promise ultra133TX2 pci controller card

Okay I am having some problems with my new promise ultra 133 TX2 pci
controller card. When my machine boots up (its a ibm compatible computer
with an asus cusl2 motherboard), eveything is correctly recognized (my c to g
drives along with my cd rom drive and my dvd drive). I added a third hard
drive on the promise controller card (a segate 200 gig hard drive). The
segate drive is correctly detected at the start of the computer through the
promise controller card configuration, as a 189 gig drive). I am not sure
why only 189 gigs, but that is for another question.

Anyway, at this point the computer boots up to the windows 98 splash screen
and when the computer tries to start, the screen goes black and the computer
boots up again. At this point, windows 98 is started in safe mode.

When I deleted all the windows 98 references on the c drive and did a
complete install of windows 98 second edition, everything was okay upto the
point where I configured my sound card. I was able to configure windows 98,
my asus cusl2 motherboard drivers, my 3com 3c905 network card and finaly when
I tired to install my soundblaster live gamer sound card (the standard gamer
sound card, not the 5.1 gamer sound card) the computer when to reboot and the
lock up happened as I described earlier. I tried to change some of the irq's
for the various parts in the computer, but no luck.

When my computer boots up, it shows that the network card is using irq 9,
the sound card is using irq 9 and I think the pci controller card (or mass
storage card or something like that) is using irq 9 or at least there is a 9
beside each card in the boot up screen. The main controller card on the
motherboard is using irq 14 and 15. I have the pci controller card is slot 2
of the motherboard, the sound card is in slot 3 (I believe) and the network
card is in slot 4 or something like that. I could try and move the cards
around as I had a problem before with the sound card and network card not
working together until I moved them around in the case from different pci
slots.

Can someone suggest how I can fix this problem with my new pci controller
card?

Edward Letendre.

Edward,

Have you installed WIN98-specific driver for this controller?

If not -- you can install it in Safe Mode from diskette (or from HDD if
to copy it there from CD in Command Prompt Only mode).

As for 200 and 189GB -- manufacturers count the drive capacity in
decimal gigabytes (1GB=1000^3=1 000 000 000 bytes), but Windows in
binary gigabytes (1GiB=1024^3=1 073 741 824 bytes) instead. So in bytes
it is all the same.

As for multiple using of IRQ9 -- it is the feature of PCI bus (so-called
interrupt sharing). I had up to 9 devices at this IRQ in Win98SE -- with
no problems.
--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
======
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:19:02 -0800, Edward Letendre
wrote:

Okay I am having some problems with my new promise ultra 133 TX2 pci
controller card. When my machine boots up (its a ibm compatible computer
with an asus cusl2 motherboard), eveything is correctly recognized (my c to g
drives along with my cd rom drive and my dvd drive). I added a third hard
drive on the promise controller card (a segate 200 gig hard drive). The
segate drive is correctly detected at the start of the computer through the
promise controller card configuration, as a 189 gig drive). I am not sure
why only 189 gigs, but that is for another question.

Anyway, at this point the computer boots up to the windows 98 splash screen
and when the computer tries to start, the screen goes black and the computer
boots up again. At this point, windows 98 is started in safe mode.

When I deleted all the windows 98 references on the c drive and did a
complete install of windows 98 second edition, everything was okay upto the
point where I configured my sound card. I was able to configure windows 98,
my asus cusl2 motherboard drivers, my 3com 3c905 network card and finaly when
I tired to install my soundblaster live gamer sound card (the standard gamer
sound card, not the 5.1 gamer sound card) the computer when to reboot and the
lock up happened as I described earlier. I tried to change some of the irq's
for the various parts in the computer, but no luck.

When my computer boots up, it shows that the network card is using irq 9,
the sound card is using irq 9 and I think the pci controller card (or mass
storage card or something like that) is using irq 9 or at least there is a 9
beside each card in the boot up screen. The main controller card on the
motherboard is using irq 14 and 15. I have the pci controller card is slot 2
of the motherboard, the sound card is in slot 3 (I believe) and the network
card is in slot 4 or something like that. I could try and move the cards
around as I had a problem before with the sound card and network card not
working together until I moved them around in the case from different pci
slots.

Can someone suggest how I can fix this problem with my new pci controller
card?

Edward Letendre.

I used the disk driver that came with my promise controller under the windows
9x-me driver directory. I am not sure if it was the latest driver, but
either way, I have just taken the system in to get it checkout by the company
that sold me the computer. The strange thing was that when I first moved the
controller card over to a new slot and the controller card was not recognized
immediately by the computer, the computer booted into windows 98 and
completed the install of my sound card. Once the sound card was correctly
installed everything was okay. I then re-inserted the controller card and
plugged the ide cable back into the first slot of the controller card. the
controller card was then recognized by the computer and windows 98 and the
reboot problems began again. Hopefully in a few days, the company will have
an answer for me. Thanks for the reply and I will see let you know what the
problem was.

The computer support people told me that they have never seen a problem with
a soundblaster card and a promise ultra 133 TX2 card before, but you never
know what it might be. One person said that it was because I was not using
windows xp, but why would windows 98 drivers be available for the promise
card. The card itself was made in 2000 to support large hard drives (lba 48
I believe).

I would think that there would be a problem even if I could use just
software (the software update for my motherboard (815 chip set) that allows
larger hard drives and either windows 98 or xp, it would be the same. I have
heard that data can be lost beyond the 132 gig limit. The problem should be
corrected with the promise card alone, not to mention what operating system
you are using.

Someone even suggested it was my motherboard not be too new, but I have only
pci slots on my motherboard and it is only 5 years old. Newer motherboards
and processors can handle the larger hard dives, but I am not in a postion to
be updating my system as of yet. One of these days, I will be going to a
windows xp system with a newer pentium 4 system, but I am just waiting until
things work out.

Edward Letendre.


"Mikhail Zhilin" wrote:

Edward,

Have you installed WIN98-specific driver for this controller?

If not -- you can install it in Safe Mode from diskette (or from HDD if
to copy it there from CD in Command Prompt Only mode).

As for 200 and 189GB -- manufacturers count the drive capacity in
decimal gigabytes (1GB=1000^3=1 000 000 000 bytes), but Windows in
binary gigabytes (1GiB=1024^3=1 073 741 824 bytes) instead. So in bytes
it is all the same.

As for multiple using of IRQ9 -- it is the feature of PCI bus (so-called
interrupt sharing). I had up to 9 devices at this IRQ in Win98SE -- with
no problems.
--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
======
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:19:02 -0800, Edward Letendre
wrote:

Okay I am having some problems with my new promise ultra 133 TX2 pci
controller card. When my machine boots up (its a ibm compatible computer
with an asus cusl2 motherboard), eveything is correctly recognized (my c to g
drives along with my cd rom drive and my dvd drive). I added a third hard
drive on the promise controller card (a segate 200 gig hard drive). The
segate drive is correctly detected at the start of the computer through the
promise controller card configuration, as a 189 gig drive). I am not sure
why only 189 gigs, but that is for another question.

Anyway, at this point the computer boots up to the windows 98 splash screen
and when the computer tries to start, the screen goes black and the computer
boots up again. At this point, windows 98 is started in safe mode.

When I deleted all the windows 98 references on the c drive and did a
complete install of windows 98 second edition, everything was okay upto the
point where I configured my sound card. I was able to configure windows 98,
my asus cusl2 motherboard drivers, my 3com 3c905 network card and finaly when
I tired to install my soundblaster live gamer sound card (the standard gamer
sound card, not the 5.1 gamer sound card) the computer when to reboot and the
lock up happened as I described earlier. I tried to change some of the irq's
for the various parts in the computer, but no luck.

When my computer boots up, it shows that the network card is using irq 9,
the sound card is using irq 9 and I think the pci controller card (or mass
storage card or something like that) is using irq 9 or at least there is a 9
beside each card in the boot up screen. The main controller card on the
motherboard is using irq 14 and 15. I have the pci controller card is slot 2
of the motherboard, the sound card is in slot 3 (I believe) and the network
card is in slot 4 or something like that. I could try and move the cards
around as I had a problem before with the sound card and network card not
working together until I moved them around in the case from different pci
slots.

Can someone suggest how I can fix this problem with my new pci controller
card?

Edward Letendre.