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Rosewill RC-200 (Sil0680A) woes

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First post, by Scythifuge

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Greetings,

Of course this card is not working smoothly in this project with a laughable list of problems. I discovered that Gateway Tabor boards, with the final BIOS, have limitations with HDD size, with 120/128GB drives not able to have Windows 98 installed, and 80GB being the largest drive I have had success with, thus far. It is also touchy with SD-to-CF inside CF-to-IDE drive adapters, but the SD-to-IDE drive is working fine. I decided to remove the Voodoo2, leaving the V1 and the V5, and I installed a Rosewill ATA133 RAID card, hoping that it would allow me to use my 128GB SD cards for my various OS installs.

Well...

When I boot up with it, it takes FOREVER. The Tabor board is already slower than my Asus P2B or even my 486 (4DPS) system. Then the BIOS on the RC-200 engages, and adds a minute or more to the boot process. This alone is making me consider something else, because it is a ridiculously long wait. However, running fdisk while having the SD card drive attached to the card, seemed to solve the drive size issue. Removing the Voodoo2 sucks, but I can try the VIA USB 2.0 card that wouldn't work in the P2B, and I could probably add a NIC. The USB card is very thin, so the Voodoo5 gets good airflow. I could always just use 64GB SD cards, but I don;t really want to cut my drives in half. I want to be able to put ALL of my games and apps and period correct MP3's on an SD card.

Is there anything I can do or try with the RC-200 boot time? I know there is a newer BIOS for the chipset, and I have seen posts where people are using cards with the same chipset, but not the ssslllooowww boot time. However, I did see a Newegg review where someone mentioned the long boot time, so it seems some people experience it, and others do not. I may try to buy a different ATA100 or 133 card, but I hate to start collecting cards that won't get used.

Thanks!
Scythifuge

Reply 1 of 3, by Scythifuge

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I'm look at a different card to try. I can't find any info on why this is booting so slow.

Reply 2 of 3, by Scythifuge

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I tried connecting an actual IDE mechanical drive, and the 1-2 minute wait time persists. I watched a video where a Russian dude uses a different card but same chipset, and it boots within a reasonable amount of time. Maybe the RC-200 and the Tabor board have trouble communicating. I don't know if this card is flashable, but I am going to try, though I am not expecting any miracles.

Reply 3 of 3, by Scythifuge

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SUCCESS!!!

I managed to figure out how to flash the bios on this card. I matched up the number on the chip in the menu, suing updflash.exe. However, it kept failing. I found an old forum post somewhere on the Information Superhighway where they had the same card, and mentioned which option to select. The flash was successful! However, the 3.400 bios removes RAID functionality, but I am fine with that. Upon reboot, the Sil 0680 bios text popped up, but it appeared for only a couple of seconds, and then booted into Windows. I may still buy a promise card for testing, as I have the other Gateway and can get my hands on a few more of them, and I like the IDE port layout on those, and a seller made me an offer. However, I am thankful to get this working!

I haven't tested the VIA USB 2.0 card yet. I couldn't get it to work in the Asus P2B, but it is listed under the system devices tab. If I can get it working, then I can use a USB-NIC for networking, though I still want networking in DOS, so that I can browse the web with Arachne or some other browser. I can also test larger drives, and see if rloew's patches work better on this system, and experiment with all kinds of things, like using a 1TB drive for storage. I can buy a 256GB SD card and throw XP on it.

However, the system is finally ready for me to install games and apps, which I have been waiting for, for a long time. All the games I used to play back in 1999-2001 can be enjoyed on original hardware (with updated storage and USB, of course) and on a 20" viewable CRT. When I get an AWE64 Legacy, I will have access to the shared PCI/ISA slot and can put an actual NIC in the system, and this system will have everything! The only other upgrade would be the CPU, and I think I can put an 850Mhz in there. I'll save wanting a 1.4Ghz P3 Tualatin for another build.

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