Replying to myself...

I couldn't get the Netgear FA310TX Ethernet card to work. I moved to a 3Com 3C90X card. The 3Com packet driver worked the first time. (Well, except that 3Com's documentation implied that the default software port was in hex when in reality you have to specify hex in the normal 0x... format.) I now have my DOS setup running as an FTP server: ace for copying software back and forth.

zolli wrote:

Replying to myself...

I couldn't get the Netgear FA310TX Ethernet card to work. I moved to a 3Com 3C90X card. The 3Com packet driver worked the first time. (Well, except that 3Com's documentation implied that the default software port was in hex when in reality you have to specify hex in the normal 0x... format.) I now have my DOS setup running as an FTP server: ace for copying software back and forth.

I also use the 3C905B, it's an excellent card with great compatibility. Only caveat is that the DOS packet driver needs an IRC to itself, if it shares its interrupt with say the SIL3114 the PC freezes after loading the driver. My BIOS did not let me allocate a single IRQ but I managed it by moving the card to a bottom PCI slot, changing the IRQ allocation scheme.

By the way, it seems the SIL3114 reserves 10KB of conventional memory as a buffer, decreasing the total amount to 630 (word at 0000:0413). I was alerted to this fact by System Commander which thought a virus was potentially installed.

Hi there,

I have a SIL3114 for my P3 850 and I'm facing some speed issues under windows.
It's running Bios 5.4.03 ( I have the screen to setup the raid on boot ) and both DOS and Windows are working fine without using the "Base" Bios. Just the speed that seems to be very low.
Do you think that flashing the Bios to the Base one will improve the speed under w98 ?

NyLan wrote on 2020-07-11, 16:52:

It's running Bios 5.4.03 ( I have the screen to setup the raid on boot ) and both DOS and Windows are working fine without using the "Base" Bios. Just the speed that seems to be very low.
Do you think that flashing the Bios to the Base one will improve the speed under w98 ?

So, the BIOS version doesn't directly affect the speed in Windows 98. What does improve the speed is having the correct 32bit drivers installed - the drivers will take over from the BIOS and enable DMA, and everything should then get fast.

But the problem is that in order for the driver to load correctly in Windows, the driver version has to support the BIOS version on the card. And there are (as far as I can tell) no Windows 98 drivers which support the 5.4.03 RAID BIOS. (On Win2k/XP and later you can use the 3114R5 1.5.10.0 or later drivers with this BIOS.)

So, to improve your speed you have two options:

• Install the Base bios version 5.4.03 (b5403.bin) on the card. Then you can install the Windows 98 non-raid driver version 1.3.10.0 (3114-vista-x86-logo-1.3.10.0.zip)
• Install the RAID bios version 5.0.73 (r5073.bin) on the card. Then you can install the Windows 98 raid driver version 1.0.20.0 (3114_x86_10200_logo.zip)

I personally use the latter option - I found that the bios version 5.0.73 was more compatible with my Socket 7 motherboard's bios. Your mileage may vary - if one option doesn't work, try the other.

The mentioned driver and bios versions are all in the 3114 driver archive file on https://www.philscomputerlab.com/silicon-image-sil311x.html

Unfortunately, the card I have is not recognized by the flashing tool, so I'm stuck with 5.4.03 Raid. Your explanation make sense and validate what I assumed.

Some of my tests here : Intel SE440BX-2 / Issues

zolli wrote on 2019-02-11, 22:42:

I found this post on Sil3114 when trying to get things working on a P3B-F based machine I've been working on. I'm running DOS 6. […]
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I found this post on Sil3114 when trying to get things working on a P3B-F based machine I've been working on. I'm running DOS 6.22 & Windows 98 (and Debian but that's not a primary use case.) I wanted to throw an old 1TB SATA drive into the machine for use with Windows 98 and had an old Sil3114 card sitting here. The card had the default RAID BIOS on it & since it was not straightforward to get things working I thought I'd post a quick HOWTO here.

1. You know your Sil3114 SATA card has the RAID BIOS if it gives an option at bootup time to enter a RAID utility via a Function key. (I forget which key.)
2. If you want the SATA card to be usable by DOS and Windows 9x, you need to flash it with the "base" BIOS.
3. On vogonsdrivers.com there is a driver package called "Silicon Image SiI3114 file collection" which contains the file "BIO-003114-x10_5403.zip". Unzip it. The file you need is called b5403.bin.
4. To flash b5403.bin onto the Sil3114 card you need to boot into DOS mode (either reboot Win9x into DOS mode or use a DOS boot floppy) then run the UPDFLASH.EXE utility found in the file (again, in the "Silicon Image Sil3114 file collection") "UpdFlash_v336.zip". Run the utility as follows:
A:> UPDFLASH.EXE B5403.BIN
5. If the utility complains about the flash being the same version as that found on your device, that's ok, continue anyway.
6. Reboot. After reboot, you should no longer see an option to enter the RAID utility for the card.
7. Plug in big SATA drives.
8. Partition the drives. (Don't use Win9x or DOS FDISK.) I used Linux (Debian) fdisk to create a FAT32 Win9x (LBA) partition which I then formatted using the mkfs.msdos utility. Keep your FAT32 partitions under 2TB in size.
9. Reboot into Win9x / DOS7+ & enjoy.

I just picked up one of these cards from Amazon (just under $16.00 at the time of this post), and I had to do the above to get it to work, but there was one more step - this was the driver that made it work properly after I flashed the card to the base BIOS.
Before I was using a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 with a SATA to IDE adapter. The system is a TXP4 with a K6-3+ 450 @ 500, and an inexpensive Team group 120 gigabyte SSD. The first benchmark is the 3114 card with this driver after flashing it to the B5403 BIOS, the second the Promise card.

Very nice controller! I run it with b5403.bin and 1.3.10.0 driver under win98se. Connected an ssd, i had never a faster working/booting Win98se before. And i tryed many adapter and controller. The drive runs with UDMA6 with pentium4 setup. Highly recommented if you normal using the usual ide-sata adapters.

Hello good morning, sorry to reactivate the topic, but I would like to know if I can work with the sil3114 natively with msdos. using a sata-> adapter I can use msdos on ssd , but with the pci -sata controller the installation program says there is no hard disk.

leosmendes wrote on 2023-07-14, 14:03:

Hello good morning, sorry to reactivate the topic, but I would like to know if I can work with the sil3114 natively with msdos. using a sata-> adapter I can use msdos on ssd , but with the pci -sata controller the installation program says there is no hard disk.

What BIOS does your SIL3114 have? IDE BIOS? And what MS-DOS version are you trying to install?

Normally if you have gotten the correct option ROM loaded during POST phase, you shouldn't have issues with DOS, though certain DOS versions may impose their own limitations.

Personally I do not really recommend using such cards with DOS unless necessary, as these cards' BIOS tend to have huge memory footprints (as much as ~30K) which severely limits your available UMB, and may in turn limit your ability to use EMS.

LSS10999 wrote on 2023-07-14, 14:38:

What BIOS does your SIL3114 have? IDE BIOS? And what MS-DOS version are you trying to install? […]
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leosmendes wrote on 2023-07-14, 14:03:

Hello good morning, sorry to reactivate the topic, but I would like to know if I can work with the sil3114 natively with msdos. using a sata-> adapter I can use msdos on ssd , but with the pci -sata controller the installation program says there is no hard disk.

What BIOS does your SIL3114 have? IDE BIOS? And what MS-DOS version are you trying to install?

Normally if you have gotten the correct option ROM loaded during POST phase, you shouldn't have issues with DOS, though certain DOS versions may impose their own limitations.

Personally I do not really recommend using such cards with DOS unless necessary, as these cards' BIOS tend to have huge memory footprints (as much as ~30K) which severely limits your available UMB, and may in turn limit your ability to use EMS.

I gave this topic a quick read and downloaded the sil3114 package and updated it with the b5403. I wanted to install msdos 6.22 from the installation floppies, but msdos config couldn't find the disk. i have a k6-2 p5ab (selected scsi boot first in bios)

leosmendes wrote on 2023-07-14, 15:47:

I gave this topic a quick read and downloaded the sil3114 package and updated it with the b5403. I wanted to install msdos 6.22 from the installation floppies, but msdos config couldn't find the disk. i have a k6-2 p5ab (selected scsi boot first in bios)

So... you need to use SCSI boot to be able to boot from the disks connected there? Does SIL3114 have any TSR that needs to be loaded for booting hard disks?

Normally an external TSR should not be needed (the BIOS option ROM will take care of it) unless you're using optical drives, but it doesn't seem to be the case for you.

When you start your system, do you see SIL3114's option ROM loading? It's possible some motherboards of very old era might have difficulty utilizing option ROMs...

leosmendes wrote on 2023-07-14, 15:47:

LSS10999 wrote on 2023-07-14, 14:38:

What BIOS does your SIL3114 have? IDE BIOS? And what MS-DOS version are you trying to install? […]
Show full quote

leosmendes wrote on 2023-07-14, 14:03:

Hello good morning, sorry to reactivate the topic, but I would like to know if I can work with the sil3114 natively with msdos. using a sata-> adapter I can use msdos on ssd , but with the pci -sata controller the installation program says there is no hard disk.

What BIOS does your SIL3114 have? IDE BIOS? And what MS-DOS version are you trying to install?

Normally if you have gotten the correct option ROM loaded during POST phase, you shouldn't have issues with DOS, though certain DOS versions may impose their own limitations.

Personally I do not really recommend using such cards with DOS unless necessary, as these cards' BIOS tend to have huge memory footprints (as much as ~30K) which severely limits your available UMB, and may in turn limit your ability to use EMS.

I gave this topic a quick read and downloaded the sil3114 package and updated it with the b5403. I wanted to install msdos 6.22 from the installation floppies, but msdos config couldn't find the disk. i have a k6-2 p5ab (selected scsi boot first in bios)

The motherboards that I have that would not work with these cards would prevent the BIOS screen from appearing during the POST. With the motherboards where these cards have worked for me the BIOS screen for the card shows right after the drives are detected/displayed during the POST.