VOGONS


First post, by konc

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Hi guys,

I'm looking for an old BIOS version for the Silicon Image Sil3112 PCI SATA Controller card.
Anything prior to 4.2.47, preferably 4.2.27 but anything will do

I've looked everywhere to my abilities without success, both the current site
https://www.latticesemi.com/Support/ASSPSoftwareArchive
as well as the earliest archive from WayBackMachine
https://web.archive.org/web/20100729054556/ht … 3&cat=15&ctid=2&
don't go that back.

Maybe there's an older siliconimage.com site archived that I didn't find? (already struggled to reach this one). Maybe someone has it?
Thanks!

Reply 2 of 24, by cyclone3d

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The old SIL controllers sucked. No way around it. I can check the cards I have to see what version they have on them.

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Reply 3 of 24, by tpowell.ca

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But why do you sell that version? Why not the latest?

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Reply 4 of 24, by konc

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There is this PII PC that just won't work with anything connected to it. The card works fine on a slightly newer machine.
As cyclone3d wrote these cards do suck. Apart from dancing naked under a full moon and similar tricks, one thing that the internet agrees on is that compatibility with older systems was broken severely with BIOS v.4.2.47. People were using such cards back then in their daily driver, did a BIOS upgrade and boom! But once you get a card with this chip working it's OK-ish and that's all I'm after.
In any case I'm open to suggestions for specific cards that do work on nowhere-near-SATA-era-machines. The older BIOS has a good chance of working if ever found (cyclone3d I'd appreciate if you could check your cards, version appears by just booting with the card present so I hope I'm not putting you into much trouble) but if this plan fails I'll have to look elsewhere.
Thanks for your interest guys!

Reply 5 of 24, by cyclone3d

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Busy organizing stuff at the moment. I'll try to take a look at my cards later today.

I pretty much gave up on using the SIL based cards once I found that Promise S150 based cards just work with absolutely everything I have tried them in so far.

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Reply 6 of 24, by Roman555

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konc, sometimes such controllers are placed on deluxe version of motherboards. A BIOS of the SATA controller is integrated into a BIOS of motheboard as a module that could be extracted and decompressed with some utilities (CBROM MODBIN).
I remember I replaced SATA BIOS Sil3114 of ASUS K8N-E DELUXE to newer one that I just had downloaded from the chipmaker's web site.
But I don't know if an extracted BIOS for onboard controller is compatible with a discrete PCI adapter.
Another problem is a new PCI adapter often wants to get 3.3v from PCI slot. Old version of PCI slots haven't got it.

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Reply 7 of 24, by cyclone3d

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Ok, looked through my cards and I don't actually have any with the 3112 chipset.

However, after a bit of research, I did find out that the ASUS A7N8X Uber 1007 BIOS has the SIL 3112 4.2.27 BIOS embedded in it.

Here is where you can get a link that you can use in the wayback machine to download it - the newest snapshot of the file is corrupted so I had to go back to an earlier snapshot. Because of this, I am attaching the 1007 Uber BIOS to this post.
https://tweakers.net/downloads/5438/asus-a7n8 … -bios-1007.html

Filename
1007-Uber.rar
File size
218.75 KiB
Downloads
97 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

You will need CBROM to extract the SIL 3112 BIOS. It is available here:
http://www.lejabeach.com/CBROM.html

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Reply 10 of 24, by konc

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cyclone3d wrote:
Ok, looked through my cards and I don't actually have any with the 3112 chipset. […]
Show full quote

Ok, looked through my cards and I don't actually have any with the 3112 chipset.

However, after a bit of research, I did find out that the ASUS A7N8X Uber 1007 BIOS has the SIL 3112 4.2.27 BIOS embedded in it.

Here is where you can get a link that you can use in the wayback machine to download it - the newest snapshot of the file is corrupted so I had to go back to an earlier snapshot. Because of this, I am attaching the 1007 Uber BIOS to this post.
https://tweakers.net/downloads/5438/asus-a7n8 … -bios-1007.html

The attachment 1007-Uber.rar is no longer available

You will need CBROM to extract the SIL 3112 BIOS. It is available here:
http://www.lejabeach.com/CBROM.html

Thanks a million cyclone3d!
Unfortunately this custom BIOS doesn't contain any changes related to the SATA controller,

01.PNG
Filename
01.PNG
File size
18.65 KiB
Views
3675 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

but you did put me in the right track in a way I'd never thought. So I browsed through the official ASUS support for this motherboard and after downloading and using CBROM to check a couple of older BIOS' I found one having the desired version and extracted it:

02.PNG
Filename
02.PNG
File size
16.62 KiB
Views
3675 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

It seems that the flashing utility is a bit smarter than it should though (or, most probably, prevents stupid people like me bricking their card) and recognizes that this BIOS is not intended for a standalone card:

03.jpg
Filename
03.jpg
File size
113.18 KiB
Views
3675 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Damn that was close!

marvias wrote:

Thank you so much for finding this, but unfortunately this is also a BIOS for a motherboard controller and not for a standalone card, the flash utility gives the same message as above (see last picture). Ahhhh and I got so excited seeing your post 🤣

Reply 11 of 24, by cyclone3d

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Bummer.... I'll keep looking. Maybe I can dig something up.

I found the page on the wayback machine for the 3512 controller BIOSes. The search function to look for the 3112 doesn't work though. Or rather, the search function didn't seem to work at all.

Just have to figure out what the exact page is for that and we should have it.

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Reply 12 of 24, by konc

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cyclone3d wrote:

Bummer.... I'll keep looking. Maybe I can dig something up.

I found the page on the wayback machine for the 3512 controller BIOSes. The search function to look for the 3112 doesn't work though. Or rather, the search function didn't seem to work at all.

Just have to figure out what the exact page is for that and we should have it.

You mean the support/downloads page from the official site? If so, just to save you the trouble, the link is already there in the first post (yes it was tricky indeed and I had to play with the URL to find it) but it doesn't go that back. There are working BIOS versions to download but more recent.

EDIT:

Roman555 wrote:
konc, sometimes such controllers are placed on deluxe version of motherboards. A BIOS of the SATA controller is integrated into […]
Show full quote

konc, sometimes such controllers are placed on deluxe version of motherboards. A BIOS of the SATA controller is integrated into a BIOS of motheboard as a module that could be extracted and decompressed with some utilities (CBROM MODBIN).
I remember I replaced SATA BIOS Sil3114 of ASUS K8N-E DELUXE to newer one that I just had downloaded from the chipmaker's web site.
But I don't know if an extracted BIOS for onboard controller is compatible with a discrete PCI adapter.
Another problem is a new PCI adapter often wants to get 3.3v from PCI slot. Old version of PCI slots haven't got it.

Forgot to do credit to this excellent post, sorry 😦 You were really spot on and helped understand what's going on with this thing and the various BIOS' found online. Apparently BIOS' for onboard controllers are not compatible with PCI cards.

Reply 13 of 24, by cyclone3d

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konc wrote:
cyclone3d wrote:

Bummer.... I'll keep looking. Maybe I can dig something up.

I found the page on the wayback machine for the 3512 controller BIOSes. The search function to look for the 3112 doesn't work though. Or rather, the search function didn't seem to work at all.

Just have to figure out what the exact page is for that and we should have it.

You mean the support/downloads page from the official site? If so, just to save you the trouble, the link is already there in the first post (yes it was tricky indeed and I had to play with the URL to find it) but it doesn't go that back. There are working BIOS versions to download but more recent.

Yeah, that was what I meant.

Going to post the official, properly formatted link here anyway.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070102220810/ht … &ctid=2&osid=0&

Now on to looking for an earlier version.

Last edited by cyclone3d on 2018-09-18, 02:45. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 14 of 24, by Tiido

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I have burned the flash chip directly with a 3512 ROM and it worked without problems. I'm not sure where the card is that I did it to nor do I remember if I still have any of the files involved.

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Reply 15 of 24, by cyclone3d

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Ok, I found the non-RAID 4.2.10 BIOS for PCI cards. Attaching it to this message:

Filename
b4210.zip
File size
23.22 KiB
Downloads
133 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Found here under the "Official" directory
https://web.archive.org/web/20050220090204/ht … 80/rom.by/raid/

You can always try the 4227, but according to what I can find, the ones with just the number are for motherboards and the ones with prefixes are for cards.
b = non-RAID
r = RAID

Edit:
Here is what I am guessing is the RAID 4.2.12 - From A TekRAM 3112 based card - TR-822 (It is 4.2.12) Found link from TekRAM on the wayback machine.

Filename
Tekram Raid 4212 BIOS.zip
File size
38.26 KiB
Downloads
111 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Found here:
http://www.opendrivers.com/download/driver-24132.html

4.2.12 BIOS directly from TekRAM
https://web.archive.org/web/20060105143454/ht … OS/Win/BIOS.rar

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Reply 16 of 24, by Roman555

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konc wrote:

Forgot to do credit to this excellent post, sorry 😦 You were really spot on and helped understand what's going on with this thing and the various BIOS' found online. Apparently BIOS' for onboard controllers are not compatible with PCI cards.

Yes, my way appears to be wrong.
I see cyclone3d has found necessary BIOS

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Reply 17 of 24, by konc

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The 4.2.27 is in fact the add-on card RAID BIOS. And guess what? The damn thing works!!! Flashed it, reset, and it just booted and entered windows.

So it's true, they did break compatibility with older system with versions >4.2.27. If anyone has such a card and it recognizes the connected device but it hangs/freezes when accessing it (either attempting to boot or simply access a file after booting from another media), downgrade your BIOS to 4.2.27.

So let me just attach this hard-to-find BIOS here as well (origin is cyclone3d's link of course):

Filename
r4227.zip
File size
21.7 KiB
Downloads
214 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Phew, that was a close one! Again, thank you all guys for your interest and especially you cyclone3d for finding the damn file (just how though? I need to improve my skills!)

Reply 18 of 24, by cyclone3d

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HAHAHAHAHA!

YES!

I spent way too much time following links and doing different variations of searches and so on to find those.

That page was mentioned on some old forum post about upgrading the SATA BIOS for motherboards.

Seeing Russian tech forum posts translated to English by Google Translate is super hilarious.

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Reply 19 of 24, by Roman555

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cyclone3d wrote:

HAHAHAHAHA!
That page was mentioned on some old forum post about upgrading the SATA BIOS for motherboards.
Seeing Russian tech forum posts translated to English by Google Translate is super hilarious.

Do you mean http://computer-master.by/oldromby/topic4632.html ?
Yes, It's funny even in Russian because the forum's people used words that were slightly changed in a funny way 😀

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