ATA100 problem, please help.

[bill2]

Hi Mates,

Could anyone help me solve this problem?

I have a SOYO dragon plus MOBO for about a month. I connected my IBM 60GXP HDD (ATA/100 ) to its IDE. All BIOS parameters set to AUTO.

However, in the BIOS boot screen I see - Pri. Master Disk: LBA, ATA 33.

I do not use any slave device and I do use the MOBO original IDE cables (which should support ATA 100)

Is there any way to change it to a higher speed (66 or 100)?
I could not find any BIOS controller that allows to change the IDE speed.

Thanks

[bill2]

Well ...

As far as I know, IBM do not control the UDMA speed on their drive via jumpers. I just download IBM's drive utility and checked and my drive is set to ATA 100.

So I do believe it something related to the MOBO.

Any suggestions?

[Marshmallowman]

are there any other devices on the cable?, a cdrom might cause problems.

You say the cables that came with the motherboard, some times you get 2 different type, eg one ata100 80 wire cable and one normal at33 cable(for cdrom).

does the Motherboard have an extra controller(RAID), if so You may have to configure the mode settings in the RAID controllers bios (use ctrl H for higpint controllers during boot up)

I think by default all 60GXP in UDMA 100 mode, but it is still worth downloading the IBM mode proggy

[Marshmallowman]

Sciascia, weird thing happened, I saw your post, but when I posted my post appears above it???, are you in a time warp?

EDIT: It happened again????

[Sciascia]

You may have to enable ATA100 capabilities on the drive itself. Different manufacturers use different methods, WD uses a software program, Maxtor uses jumpers I think or maybe IBM uses jumpers. Check ther manual and the jumper legend on the drive itself.

[Sciascia]

I don't know, I wasn't able to rep[ly to you at all last night.

[bill2]

I have rechecked the cable spec. and it should support ATA/100.

I checked the HDD using IBM Ftool utility and the HDD configerd (by default) to ATA/100 (UDMA mode 5)

I have used IBM test utility to check HDD speed, it says: MAX UDMA speed = ATA/100, Actual UDMA speed ATA/33.

Is there anyone here with SOYO MOBO that works fine with ATA/100? How did you do it? May I have your BIOS settings?

PS. I wrote to SOYO tech support but didn't get any reply so far.

[Sciascia]

Check to see if you have a BIOS update for your MB. If you have an 80 wire cable and the drive is configured properly, then it is a BIOS issue. Did you go to the Standard CMOS Features and try to get it to detect the HD there? Also check to see if you have anything that is IDE specific in the BIOS, like Busmaster and anything else that you can find.

[smitty]

bill2 I think that MB has 2 types of IDE conn. on the MB
which set are you plugged into?
also is the ata driver been loaded and if not using raid are the switches set to turn it off ( I think this applies to ide 3 & 4) otherwise you get dma 33
smitty

[bill2]

Hi Smitty

Thanks for the advices.

I think that I do connect my devices well, I have only one HDD and one CD. They are connected each with its own cable to its own IDE (HDD on IDE 1, and CD on IDE 2) both as primary. IDE 3 & 4 are disabled at the BIOS. I uses the original SOYO cable which according to SOYO should support ATA 100.

I sent an E-mail to SOYO US and they replied to me and ask me to install - ULTRA FAMILY DRIVER. I have downloaded it BUT ...
there is no EXE file there, only INF and SYS and I do not know how to install it.

In their instruction they ask to copy the files on a diskette then, "when you into system install screen press F6 key then 's' key ..."

What the hell is SYSTEM INSTALL SCREEN ???

[Sciascia]

What they sent you sounds like the RAID controller driver. When yo set upi Win2k/XP you are given a chance to install SCSI drivers (the RAID controller is treated as a SCSI device) and what you would do is press F6 during teh setup and then insert the floppy with the files. There is no .exe file because Windows knows that it should check the .ini files for install information and the .sys file is the actual device driver. Windows would check the info inthe ini file and compare it to the information that is in the BIOS of the device that you are trying to install to verify whether or not it is the correct driver.

To make a long story short, I wouldn't hold my breath on those files fixing the problem. Email them back and tell them that the problem is with the HD and the MB BIOS, not windows drivers. The problem is occurring long before you even get to that point. If the BIOS does not recognize the HD correctly than you it is a BIOS/HD config problem. I am positive on this part.

[bill2]

Sciascia, I'm sure you are right.

this is exactly what I'm thinking. I'm sure the problem is that the MOBO doesn't recognize the HDD correctly.

Lateron today when I have some time I'll try to remove the CD and move the HDD to the second IDE (I also will change the cable again) and maybe try to make it wok as a slave.

maybe one of this actions will convince the mobo to improve its behaviour.

[bill2]

U N B E L I E V A B L E !!!

It was the fu##ing IDE cable. I found another cable, replace it and the BIOS boot screen shows UDMA 100 !!!

NO NEED FOR DRIVER OR ANYTHING.

Thanks to all of you for the advice.

[Technoid]

Not surprising