
like to try just turn off the power to the other HDs via
toggle switches during that 1st boot-up of the cloned
system. (Of course, that switching would be done
when the entire machine was powered down.) But
turning off the power to a HD at the end position on
a dual IDE cable renders the HD at the middle
position unbootable, so.... I need one IDE channel
per HD, and thus 2 controllers to provide the 4 IDE
channels.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Timothy Daniels" <TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote:
> I need one IDE channel
> per HD, and thus 2 controllers to provide the 4 IDE
> channels.

Fair enough, and it ought to work, but you may find yourself unable to
tell the difference between disks, especially if some of them are
identical, or have the same number of logical blocks. Depending on
which one boots, the status of the others could change, which is
guaranteed to cause you nightmares.

Why not put them all in removable carriers and physically remove the
ones you want to be "powered down"? You can get decent carriers for
as low as $7....

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

<William P.N. Smith> wrote:
> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>> I need one IDE channel per HD, and thus
>> 2 controllers to provide the 4 IDE channels.
>
> Fair enough, and it ought to work, but you may
> find yourself unable to tell the difference between
> disks, especially if some of them are identical,
> or have the same number of logical blocks.
> Depending on which one boots, the status of the
> others could change, which is guaranteed to
> cause you nightmares.


The internal HDs, indeed, are identical, and
they can't be distinguished in the BIOS' display
of the boot sequence. But I have
1) an empty folder on each OS' desktop whose
name identifies the version of the OS,
2) the arrangement of names in the boot.ini file
of each OS properly identifies the OS of each
internal HD (and the locations of the other OSes
in the event that it is called upon to display a
boot menu by the boot manager), and
3) I use Disk Management to tell me what the
names are of all the "Local Disks" that correspond
to each partition.

Of course, the booted OS always calls its root "C:",
and the others get assigned other names, but it's not
difficult to identify what is what with the help of Disk
Management.


> Why not put them all in removable carriers and
> physically remove the ones you want to be
> "powered down"? You can get decent carriers
> for as low as $7....


My mid-tower PC has only two 5½ inch bays, and
they're occupied by the optical drive and the
removable ATA drive. If I had more bays, I think I
would have gone with more trays as you suggest.
BTW, I use the aluminum Kingwin trays with the
radial fan built into the bottom of the carrier, and
the fan really does cool the drive. (Extra carriers
cost between $11 and $15.) To keep space free
for ventilation, I use "round" IDE cables. Removable
ATA hard drives are a real convenience, and I'm
amazed that more people don't use them instead
of shelling out centibucks for the USB 2 and FireWire
external drives. Heck, to use those, I'd have to get
a PCI USB 2/Firewire controller card as well!

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

If the cards are the same manufacturer and model, one copy of the required
driver will suffice. Windows XP is smart enough to create instances of data
tied to each channel and each device, executing the same driver code.

Same with network cards, as in a firewall or internal network controller type of
computer. Throw in several network cards, all same manufacturer and model, and
there is only one driver required.

.... Ben Myers

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:24:55 -0700, "Timothy Daniels" <TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com>
wrote:

>"Mike Yetsko" wrote:
>>
>> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>>> I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
>>> (which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
>>> PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
>>> if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
>>> able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
>>>
>>> Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
>>> the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
>>> PCI cards in the same PC?
>>
>> Well, unless the BIOS actually interferes, you should be
>> able to plug in as many cards as you want, all identical,
>> and they should work fine. That's because PCI 'rolls' the
>> address as part of the physical socket, and rotates the
>> interrupt line.
>>
>> As long as the BIOS stays out of the way of what it doesn't
>> know about, WIN98 and later, with appropriate drivers,
>> should find the card, and install more drives than you
>> should ever need.
>
>
> That sounds encouraging. Do you know if the same
> currently-installed driver could handle both PCI cards,
> or would another driver have to be installed for the 2nd
> card?
>
>*TimDaniels*
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

Thanks, Ben. I guess I can now spring for another
SIIG card (which I trust, since it has worked for me
so far for 1½ years).

*TimDaniels*

(Ben Myers) wrote:
>
> If the cards are the same manufacturer and model,
> one copy of the required driver will suffice. Windows XP
> is smart enough to create instances of data tied to each
> channel and each device, executing the same driver code.
>
> Same with network cards, as in a firewall or internal
> network controller type of computer. Throw in several
> network cards, all same manufacturer and model, and
> there is only one driver required.
>
>"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>
>> That sounds encouraging. Do you know if the same
>> currently-installed driver could handle both PCI cards,
>> or would another driver have to be installed for the 2nd
>> card?
>>
>>"Mike Yetsko" wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, unless the BIOS actually interferes, you should be
>>> able to plug in as many cards as you want, all identical,
>>> and they should work fine. That's because PCI 'rolls' the
>>> address as part of the physical socket, and rotates the
>>> interrupt line.
>>>
>>> As long as the BIOS stays out of the way of what it doesn't
>>> know about, WIN98 and later, with appropriate drivers,
>>> should find the card, and install more drives than you
>>> should ever need.
>>>
>>> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
>>>> (which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
>>>> PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
>>>> if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
>>>> able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
>>>> the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
>>>> PCI cards in the same PC?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

One problem that you could possibly run into is one that we had with some
Promise cards (two different models) - they did not seem to want to share
IRQs, and there were not enough to go around. Ways around this may be to move
cards around to other PCI slots, or disable unused devices (the PS/2 mouse
port if you are using an USB mouse, for example).

In article <0vidnTc7R4nWD-jcRVn-3g@comcast.com>, "Timothy Daniels"
<TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote:
|Thanks, Ben. I guess I can now spring for another
|SIIG card (which I trust, since it has worked for me
|so far for 1½ years).
|
|*TimDaniels*
|
|(Ben Myers) wrote:
|>
|> If the cards are the same manufacturer and model,
|> one copy of the required driver will suffice. Windows XP
|> is smart enough to create instances of data tied to each
|> channel and each device, executing the same driver code.
|>
|> Same with network cards, as in a firewall or internal
|> network controller type of computer. Throw in several
|> network cards, all same manufacturer and model, and
|> there is only one driver required.
|>
|>"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
|>
|>> That sounds encouraging. Do you know if the same
|>> currently-installed driver could handle both PCI cards,
|>> or would another driver have to be installed for the 2nd
|>> card?
|>>
|>>"Mike Yetsko" wrote:
|>>>
|>>> Well, unless the BIOS actually interferes, you should be
|>>> able to plug in as many cards as you want, all identical,
|>>> and they should work fine. That's because PCI 'rolls' the
|>>> address as part of the physical socket, and rotates the
|>>> interrupt line.
|>>>
|>>> As long as the BIOS stays out of the way of what it doesn't
|>>> know about, WIN98 and later, with appropriate drivers,
|>>> should find the card, and install more drives than you
|>>> should ever need.
|>>>
|>>> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
|>>>
|>>>> I have a use for (4) 133MB/s IDE channels in my Dell
|>>>> (which runs WinXP Pro). I'm now using a single SIIG
|>>>> PCI controller card, but SIIG says that they don't know
|>>>> if my Dell Dimension BIOS or their drivers would be
|>>>> able to differentiate between two identical PCI cards.
|>>>>
|>>>> Has anyone here used two identical IDE PCI cards in
|>>>> the same PC? How about two different brands of IDE
|>>>> PCI cards in the same PC?
|
|

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment (More info?)

<nospam.please@ualberta.ca> wrote in message
news:cl48tj$10p$1@tabloid.srv.ualberta.ca...
> One problem that you could possibly run into is one that we had with some
> Promise cards (two different models) - they did not seem to want to share
> IRQs, and there were not enough to go around. Ways around this may be to
move
> cards around to other PCI slots, or disable unused devices (the PS/2 mouse
> port if you are using an USB mouse, for example).

Uh, that wasn't the problem. PCI cards don't share interrupts. They have
PCI BUS INTERRUPTS. And the PCI bus supports 4 of them. Each card
generally supports PCI_INTA, with some also supporting PCI_INTB. Som
even PCI_INTC and PCI_INTD.

However, in the first slot the Card A is connected to INTA on the bus, B to
B, and so on. In the second slot, the Card A is connected to bus B, then
B to C, and so on. Third slot is A to C, B to D, C to A, etc.

Since by normal convention, the PCI cards will try to use INTA for it's main
interrupt, this 'shares the load' of PCI devices on the interrupt bus
structure.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN IRQ5 for example on a PCI
device. Now, the HOST to PCI bridge device may in fact generate
a 'conventional' IRQ, but that is another story.

ALL PCI INTERRUPTS ARE SHAREABLE BY DEFINITION AND
DESIGN!

There really is no such thing any more as 'not enough interrupts to go
around'. If you think that's your problem, you either have a brain dead
design or a defective driver. But it SURE ain't the interrupts.