DoomGuy II wrote:

I've just recently ordered a SYBA SD-LP-SIL2IR PCI SATA controller card which has an SIL3512 chipset for my retro DOS/Windows 9x PC. I did some research on the SIL3112 and found out that it has compatibility with SATA II, but doesn't have DMA capabilities, at least in Windows 98. So, I went with the SIL3512, or at least this particular card that has the chipset. Though, I'm still not sure if it would work with SATA II drives. What do you guys think?

I have some SIL3512 cards and some SATA II drives but no 9x... What can I do for you?

lazibayer wrote:

DoomGuy II wrote:

I've just recently ordered a SYBA SD-LP-SIL2IR PCI SATA controller card which has an SIL3512 chipset for my retro DOS/Windows 9x PC. I did some research on the SIL3112 and found out that it has compatibility with SATA II, but doesn't have DMA capabilities, at least in Windows 98. So, I went with the SIL3512, or at least this particular card that has the chipset. Though, I'm still not sure if it would work with SATA II drives. What do you guys think?

I have some SIL3512 cards and some SATA II drives but no 9x... What can I do for you?

I want to find out if this particular card is compatible with SATA II drives. Want to be double sure before I pour money into a SATA II drive.

I have a Syba with the SIL3512a chipset, I managed to get Windows 98SE to boot and install on it using the 4.5.0.2 BASE BIOS. Just flash the card to that, you don't need to install any drivers or anything. If you really want to use it with drivers try using the 4.3.7.9. BASE BIOS. I'm running a WD 74Gb SATA II drive on it, but I set it to SATA I mode using the jumpers at the back.

DoomGuy II wrote:

lazibayer wrote:

DoomGuy II wrote:

I've just recently ordered a SYBA SD-LP-SIL2IR PCI SATA controller card which has an SIL3512 chipset for my retro DOS/Windows 9x PC. I did some research on the SIL3112 and found out that it has compatibility with SATA II, but doesn't have DMA capabilities, at least in Windows 98. So, I went with the SIL3512, or at least this particular card that has the chipset. Though, I'm still not sure if it would work with SATA II drives. What do you guys think?

I have some SIL3512 cards and some SATA II drives but no 9x... What can I do for you?

I want to find out if this particular card is compatible with SATA II drives. Want to be double sure before I pour money into a SATA II drive.

For now I can only tell you the drives are recognizable by the card and Windows 7. HDTune tests seem fine and I verified some large file copies. But the cards are not for daily use so I can't guarantee their long term stability with SATA II drives. If you have some quick way of testing them please let me know.

We are in the same situation 😀

I also have SIL3112 and the lack of DMA is a real bummer under Windows 98. Ordered SIL3512 controllers from eBay but they won't be here for a while.

But I have a different / maybe better solution. I use SATA to IDE adapters and no issue with SATA II or SATA III drives.

I recently made a video covering Retro Storage options and you can see the controller and model number in the video: http://youtu.be/Edmg43t28jg

It performs magnificently and I use it all my machines. Had zero issues and tried it so far with Socket 7, Slot 1 and Socket 370 machines. The adapters are also very cheap, just a few bucks.

Just out of curiousity, could we perhaps get an update? Did it work you?

I couldn't even get them working in DOS. I gave up after mucking around for an hour or so. Might try them again in another board, but I went back to using my SATA to IDE controllers. Now that I started using PCI Ethernet cards I really don't want another PCI card fighting for resources.

Thanks for the reply Phil, but I was actually wondering about DoomGuy II. Sorry, I should've been more clear. I personally am more of a hot-swap hard drive kind of guy, but using a network or NAS is probably more sophisticated than what I'm doing. 😀

Just an update as far as the SIL3512 card.

It worked wonders when I plugged them in. The BIOS recognized it just fine and I had the Windows 98 SE drivers on hand and detected it and installed just fine. I ordered two 120GB hard drives to see what I get. At that time though, I actually didn't have any SATA power connectors, but was able to order a molex to SATA power converter from EBay for really cheap.

So anyways, I plugged the drives in and detected them just fine. Was a bit finicky though at first. When I first got the card, the bracket was way too short for to fit in my system. So, I just swapped it with another bracket from another PCI card and works just fine. Plus, I did have a bit of a hard time trying to get the drives to work properly, but it ended up being me setting up the drives physically in a weird way.

But anyways, I've installed the drives into the system as normally and was able to partition both of them with the Seagate Drive Overlay Software (Windows 98 SE FDISK was completely useless. Wouldn't partition the entire disk.). I got Disk 1 with about a 30GB partition and around an 80GB partition (apparently both drives were detected as 111GB, but no matter), and I've got Disk 2 partitioned fully. Booted it into the DOS prompt and worked just fine. Installed Windows 98 SE on Disk 1 and so far no hiccups.

The only thing that I need to find out is if the DMA capabilities are actually present on that card, as Phil pointed out in one of this YouTube videos. Another thing too is that while the SATA card is bootable, I can no longer boot from my IDE hard drives first. But since I've got my first disk partitioned into two logical drives, it shouldn't be a major issue. I'll update this further as I reinstall everything on my system.

These along with the 3112\3114 are the only sata I controllers I've found that play happy and can negotiate the speed back down to I speeds with sata III devices.
I'm using a 3512 with 2 1TB drives in a P-pro rig, performance is fine, and 9x drivers, since its still a sata I controller.
Freedos's disk partitioner is best if you don't want to mess with heavy tools.
It still is best to actually format the drives with the 9x dos format utility's, the GUI one inside 9x if you have alot of partitions as you will get stack overflow errors with large partitions past the 3rd one with the dos format utility.
If you use some other utility like G-parted or Freedos's format, to format them, dos Scandisk will complain, and you will have to disable it so it doesn't trigger at boot.
You may end up with corrupt files too when writing to the fat32 partition.

To check DMA, just run one of these: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/hdd-benchmarks.html

Onboard controller on BX440 with SATA to IDE gets over 30 MB/s

Here are the Sil3512 results Under 9x, on that pentium Pro Rig.
Since proof seems to be needed.
Sure beats 30mb a sec 🤣 .
Slightly over 100mb Read and 90mb write under a 98se fresh install.

And here are my benchmark results.

60MB/S looks good enough for me! 😁

60MB/S Sounds about correct for an older sata hard drive.

Looks good! Wondering if it actually makes a difference though.

This is the adapter I got: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/160998726099

Could you guys link the ones you got, because I had nothing but trouble with mine.

This is the card that I got: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SYBA-SD-LP-SIL2IR-Low … 2-/361187095566?

Looks very similar...

Pretty much the same as the syba one but with a normal bracket.
There almost all rebrands I think.
The one I'm using in the Pro rig, came in a generic as generic box as you can get.
No real company to identify with it, but looks identical to the syba one posted above.
Its been flashed to the last IDE bios, not the raid bios. From the Sil website.

Here is a picture.
It came with the raid bios as default.
The IDE one is better.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Looks good! Wondering if it actually makes a difference though.

This is the adapter I got: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/160998726099

Could you guys link the ones you got, because I had nothing but trouble with mine.

I could be wrong, but I've actually read that particular listing and came across this description:

"Only 2 ports can be available for use at the same time. You may need to set the jumpers to choose 2 ports. The 4 ports cannot be used simultaneously."

Maybe it's something to do with not working in DOS properly?