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Problems with Promise Ultra66 (Windows 98, 2000, XP)

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First post, by Kampfkoloss

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Hello, after searching the forum for an existing thread with this subject (only found an unsolved thread with a driver problem for a promise card under Win95) I have to ask for a little help. I've built a PC with an Aopen AX6BC-EZ mainboard and a Pentium III 700 (Coppermine, passively cooled, around 40 degree Celsius idle, around 50 under load). The mainboard BIOS is the latest release-version - I don't like installing betas. ACPI is active, onboard PM is disabled, LPT and COM are disabled to free up resources. PNP OS is enabled, Resource assignment is set to AUTO, PCI-Busmastering is enabled, PCI auto assignment is enabled.

Graphics card is a Geforce 2 GTS.

As PCI-Cards there are (in the following order) a Voodoo 2, Promise Ultra66, sb live!, Intel 1000MT NIC. All PCI-Cards are inserted in Bus-Master enabled slots, only the fifth (free) slot is a slave-slot.

Hard Drive (Seagate ST3400014) indicates 206 Interface CRC-Errors. Surface is fine (checked by MHDD under linux and scandisk under dos). So no real problems here.

Operating systems tried are: Windows 98SE (no updates), Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP Pro SP3. No software, except for a modified samsung/lexar USB-Driver for a USB-Stick in Windows 98 has been installed.

Installing Chipset-Drivers for the mainboard (Intel 440ZX, Driver-3.20.2008 source: philscomputerlab) results in much longer boot times than with the native windows 98 SE-drivers (It takes almost 45 seconds at the dos-screen with autoexec.bat options. without the drivers the boot process literally flies by!). Windows 2000 and XP don't accept installing chipset-drivers, indicating their native drivers are more recent than the ones I'm trying to install.

Lets go to the main problem I'm confronted with: The Installation of the the most recent Drivers for my Promise-Card results in a frozen boot screen. Before and since upgrading the cards BIOS to version 2000 build 18 (most recent one). With the most recent BIOS and the oldest avaiable drivers (1.60) the boot process is relatively slow for this machine and the OS feels sluggish. Windows 2000 freezes completely at boot, when installing the latest promise drivers. Hard Drive is the only Drive hooked to the Promise.

Moving around PCI-Cards to assign different resources automatically is not resolving the issue.

I don't think its a mainboard-, temperature- or software problem. I suppose it's a faulty controller card... I hope I'm wrong.

Any ideas and suggestions what else could be done would be very appreciated.

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Reply 2 of 6, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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Is the hard drive model actually ST340014A, a 40GB one from the Barracuda 7200.7 series? Reason I ask is that PhilsComputerLab did a review of the Ultra66 card on an AOpen AX6BC and he had compatibility issues with some drives, including another drive from the 7200.7 series (120GB ST3120022A / ST3120026A). Could be linked to some obscure firmware / drive geometry issue.

The full review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-mLCk-CFM

Compatability issues - https://youtu.be/-L-mLCk-CFM?t=1195

Reply 3 of 6, by Kampfkoloss

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@ PC Hoarder Patrol: you're right with the hdd-model. i remembered it incorrectly. I haven't watched the review you mentioned. Thanks for giving the link 😀 I'll take a look at it and maybe I'll use another hdd.

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Reply 4 of 6, by Kampfkoloss

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@mrau: BIOS defaults dont change the problem. Can't try the card in another PC. this is my only one that still has pci slots. Actually it's a compatibility issue I wasn't aware of shown in the video linked above.

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Reply 5 of 6, by swaaye

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I've had problems with Ultra 66 in the past too. They are picky about PCI slots, drives. Win9x also tends to be more touchy than 2K/XP when it comes to adding PCI cards.

PCI PATA and SATA cards are often troublesome in general. I usually just stick to the motherboard's onboard ports these days.

Reply 6 of 6, by Kampfkoloss

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swaaye wrote:

I've had problems with Ultra 66 in the past too. They are picky about PCI slots, drives. Win9x also tends to be more touchy than 2K/XP when it comes to adding PCI cards.

PCI PATA and SATA cards are often troublesome in general. I usually just stick to the motherboard's onboard ports these days.

You're absolutely right. Promise mentions the issue with pci slots in their manual. They recommend using one of the first 3 slots next to the cpu - which I did: it's in the second slot next to my voodoo2-card.

The problem seems to have vanished using a wd400bb. I was following phils observations in his video, where he mentioned a wd200 (yellow-label) works. I can confirm the 40 gb-version is working too.

Thanks for your help!

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