Have you tried in the Boot Device settings where you choose "Primary Boot Device", "Secondary Boot Device" etc. choosing SCSI (even if it's an EIDE controller)?

There's usually a "Boot Other Device" or something like that option in the BIOS.

Yes, I've tried all those settings, 'SCSI,C,A' etc, even 'LS/ZIP' etc...

But no, sadly there is no 'boot Other' option... at least not one I can find.
(and believe me, I've looked in all the existing menus/settings)

And changed a lot of other seemingly unrelated settings, for no effect.

Enable anything regarding INT13 in the BIOS, that might help.

Sometimes called SCSI too.

Well, been looking all over for these or remotely similar settings, but no dice.

In the PNP section, there is a 'new' setting that wasn't(?) there before inserting the card, 'PCI IDE card second channel'(enable/disable), and 2 accompanying 'Primary/Secondary IDE INT#' (A,B,C or D in dual combos).
But that does nothing, regardless of combinations...

So, I suppose this particular board wasn't meant for such a setup.

On my Abit BF6, which is 1 generation ahead of the BH6, I just select SCSI. Actually I don't think I even need to do that. The PCI IDE card's BIOS seems to take care of the issue. Boot order would matter if you had a HDD on the onboard controller too. I've used Promise Ultra 66, a generic Silicon Image 0680A UDMA133 card, and a Promise SATA150TX2 in this board. Hell, I've even managed to get these cards to work in some 486 PCI mobos. I had a SATA drive in a 486 at one point 🤣.

I suspect you have a problem with your IDE card or drive. Do you see an initialization screen for the card, detecting your drive and loading its BIOS?

Try running only the IDE card and the video card, and try different slots. I've had problems with other PCI cards not getting along (IRQ sharing issue probably). 440BX is sensitive to PCI IRQ sharing between some cards (at least with these Abit boards). There are only 4 IRQs available to PCI on 440BX and this includes AGP and USB. So you will have sharing unless you only use one or two PCI cards in certain slots. Sharing isn't a problem unless the cards and chipset just refuse to get along.

I also suggest you get the BH6 manual and read up because Abit usually documents how the IRQs are arranged. You can figure out which slots share with each other and which share with onboard components.

A Google Groups search found me this info about BH6.
<BH6 IRQ resources>
AGP and PCI-1 share an IRQ (this is how all AGP mobos are, AFAIK)
PCI-2 owns independent IRQ
PCI-3 owns independent IRQ
PCI-4, PCI-5 and USB share an IRQ

I used to have a BH6. Upgraded from a 440FX Pentium II mobo to that and then went to the BF6 for more overclocking options and more robust CPU power regulation. Of course, bunches of the capacitors went bad on the BF6 so I had to recap it. Still works today.

Thanks for detailed reply!

Well, been doing some further investigations.

As for manual, settings, IRQ slots etc, I know... 😀
(been having this board for 10 years)
And the only things installed now has been the cpu, memory, a pci vga card and the hdd card.
Basically a bare board.

Meanwhile I've tried an ASUS P2B, just in case.
Same results at first.

And, no, did not see the init screen for the card with that particular hdd.
Process just pauses after the ESCD update(no init), and then... DISK BOOT FAILURE.
(here should the card initiate somewhere, but doesn't)

BUT then, I figured maybe the setup on the disk(or the disk itself) were having some issues, so I picked another one, also with a basic DOS 622 install(but no QEMM), and connected it.

And, waddayouknow, finally booted to DOS...
(noise-of-head-beeing-scratched)
This time I get to see the init of the card.
(which is brand 'new' old stock, removed the plastic yesterday)

---

So, conclusion would be, either...
- the QEMM installed on the original hdd doesn't like the newer card and wont start it
(worked fine on the old one, umm when it worked that is)

- there's something about that particular hdd which is funky
... BUT note: it works fine! when using the motherboard connectors, so what gives...(??)

- the older DOS installment is not quite up to it somehow

or any combination of the above...
Still very weird.
(and, same PCI slots used consistently in all tests, 1VGA 3HDD)

Anyway, it now remains to see if the new card will boot with the old motherboard...
But if I have to re-install DOS etc on a new hdd, and/or QEMM don't work, I probably just have to go for an ATX socket7 board instead....

PS: BF6... yeah, the caps...heh... been avoiding those newer mboards, hoarding replacement BH6 instead...
(I'm clueless when it comes to re-capping)

Yowzers that sounds like a nightmare. Maybe you should just dig up another PCI IDE card? 😀

And yeah recapping is not fun. The BF6 was my first and only attempt at it and I'm surprised it survived. heh Actually I'm surprised that you are free of bad caps. BF6 is only about a year newer than BH6. Probably not even that much newer.

Couple of pics to compare


I wish BF6 had the same distance between the Slot 1 and the RAM as BH6 does. My solution to cooling my Slotket is the Thermalright HR05 SLI rigged on. Excellent cooling and all 3 RAM slots open!

Heh 😁 , you are quite the cool guy, right ?
I mean, look at all those monster fans/coolers, and the custom attachment mechanisms...
(mine are much smaller...)

What IS that VGA card ? Certainly not Agp1x... or even 4x(?)
And at what speed is the CPU ?

Me, I chugging happily(eh) along on my (granted overclocked) celeron 533@851
I know, been meaning to replace it for years, but...

As for BH6 caps, I'm as surprised as you as why it still works.
It's been in daily(7-10hrs+) use since Dec-98, my main machine, believe it or not.
(I tried the test set-up on a working spare)

Same goes for the hdd in it, part of the original machine(98!) - IBM 9.1GB 7200 RPM (when 5400 and 6GB was the norm).
It sounds like a 50'ies refridgerator, but works perfectly.
(well, not counting those clanging noises occationally, as if a spring is released)

As for my 'new' IDE card, well, I don't really think that is the problem, for several reasons.
At least that is the theory for now.
I need to perform some more testing to see what happens.
But getting a bit tired of this now, so not sure when...

----

History:
- Why: old P100(1995) suddenly won't find the hdd, no conceivable reason as to why
- me suspect IDE card, as the disk is found and read fine on another machine
- me makes image of disk, and 'install' it to a second hdd, to not 'disturb' the old one
- this second disk boots fine on the BH6 mobo connector
- but when connected to a new IDE card, check above....
- trying this with a third disk(same era/older), but different DOS installation: works fine, hence etc....

🤣

Yeah I've taken the BF6 as far as it can possibly go. That is a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, the last AGP 2x -compatible card (ATI's is the Radeon 9700 Pro). The CPU is a Pentium III-S 1400 MHz, a gem that I've been yearning to get for years and finally did get about a year ago. I have a few Slot 1 CPUs too so I can run anything from a Pentium II 266 up to this Tualatin 1400. 😀 And I have a selection of video cards too. These Abit 440BX boards are quite the wide-range retro solutions.

The cooler actually is now fanless. It keeps that CPU cool enough with just minimal airflow. I also always run my fans at 7v or lower so they are quiet. Big fans, low voltage = quiet.

The CPU cooler is actually supposed to be used for chipsets. I bought it for a nForce 4 board I used to have but ended up not using it because it didn't fit well. Then I realized that I could rig it up on the slotket and it was just perfect. The base is exactly the same area as that Tualatin heatspreader. And the way the SLI version of the cooling fins are offset from the base, it works perfectly to not obstruct the DIMM slots.
http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/produc … W50aHVzaWFzdA==

I am really amazed to hear that your BH6 has been running strong for all these years. That's really impressive. I actually probably didn't need to recap mine because it was still working but I felt that the 4 or so bursting caps were just not a good sign for the future.

swaaye wrote:

Yeah I've taken the BF6 as far as it can possibly go. ...

Awesome! 😁 You're an Elite Retro God. 😎

is that controller card bootable in another computer? Could be worth trying as some controllers don't have a bootable bios.

swaaye - sweet setup! I think you've persuaded me to get the same heatsink (I use a bf6 also) but how did you mount it on securely? Thermal epoxy or just the clip? If just the clip, where did you get it from?

kreats wrote:

swaaye - sweet setup! I think you've persuaded me to get the same heatsink (I use a bf6 also) but how did you mount it on securely? Thermal epoxy or just the clip? If just the clip, where did you get it from?

It's just a clip from another socket 7 heatsink. It works ok. Had to bend it a little bit to get it to fit ok. It is very tight. Lots of pressure on there, enough to worry me actually, but it works. 😀

I figured out that putting a bit of duct tape on the underside of the clip (stuck to the clip) acts well as a "grippy surface" for the base to be in contact with and prevent the heatsink from moving around easily. This was really the most important step cuz the cooler wanted to rotate on the lubricant-like heatsink paste. In the photo above, I had tried gluing the clip to the base with superglue just to keep it from sliding around. Superglue didn't work very well. Epoxy surely would but that's just messy. Thermal epoxy surely could just stick the whole cooler to the CPU with no clip at all, but that stuff is very permanent.

What also really helps is that heatsink paste will thicken up a little over time and then the creation really stays in place very well. I used some plain white paste here and that's ok. I also know that Arctic Silver thickens up a lot.

If you have a collection of extra Socket 7 heatsink clips, you should be able to rig it up. They are often large enough to work over the top of that base.

Wow a BX and tualatin.. thats sick. You should run some Sandra2k and 3Dmark tests so I compare it with my K7.

prophase_j wrote:

Wow a BX and tualatin.. thats sick. You should run some Sandra2k and 3Dmark tests so I compare it with my K7.

It is definitely snappy. I have it stable at 133 MHz FSB and loaded with 768MB PC133 RAM (at CL 2, RCD 3, RP 2). The GeForce FX cards are ok (for the most part) with the resulting 90MHz AGP.

I've run some benches in Everest Ultimate. The RAM latency is something like 90ns, which is quite a bit faster than the fastest P3 listed in there. As you can probably imagine, it rivals low-end P4s in the CPU benches. I don't remember exactly where it fits in though. Maybe I'll grab some screenshots if I can remember to.

I have played some heavy games on it. Doom3, Guild Wars and FarCry. With that FX 5950 it runs them pretty well too! 😀

Ok. I made some screenshots of Everest Ultimate on my Abit BF6 + P3 1400.

That is rather ninja. According to sandra2k2 it would defiantly wreck most p4s on non-optimized code. Thats another reason I love the athlons so much.. they just have raw alu/fpu power.

Yeah I remember those Sandra P4 results that conveniently shielded the P4's dismal x87 unit behind a rather fake SSE2 result. As if there were any SSE2-heavy apps in 2001-2002. I suppose it is a very synthetic bench though that just aims to measure theoretical limits though.

Still, there was more to the P4 than just its gimpy FPU. The way it rocked Quake 3, as an example. P4 has some beastly cache and memory performance that was way outside of what Athlon could manage. Athlon's cache and chipsets kinda sucked compared to Intel's tech. It's too bad that Athlon didn't launch with nForce2 right from the get go!

I have some old Sandra versions archived away. Maybe I'll bench on those as well.