Motherboard Woes

[Gurm]

So I was trying to fiddle with my MSI 694D-AR, to change the faux-RAID into a plain ol' Promise Ultra100 controller so I could run software RAID (since the 20265 is only partially accelerated ANYWAY).

And I gooned the BIOS. Checksum was wrong and it wouldn't flash any more. Uh-oh.

So I went down the street to the local computer guy (nice guy, builds solid systems) and he happened to have a Tyan Tiger 230 in stock - similar to the MSI, only made by Tyan so it ought to be nicer... and it has a 686B instead of a 686A so I can have U100 channels on the mainboard.

Ok, well to make a long story short, this board locks up. Hard. Sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after an hour. But it always locks up.

Is this a bogus board? I've flashed the latest BIOS and everything. It locks up in Win98, Win2k, WinXP.

And... anyone got any ideas how I can accomplish my ORIGINAL goal? I can make it a full RAID easily enough with the modified BIOSes at Crazy Ape but what if I want to go the other way? The PD20265 is an Ultra100 chip to begin with, and other versions of the board ship as U100 only (yeah I tried flashing one of those BIOSes already, didn't work).

- Gurm

[Wombat]

The 686B has problems that the A didn't have. I would install either the new VIA PCI patch (earlier thread, available only on techchannel.de), or George Breese's PCI patch.

The rest I can't help you with.

[The PIT]

Arrrgh the 686b the buggiest south bridge out.
Gurm you're lucky it didn't decide to wipe out your os. Take it back and get a board based on the KT266A.

[Ali]

Are you sure there isnt a jumper on the mobo to change between RAID and ATA100? There is on my Gibabyte mobo.

It sounds like your new mobo is bad, take it back and exchange it. Easy

Ali

[MetalCartman]

You only need the Promise U100 BIOS if you want to boot from the Promise controller. Just for booting, the crippled U100 BIOS in the mobos BIOS is enough.

Just install the driver for the original/normal/whatever U100 PCI from Promise' site (ignore the warnings) and it should work the way you want it.

[Gurm]

That's a nice thought, but when I install the U100 driver, it comes up with an exclamation point in the device manager (under WinXP). Ouch!

- Gurm

[Wombat]

I would still try to patch that Tiger installation. My 8KTA-3 would lock EVERY time I tried to burn a CD, but hasn't done it once since I installed George Breese's first patch.

I switched to that Via patch yesterday. It's too early to tell, but my system hasn't gone up in flames or anything. Also, this patch is designed to improve throughput, especially to RAID controllers.

See the MURC thread <A HREF="http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31090">here</A>.

[Gurm]

Wombat,

My problem is that the board hangs all the friggin' time.

Sometimes it isn't even done POST and it hangs.

I think it's a bad board, and the retailer is being an ass about returning it (I should have known, he pulled the same crap with a monitor I bought there once). But I basically told him that since it was DOA he should take it back... he wants me to see if Tyan technical support has anything good to say. (Oh yeah, they'll be SOOOO helpful).

- Gurm

[Rags]

Maybe your board was built by a sports fan.

Rags

[Marshmallowman]

hehe

[MetalCartman]

If this driver doesn't work, then they must have done more to the PDC20265. In some cases the W2k driver works under XP and what about the U100 drivers from the MSI site?

Or, you could send a mail to CrazyApe...

Cartman