pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-03-31, 22:23:

Jmicron chipset still had issues back then when I was watching this as well. Currently I have not found one that is using gen […]
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darry wrote on 2021-03-31, 22:18:

I agree that the Marvell one is likely the best and most compatible. The real Jmicron ones are good, IMHO, when they are compati […]
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pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-03-31, 22:10:

Have you tried Startech PATA to SATA adapters? This use marvell chipset bridge and is supposed to work properly regardless, for this reason I specifically purchased at little more expense. All others is junk jmicon chipset clone of clones with compatibility and reliability issues.

Secondly, do not use USB controller card till you are sure your computer working right first especially if you get the Startech adapters first.

Cheers,

I agree that the Marvell one is likely the best and most compatible. The real Jmicron ones are good, IMHO, when they are compatible .

My experience so far is resumed in this post:

darry wrote on 2020-11-21, 17:16:

My experience with SIL3114 based cards has been good, both functionally and compatibility-wise, in 440BX boards (Asus P3B-F and […]
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My experience with SIL3114 based cards has been good, both functionally and compatibility-wise, in 440BX boards (Asus P3B-F and Biostar M6TBD OEM) .

On a board of such vintage, because of LBA issues, I too prefer using either a PCI SATA controller or a PCI IDE controller that works well with IDE to SATA converters (Promise Ultra133 and JM20330 works well together, but not on my P3B-F).

IDE to SATA adapter compatibility varies widely .

The two best ones are, IMHO, those based on
- Marvell 88SA8052 (rather expensive and harder to find but reported as working on Intel ICH4 and Via 686B IDE controllers)
- Jmicron JM20330 (inexpensive and easy to find, but has issues on Intel ICH4 and Via 686B IDE controllers, works fine on Promise Ultra133 and can work fine on ICH2, depending on driver)

I have never tested either of those in DMA mode on a 440BX's 82371EB (PIIX4E). I have done limited testing with a JM20330 in such a setup, but only in PIO mode under DOS . It did seem to work in that scenario .

See mSATA to IDE Trouble

Jmicron chipset still had issues back then when I was watching this as well. Currently I have not found one that is using geniune chipset sold by other brands not chinese.

DOS does not support anything except the int13 calls hard ware motherboard compatibility is important means adapters and cards has to be designed correctly. Even the motherboard had detected as DMA mode or PIO. It comes down to the quality of adapter design than anything else.
Again, that is why I say try to get startech's marvell chipset based adapter first and try again.

Cheers,

My experience with JMicron based Sin Loon brand adapters from Amazon has been good enough in DMA mode (on compatible controllers) that I would buy another one if needed . The Marvell based ones are much more compatible, but also significantly more expensive (to the tune of 35+ CAN$ for a Startech one ) versus 14ish CAN$ dollars for a Sin Loon brand JMicron one .

For the record, I am currently using a Marvell based converter in my main retro machine, but I previously a JMicron one . My reason for changing was due to having bought a Marvell one for testing in a project where the issue was eventually found to be one of hard disk incompatibility rather than adapter incompatibility (VS-880EX multitrack recorder), so I decided to stick with the Marvell adapter in my retro rig since I had no other use for this adapter .

It would be nice if we had a compatibility matrix based that details
a) absolute incompatibilities/issues between a given adapter chipset versus a given IDE controller or southbridge (for integrated controllers) .
b) Implementation based incompatibilities/issues due to a given adapter's design/construction even when there is no know incompatibility of type a

Unfortunately, distinguishing cases of a from cases of b might prove difficult, especially with statistically small sample sizes (at least initially). Additionally, BIOS LBA issues could cause false failure impressions that are not related to the adapter itself .

I agree that if you need only one adapter, getting a Marvell one is probably best, despite the cost . However, if you need several, taking a chance on a JMicron one (and eventually several) would be worthwhile, IMHO, unless this would imply using it on an Intel ICH4 or VIA 686B (and possibly other ones).

As far as the best PCI SATA adapter to use on an older machine, you want a Promise SATA 1 RAID controller (The SATA II 150 is NOT what you want). That way it has the BIOS on it that you configure the drives on and then you can choose SCSI in BIOS and it will be able to boot from it.

There are also drivers for Windows 98 available for those cards.

There are a few other SATA RAID cards with Windows 98 drivers, but the only one I have found that works with pretty much everything are the ones with the Promise chipset.

I do have a few others I have collected but haven't had a chance to test.

The ones that are really finicky / junky are based on these brand chipsets:
VIA
Silicon Image

Sometimes they will see the drives.. sometimes not. A lot of the time you will get data corruption.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-01, 04:34:

As far as the best PCI SATA adapter to use on an older machine, you want a Promise SATA 1 RAID controller (The SATA II 150 is NO […]
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As far as the best PCI SATA adapter to use on an older machine, you want a Promise SATA 1 RAID controller (The SATA II 150 is NOT what you want). That way it has the BIOS on it that you configure the drives on and then you can choose SCSI in BIOS and it will be able to boot from it.

There are also drivers for Windows 98 available for those cards.

There are a few other SATA RAID cards with Windows 98 drivers, but the only one I have found that works with pretty much everything are the ones with the Promise chipset.

I do have a few others I have collected but haven't had a chance to test.

The ones that are really finicky / junky are based on these brand chipsets:
VIA
Silicon Image

Sometimes they will see the drives.. sometimes not. A lot of the time you will get data corruption.

I prefer the Promise SATA controllers as well . I also like the older ATA133 one which worked perfectly for me with JMicron IDE to SATA adapters, but will not allow my Asus P3B-F to POST when installed. Though I prefer to avoid the ones with RAID functionality (I only use one physical drive, so for me the firmware RAID functionality is more of a hassle than a feature, your use case may well be different).

I have had good experiences with the Silicon Image SIL3114 controllers, as long as I used a non-RAID BIOS on them (they usually ship with a RAID one and need to be flashed with a software utility). I currently have one installed in an Asus P3B-F running Windows 98 SE on a 1TB drive with no issues. Also, to avoid problems, the BIOS/firmware version and driver version should match. I have only used these on Intel chipset based boards, though, and only with a single drive connected . AFAICR, there was a known Silicon Image corruption issue that affected at least one model (SIL3112 and/or SIL3512, I think I recall, but I could be wrong) and again AFAICR, that was only triggered if one used 2 or more SATA port on the controller . Oh, and with the non RAID BIOS, it is not possible to select which drive it will boot from if using multiple drives (even if swapping drives between SATA ports), AFAICR .

I would not even touch the VIA ones with somebody else's ten foot pole .

Best of luck to OP!

EDIT: Oh, and to make things just a bit more complicated there are/were crappy SIL3114 and SIL3112/SIL3512 based cards on an auctions that have non flashable BIOS chips and/or stability/compatibility issues . So no surprise that a lot of people have had bad experiences with them .

EDIT2: I am not the only who likes the SIlicon Image cards . See https://msfn.org/board/topic/150641-problem-w … 512-controller/ . But the main challenge is finding a well made one these days .

Once again, thanks a lot for the bunch of good advices & answers, really, I'll definitely take them into account for my next steps, because so far, everything is getting worse and
worse.

So, meanwhile : I had an epiphany (or so I thought...) : "hey, I'm using the last BETA bios 1006.002, what if for once, it's not a good idea and related to my problems?" => and voilà, I switched back to the normal last one which is 1005. In the process I checked the CR2032 battery and was very surprised to see it was VERY LOW, so replaced it with a new fully charged Duracell.

And then, with 1005 BIOS....a new kind of mess began : the POST would open directly in the BIOS, asking me to set the CPU frequency (it's a Tualatin 1.26 Ghz) : once done, and also setting all the other parameters, a "quit & save" would get me only a black screen, and a reboot/OFF-ON would get me to the BIOS, asking me to set the CPU speed again etc ; so much for the new CR2032 eh?

I finally managed to save the BIOS settings after numerous attemps, to see that even with only the AGP card and no PCI card inserted whatsoever, W98SE would end in an endless loading, and XP with the blackscreen+reboot....

So i switched back to the 1006.002 and guess what : to summarize: the behavior is EXACTLY the same.

At this point, I question my sanity or the opportunity of switching my hobby to knitting or scrapbooking, I'd probably be more efficient...or there is definitely something fishy with this 20 years old motherboard even if it "looks" in mint condition.

So for now,I'll stop wasting your time as there seems to be a combination of problems or perhaps a faulty motherboard (or OP....), and I'll get back to you when things are sorted out, with new hardware/adapters etc.

Thanks for you support, anyhow, folks!

EDIT : Final message for now : I put back the HDD instead of the SSD : everything works seamlessly with 3-4 PCI cards , so clearly there is an IRQ problem, but caused by the adapter/SSD in some twisted way, next step is another adapter, Sil3112 etc, when I get them.

Some news.

=> I got my (Chinese/noname) Sil3112 card : I spent countless hours trying to make it work (the card out of the box freezes when it's supposed to boot) : numerous firmwares and drivers : was able to do some benches, but freeze on next reboot etc ; I abandoned that path, knowing that these Sil cards have a bad reputation anyway.

=> tested with a 2 euro IDE/CF adapter and a 17 euro Chinese/noname 64 Gb CF card : works fine, but the writing performance/IOPs is ghastly. Max read throughput is around 35 Mb/sec, and the bandwidth is clearly shared with other IDE and PCI ports.

So I ordered 2 different "high speed" 32 Gb CF cards (17 euro each) settling for only a 98SE install eventually.

And I'd give it another round when I receive my other IDE/SATA adapters (still "el cheapo" ones) couldn't settle to invest 30-40 euro solely on an adapter.

It's probably the Via chipset that is very sensitive, well, not as if these had a good reputation even back in the days 😀

Should had bought industrial CF cards. Including Transcend brand. This is where you don't skimp on them, they cost bit more.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-11, 17:50:

Should had bought industrial CF cards. Including Transcend brand. This is where you don't skimp on them, they cost bit more.

Cheers,

One of 2 new I ordered is a Transcend, the other one is a noname chinese "industrial" indeed 😀

But once again I'm a cheap dude, I won't pay 60 euro for a 32 Gb "industrial UDMA" CF 😀

Received my 1st model of "el cheapo" IDE to SATA adapter.

It's supposed to be bidirectional but the design is not very intuitive (?)

So I plugged it directly on the motherboard's IDE connector, and used the top/visible SATA port which seems to be the logical one => the SSD doesn't appear in the BIOS ; tried with an HDD for logic's sake = same thing.

I also tried the other port, powering the interface with the floppy connector, same thing.

Something obvious I've missed? 🙁

zilog256 wrote on 2021-04-15, 16:54:

Received my 1st model of "el cheapo" IDE to SATA adapter.
...
Something obvious I've missed? 🙁

What F'n chipset is that. anyway
from the photos online, the bottom side seems to refer to IDE controller to SATA IDE
and then the top side one (component side) should be SATA controller to IDE HDD

Probably need to set the IDE HDD to master or cable select.

The one sata port is quite crooked. Does it have a master/slave jumper or switch?

weedeewee wrote on 2021-04-15, 18:16:

What F'n chipset is that. anyway from the photos online, the bottom side seems to refer to IDE controller to SATA IDE and then t […]
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zilog256 wrote on 2021-04-15, 16:54:

Received my 1st model of "el cheapo" IDE to SATA adapter.
...
Something obvious I've missed? 🙁

What F'n chipset is that. anyway
from the photos online, the bottom side seems to refer to IDE controller to SATA IDE
and then the top side one (component side) should be SATA controller to IDE HDD

Probably need to set the IDE HDD to master or cable select.

Well....it's a SATA SSD/HDD (which is the point of the adapter) so no master/CS switch, obviously.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-04-15, 18:39:

The one sata port is quite crooked. Does it have a master/slave jumper or switch?

The port is crooked but seems alright albeit being visually misaligned.

no master/slave on the adapter which is logical if it's supposed to be plugged directly into the IDE port (master/single as there is only one device)

So I tried again using the "bottom" SATA connector and powering the card = nothing ; strangely, using the "crooked"/top SATA *and* powering the card lights a red led on the card, but that changes nothing.

OK, let's say it was once again an poorly-chosen investment 😀

I'll wait for the other adapter (same design, different seller) and probably end up with the CF cards.

Thanks for the moral support anyway ^^'

EDIT: an interesting link => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXShc_hDuqQ

zilog256 wrote on 2021-04-15, 16:54:

Received my 1st model of "el cheapo" IDE to SATA adapter.
...
Something obvious I've missed? 🙁

All the photos indicate you have to use the bottom one for connection between a SATA HDD and an IDE controller. but considering the quality and you having tried it, Hope you get your money back.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-04-15, 19:34:

zilog256 wrote on 2021-04-15, 16:54:

Received my 1st model of "el cheapo" IDE to SATA adapter.
...
Something obvious I've missed? 🙁

All the photos indicate you have to use the bottom one for connection between a SATA HDD and an IDE controller. but considering the quality and you having tried it, Hope you get your money back.

I'll juste lose my 2 bucks and try another brand/model 😀

So.

I ordered a "more qualitative" SATA/IDE adapter, the CSL one with black PCB (if you remember the previously linked Youtube video, all the red PCB adapters seems to be useless). 7 euro, yeah !

So I plugged it, and it works....in a way......XP reboots on loading sequence.....like with the previous adapters. So I'm done with SATA drives with this TUV4X, really. I've lost enough time already and shed too many tears of rage, let's be reasonable 😀

I settled for the CF adapter, slower, but sturdier.

Just for fun, the 1st CF card : noname , 64 Gb, 17 euro: Do note the GHASTLY writing IOPS

[/b]

A cheap, noname again 32 Gb, 17 euro, supposed to be faster (and it is) ; notice the "Memory CORD", yeah baby!

EDIT: Transcend CF 32 Gb = worse results than the 32 Gb noname, meh!!

photos de code

A picture of the rig (Do not laugh at the cable management, please 😀 ) ; the heatsink/fan is "custom" you might say, and does a neat job, silently.

Too bad it didn't work out, I'ld love to try myself, but I don't have a via apollo pro133t chipset equipped mainboard around... (I'll have to check)

on a side note, What mode is the CF card running at ? pio#?mwdma#?udma#?

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-23, 00:11:

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

I wholeheartedly agree .

Marvell based adapters have been reported by several people as working properly and with DMA enabled on VIA southbridge IDE controllers and Intel ICH4 variants. This was after having unsuccessfully tried to get adapters based on other chips to work .

If buying a Startech adapter, one has to be sure to get one that has a Marvell chip as Startech has at least 2 models .

This one uses a Marvell chip : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/ide2sat2
This one uses a Sunplus SPIF223A (at least mine does) : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/pata2sata3

If Startech stuff is expensive or hard to find where OP lives, there are some Marvell based alternative products listed in this thread :

mSATA to IDE Trouble

weedeewee wrote on 2021-04-22, 20:57:

Too bad it didn't work out, I'ld love to try myself, but I don't have a via apollo pro133t chipset equipped mainboard around... (I'll have to check)

on a side note, What mode is the CF card running at ? pio#?mwdma#?udma#?

Well, looking at the speeds achieved, you can certainly be sure that it's not PIO 😀 The 64 Gb noname states UDMA5 in BIOS startup, the 32Gb noname and Transcend are UDMA4 ; of course that doesn't make any difference as they achieve a "top" speed of 40-50 MB/sec at best.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-23, 00:11:

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

Well, I couldn't find it at that price, so I settled for that IDE2SAT2 Startech card for 27 euro on Amazon. It's more expensive than the SSD I'll plug on it, but, well.....enough chinese garbage and misfortunes I guess.

darry wrote on 2021-04-23, 16:43:

I wholeheartedly agree . […]
Show full quote

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-23, 00:11:

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

I wholeheartedly agree .

Marvell based adapters have been reported by several people as working properly and with DMA enabled on VIA southbridge IDE controllers and Intel ICH4 variants. This was after having unsuccessfully tried to get adapters based on other chips to work .

If buying a Startech adapter, one has to be sure to get one that has a Marvell chip as Startech has at least 2 models .

This one uses a Marvell chip : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/ide2sat2
This one uses a Sunplus SPIF223A (at least mine does) : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/pata2sata3

If Startech stuff is expensive or hard to find where OP lives, there are some Marvell based alternative products listed in this thread :

mSATA to IDE Trouble

Thanks for the precise information, will do, Startech it is.

That being said:

I received my Transcend "UDMA x400" CF card today, actually WORSE results than the lousy Chinese noname in fact. I post the results if they be of some use to anyone

photos de code

I'll add it to the previous post for comparison sake.

Once again, thanks for all the advices, and I'll stop being a moron playing with cheap stuff, and do final round with the Startech IDE2SAT2...

zilog256 wrote on 2021-04-23, 22:11:

Well, looking at the speeds achieved, you can certainly be sure that it's not PIO :) The 64 Gb noname states UDMA5 in BIOS start […]
Show full quote

weedeewee wrote on 2021-04-22, 20:57:

Too bad it didn't work out, I'ld love to try myself, but I don't have a via apollo pro133t chipset equipped mainboard around... (I'll have to check)

on a side note, What mode is the CF card running at ? pio#?mwdma#?udma#?

Well, looking at the speeds achieved, you can certainly be sure that it's not PIO 😀 The 64 Gb noname states UDMA5 in BIOS startup, the 32Gb noname and Transcend are UDMA4 ; of course that doesn't make any difference as they achieve a "top" speed of 40-50 MB/sec at best.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-23, 00:11:

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

Well, I couldn't find it at that price, so I settled for that IDE2SAT2 Startech card for 27 euro on Amazon. It's more expensive than the SSD I'll plug on it, but, well.....enough chinese garbage and misfortunes I guess.

darry wrote on 2021-04-23, 16:43:

I wholeheartedly agree . […]
Show full quote

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-23, 00:11:

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

I wholeheartedly agree .

Marvell based adapters have been reported by several people as working properly and with DMA enabled on VIA southbridge IDE controllers and Intel ICH4 variants. This was after having unsuccessfully tried to get adapters based on other chips to work .

If buying a Startech adapter, one has to be sure to get one that has a Marvell chip as Startech has at least 2 models .

This one uses a Marvell chip : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/ide2sat2
This one uses a Sunplus SPIF223A (at least mine does) : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/pata2sata3

If Startech stuff is expensive or hard to find where OP lives, there are some Marvell based alternative products listed in this thread :

mSATA to IDE Trouble

Thanks for the precise information, will do, Startech it is.

That being said:

I received my Transcend "UDMA x400" CF card today, actually WORSE results than the lousy Chinese noname in fact. I post the results if they be of some use to anyone

photos de code

I'll add it to the previous post for comparison sake.

Once again, thanks for all the advices, and I'll stop being a moron playing with cheap stuff, and do final round with the Startech IDE2SAT2...

Good luck and don't be too hard on yourself . At least some of the cheap stuff does work well in some scenarios . IMHO, we really need a compatibility matrix for IDE to SATA adapters . In the meantime, pretty much all testimonials all seem to point to the Marvell 88SA8052 based ones being most compatible . If that does not work, I don't know what will .

darry wrote on 2021-04-24, 02:50:

zilog256 wrote on 2021-04-23, 22:11:

Well, looking at the speeds achieved, you can certainly be sure that it's not PIO :) The 64 Gb noname states UDMA5 in BIOS start […]
Show full quote

weedeewee wrote on 2021-04-22, 20:57:

Too bad it didn't work out, I'ld love to try myself, but I don't have a via apollo pro133t chipset equipped mainboard around... (I'll have to check)

on a side note, What mode is the CF card running at ? pio#?mwdma#?udma#?

Well, looking at the speeds achieved, you can certainly be sure that it's not PIO 😀 The 64 Gb noname states UDMA5 in BIOS startup, the 32Gb noname and Transcend are UDMA4 ; of course that doesn't make any difference as they achieve a "top" speed of 40-50 MB/sec at best.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-23, 00:11:

Again, these are chinese junk. Get startech SATA to PATA adapters, these uses Marvell chipset.

If can be had for less than 10-15 dollars new that what you expect to get from a junk stuff.

Cheers,

Well, I couldn't find it at that price, so I settled for that IDE2SAT2 Startech card for 27 euro on Amazon. It's more expensive than the SSD I'll plug on it, but, well.....enough chinese garbage and misfortunes I guess.

darry wrote on 2021-04-23, 16:43:

I wholeheartedly agree . […]
Show full quote

I wholeheartedly agree .

Marvell based adapters have been reported by several people as working properly and with DMA enabled on VIA southbridge IDE controllers and Intel ICH4 variants. This was after having unsuccessfully tried to get adapters based on other chips to work .

If buying a Startech adapter, one has to be sure to get one that has a Marvell chip as Startech has at least 2 models .

This one uses a Marvell chip : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/ide2sat2
This one uses a Sunplus SPIF223A (at least mine does) : https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/pata2sata3

If Startech stuff is expensive or hard to find where OP lives, there are some Marvell based alternative products listed in this thread :

mSATA to IDE Trouble

Thanks for the precise information, will do, Startech it is.

That being said:

I received my Transcend "UDMA x400" CF card today, actually WORSE results than the lousy Chinese noname in fact. I post the results if they be of some use to anyone

photos de code

I'll add it to the previous post for comparison sake.

Once again, thanks for all the advices, and I'll stop being a moron playing with cheap stuff, and do final round with the Startech IDE2SAT2...

Good luck and don't be too hard on yourself . At least some of the cheap stuff does work well in some scenarios . IMHO, we really need a compatibility matrix for IDE to SATA adapters . In the meantime, pretty much all testimonials all seem to point to the Marvell 88SA8052 based ones being most compatible . If that does not work, I don't know what will .

Thanks 😀

My pride is a bit hurt as I usually get my way (reasonably) with "any" hardware, this very specific problem almost drove me crazy ^^'

Funny thing is that I have for instance another rig working indeed very well with one of those "el cheapo" adapters => it's based on NF7/Nforce2 with an OCZ Vertex2 90 Gb SATA SSD simply plugged on the 1st type of cheap IDE/SATA adapter I intented to use on the Tualatin setup.

The Socket A / Nforce2 setup is not that much "modern" than the Tualatin/ApolloPro133, but clearly there is something that makes a difference.

We'll see next week when I get my luxurious gold-plated, diamond encrusted, platinum enameled Startech adapter 😁

NOte: @pentiumspeed & @darry: thanks for your patience (re-reading the thread just made me realize that I've been doing what usually gets on my nerves when a OP comes for advice and doesn't follow it even if it's repeated multiple times...Marvell-based adapter, all along) 😄