Quick follow up, Promise MB'Bios 1.5 Benchmarks

Hi,
as i pulled the promise apart in not a very nice way a while back i thought it was only right to give the new bios a run through in the same way,.
so here's the old run through think it was BIOS 1.3
and this is the new bios 1.5 (with promise update)
also as the value went over 200 the graph colouring changed, the sub 200 graph has more detail, so lowering the top values from 207 to 200 gives a good detailed graph, here.
think it looks like they've fixed some of the major problems with it and you can now see some drive cache spike comming through,.. although it's still limited by the PCIEx1 connection, this array (four 74GB raptors), can cache spike 460MB/s and sustain 277MB/s on a nForce3 SATA RAID controller Vs Promise cache spike 200MB/s and sustaining 200MB/s.
.. someone must have been listening!

also to follow up on the new cheetahs, got the last line of atto done (256MB) on the new array 2x cheetahs 15K.6 running on an adaptec 5405 RAID card in RAID-0
it's looking good for 330MB/s thats about 165MB/s a drive which is what one benchmarks at, so four should be good for about 660MB/s
i'm very happy it's pretty much exactly what i expected, avarage seek is around 5.4ms Vs 7.6ms for the four raptors and 330MB/s Vs 280MB/s (again raptors), and now gives room to grow to four cheetahs.

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Missing Quick Start features option in BIOs setup

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Is there a hardware problem with the Ideapad?

it's probably hardware. it's actually linux operation system and comes with pre-loaded operation system. did you make any changes on volumes?
edit:typo

Quick Qu: K8N Neo Plat BIOS & D-Bracket LEDs...

Just a very quick question, as I don't have any other computer to compare:
When entering the BIOS at boot-up, the "D-Bracket 2" LEDs show green, apart from one red LED (number 3). This apparently corresponds to "Assign Resources to all ISA"...
Could someone with the same board (K8N Neo Platinum) please tell me if their D-bracket lights are ALL green when entering the BIOS??
I'm having a slight problem with the SATA drive not being detected when I reboot the computer, and was wondering if the red 'warning' LED was part of the problem.
thanks, and merry christmas / happy new year! :D

Quote from: kidscruff on 26-December-05, 12:40:07
Could someone with the same board (K8N Neo Platinum) please tell me if their D-bracket lights are ALL green when entering the BIOS??
My machine is not in front of me, but I can tell you no.
In fact, I think in the BIOS I get the same: GGRG.
You will get GGGG when the BIOS tries to boot the OS.

Upping Resolution, CS4, ...Quick Follow Up Question

Recently learned here how to up the size and resolution on a project in CS4 where the document size, in inches, was tiny to begin with. I'm now working with a .tif image that's got the document size I want (approx. 20" X 27") and I'm assuming I just change the "Resolution" box from 72 to 300 to max it out. Is this correct?
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>I have a digital image file measuring 1472 X 1978 pixels which I want to use as a base to create a digital painting over - completely displacing the aforementioned base image.
What Ramón said in Post #17. Just set desired final output dimensions and use 360 ppi if you want absolute highest quality and can tolerate working with the large resultant file size. However 20x27 at 360 ppi is a large file and many computers will experience painting slowdowns.
Due to typical viewing distances personally I use 300-360 ppi for small prints, 240-300 ppi for 8x10 and 240 ppi for 11x14; 180 ppi for large posters. If I was creating a painting I would do some test painting/printing to establish what ppi density worked best on my hardware and chosen painting style before I invested lots of hours painting.
As to post #18, I do not believe that usage of
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growing (however my mountain world although full of artists is a pretty small pond).

Neo2 BIOS 3.3 Disables VIA SATA Raid AND Promise IDE3 RESOLVED

I recently corrputed my VIA SATA Raid installation of Windows by overclocking my FSB. I have since read that you can't do this, and I definitely learned my lesson.
But in the process of attempting recovery, I upgraded my BIOS from 1.8 to 3.3. (I know, didn't really keep up on that =)
Now I have a strange problem. I can't have both the Promise controller ENABLED as well as the VIA SATA enabled. During boot, if the Promise controller is Enabled and has an IDE HDD plugged into it (important!) which was created by this Promise controller a few months ago, the VIA SATA section of BIOS boot does not show up. It will not even show the text where it is looking for attached drives. Herein lies the problem.
Here are a few scenarios. If I unplug all drives from the Promise IDE connector, but leave it enabled, it will proceed to the VIA section of BIOS boot right after the Realtek initialization. It will also show the VIA section of the BIOS boot if I disable the Promise in the Integrated Devices section of the BIOS.
But, if I leave a single drive connected to the Promise IDE connector, and have them both enabled in BIOS (VIA "On Board" is ENABLED and Promise is set to RAID) then the only boot options I see are the Promise section, where it will correctly identify the IDE drive connected to it (remember, it was made a drive by that very same controller chip a few months back) and then proceed to the Realtek initialization. After that, there is no VIA section at all.
Interestingly, if you hit DEL to go into setup anytime during the scenario where there is no VIA init section, the VIA SATA drives do not show up on the Boot Sequence at all. It is like it is not there at all, which I suspected since it wasn't showing up during BIOS boot.
SO. This leaves me with the unfortunate scenario of not being able to use one or the other. The only thing I can think of is that I updated my BIOS revision. Please, is someone able to duplicate this, or is there a known workaround? I would hate to lose half of the functionality of the mboard as far as additional controllers goes.
I will add my config below just in case that helps:
K8T Neo 2
AMD 3500+
2 x Kingston 3500 HyperX 512
Antec NeoPower 480w
2 x 36GB Raptors SATA (Drives I am attempting to run on VIA for boot)
2 x IDE drives (Maxtor 250GB and WD 160GB) on the Promise IDE 3 channel (sometimes anyway =)
2 x CD ROM on IDE 1
2 x IDE drives (WD 60GB and WD 120GB) on IDE 2 (I leave these unplugged during windows install and T/S'ing this problem)
ATI Radeon X800XTPE
I hope that is all you would need to know about the box.
Thanks for your ideas.

Quote from: Tiresmoke on 09-April-05, 22:52:31
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=608&kind=1
I trslly would suggest first though to do a Bios reset and then re-examine the problems if any and let's see if we can track and sort them out.
The first thing I found odd is that you claimed to have updated the Bios from 1.8 and there is no version 1.8 for the Neo2's. Their Bios range starts at 3.0 and that is the lowest number you should have been at.
Second let's take a look at your Bios settings. Typically when you flash a Bios you have to go back and reset the bios again to what is needed for your rig. Otherwise the default settings may not allow you to run your system at all properly.
I appreciate your looking at this with me Tiresmoke. You must be right on the previous BIOS version. It is my original Neo that I am thinking of for 1.8. Now that you mention that, I don't know what the previous BIOS version is, but I am now going to assume it was the original.
Tracking through it though has been strange. Another change I noticed is that my RAM would no longer run at DDR400. It was stuck at DDR333 no matter what I did. I had to move the Kingston 3500 that I had from 1/2 to 1/3 to get it to work. Something must have changed in the BIOS update to make that happen, as it was running fine before that, and differences in operation at that level have nothing to do with whether I corrupted my RAID based windows install.
The boot order is as follows:
1) Promise Controller (Press CTRL + F)
2) Realtek LAN Boot (Press SHIFT + F10)
>
3) VIA RAID Controller.
It is #3 that will not show up if there is a drive attached to the Promise controller. This has got me completely stumped. Is there a direction we can go with T/S'ing this?
Thx.

LITE Bios Promise MSI 845PE MAX2 FIR

Can any one tell me where I can find an update for the promise lite bios to the normal bios.
I have 4 harddisks attached and I can only create 1 raid array.
I would like to create a second on but the lite bios doesn't allow this.
Thanks

cartoen - no, that's not correct. You can create as many arrays as you wish.
The trick is, attach your drives one at a time. This allows the lite BIOS to define each drive as a separate array.
Or you can create 2 arrays of course, or 3 - just add the drives in the order you want.
So - for a 2 drive array, add 2 drives at the same time. Raid BIOS combines the two as a single array.
For single drive arrays, add one drive at a time, then switch off and add new drive(s). (This is what I do)

Promise S-ATA / Intel ICH5 S-ATA

Hi
After getting some good advice from users in these forums, I setup my two Maxtor ATA133 hard drives on IDE3 in a 'non-RAID configuration' and it worked fine, although I did have a few problems after updated the Promise S-ATA driver with the wrong driver.
Q: With reference to actual S-ATA drives, I have not yet bought any because there appears to be some problems with some makes of S-ATA drives but, can I assume that if I connect two S-ATA drives to the Promise SER3 and SER4, then like my ATA133 drives, the S-ATA drive will also work in a 'non-RAID configuration using the same WinXP Promise S-ATA drivers that I installed for the ATA133 drives?
Q: I would really like to use the Intel S-ATA ports because I have read that they are preferable to the Promise S-ATA ports. Can I connect two S-ATA drives to SER1 and SER2 in a 'Non-RAID' configuration' and if so, what is the correct method for doing this and what drivers should be used?
Q: I know that Maxtor have some problems with their early S-ATA drives (something to do with BP3, and BP4 extra - what is this and where should I look for this on the drive?) but can anyone recommend any makes of S-ATA drives that they have used without problems on the 875P boards - make and model numbers please.
BTW - When is BIOS v1.9 due?
Regards
Brave01Heart

Hi to all who gave me advice for setting up two S-ATA drives on the Intel ICH5R controller with "NO" RAID.
Well, I got my two "NEW" S-ATA drives this afternoon and after following the advice given by several users in this thread, I'm having ptoblems trying to install Windows XP and I'm getting messages like "missing operating system", "Invalid system disk, (when XP CD is in CD drive) replace the disk and press any key", so I need some help please.
Ok, I setup the BIOS settings in Integrated Perpherals/On-Chip IDE Configuration to:
Mode: NATIVE
ATA Configuration: S-ATA Only
Keep S-ATA Enabled: YES
Keep P-ATA Enabled: YES
P-ATA Channel Selection: BOTH
Configure S-ATA as RAID: NO
I then switched off the computer and connected my two Seagate S-ATA drives
(ST380013AS 7200.7 80GB on SER1 & ST3120026AS 7200.7 120GB on SER2).
I turned on computer and drives were shown on POST screen as "Third IDE Master (80GB) and 4th IDE Master (120GB). I then entered BIOS to check if they were shown and they were and I selected the "ST380013AS 7200.7 80GB drive" as my 3rd boot device with the CD as my first boot device and the floppy as my second.
BOTH drives were already set to "AUTO", but the label on the physical drives states that you should choose "AUTO" and enable "LARGE BLOCK ADDRESSING (LBA), but I could not see an option for this. I did not get any software with the disk but the drive label states that you chould use "Disc Wizard" but I did not have this so I used an updated Boot Floppy that works with drives up to 137GB. I FDISK'd the 80GB drive and formatted it to FAT32 (although I would not normally do this because XP setup always finds my new partitioned ATA133 drives and starts setup and then formats it).
Note: During format, the drive was shown as "Formatting 10,780.56M" and for an 80GB drive, this did not seem right but after formatting, it showed as 76,297,91MB total disk space. FDISK showed the drive as 76,317MBytes.
Also in the BIOS, the 80GB drive is shown with "CYLINDERS:38309", "HEADS:16", SECTORS:255", MAXIMUM CAPACITY:80GB and "WRITE PRECOMPENSATION:(nothing was shown for this - what is this and should there be a reading for it)?
I then restarted the computer with the XP CD in the Master CD drive and the cd was found and showed "Press any key to continue......" but this was quickly followed by "Invalid System Disk - Replace the disk and press any key".
I tried this many times but always get the same message. Can anyone who has setup S-ATA drives on ICH5R with "no RAID" and then installed a fresh copy of XP, please help, or anyone who can help with this, I would be very grateful.
Regards
Brave01Heart

K7D Master L & Promise FastTrak SX4000 boot hang

I am having major trouble getting a Promise FastTrak SX4000 RAID controller to work with a K7D Master-L (MSI-6501-030). I would appreciate any and all input, especially from those of you who have similar or identical hardware (same motherboard/chipset, same RAID controller or similar Promise card) and are able to get them working.
Brief description :
The SX4000 controller will hang at the IDE drive detection stage when installed on this board alone (plus an AGP video card) or alongside various combinations of PCI adapters, in various PCI slots available, and using various BIOS settings. The SX4000 appears to work fine in another Intel chipset system with the same AGP video cards. Both the motherboard and the SX4000 controller appear to have the latest BIOSes available.
Symptoms :
When the system is turned on with the SX4000 controller installed, it completes POST successfully, then loads the Promise FastTrak BIOS from the SX4000, and stalls after displaying "Scanning for IDE drives". Waiting for extended periods of time verifies the system is just 'stuck' here. It appears to be a 'hang' rather than a 'freeze', since the keyboard continues to operate and Ctrl-Alt-Del will still reboot the system at this point. The D-LED diagnostic LED bracket indicates (according to the included user manual), the system is at the "Initializing Hard Drive Controller" stage at this point.
The system continues to boot fine if the SX4000 controller is not installed.
The SX4000 controller functions fine on another system, a Dell OptiPlex GX400--a Pentium 4-based system built around the Intel i850 chipset. This OptiPlex GX400 has only a TNT RIVA 128 AGP video card installed, but has built-in audio and NIC. The SX4000 controller also works in this system using a GeForce2 MX TwinView AGP video card as well as a GeForce FX5600 AGP video card. It does not work on the K7D Master-L with either card, with the following exception. With only the TNT RIVA 128 AGP video card, it will in fact scan for IDE drives (indicated by ~10 - 15 dots/periods, ".", displayed after the "Scanning for IDE drives" message), but then will also hang as soon as the scan is complete without additional messages.
All of the above is true whether hard disks are connected to the SX4000 controller or not.
Disclaimer : I am not a newbie. I've built hundreds of systems over the past 10 years and know what I am talking about. :)
What I have tried so far, and what I've been able to determine :
I have gone through quite a bit of research about this. I've tried both Promise and MSI Web sites (both US and Taiwan), the Web at large through Google, as well as various newsgroups including alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar through Google, the MSI forums on their Web site, the AMDMB Forums, 2CPU forums, HardForum, AnandTech Forums, SysOpt forums, and Tom's Hardware Community. While there are many posts about the AMD 760MPX chipsets and various Promise RAID and non-RAID IDE controller cards, none describes my problem exactly. Hence my posting here.
o There isn't a problem with the DIMM I am using on the SX4000. It's a 256 MB PC133 DIMM, with 8 HT33S328256K (32Mx8) DRAM chips on it. I am certain it's not a problem because the card works as expected in the Dell OptiPlex GX400 with the same DIMM. I have also tried a 64 MB PC100 DIMM (Crucial) and there is no difference--the SX4000 controller hangs the K7D Master-L, but works with the OptiPlex GX400.
o Moving the card around to different PCI slots on the K7D Master-L doesn't make a difference, if only so to avoid a problem with a shared interrupt. I have tried the board in all 5 available PCI slots--the upper two 66MHz/64-bit PCI slots as well as the lower three 33MHz/32-bit PCI slots. I have looked at the IRQ assignment scheme for this board, and tried putting the SX4000 (alone or with other PCI cards--see configuration info at the end) in the first PCI slot, next to the AGP slot such that it doesn't share an IRQ with the video card. No luck. I have also tried the lowest PCI slot (#5), which should have a distinct IRQ ideally, based on the above scheme, but that also makes no difference.
o Disabling various components, including all on-board peripherals (audio, LAN, serial, parallel, and USB ports, legacy USB emulation, ACPI), disabling all caching/shadowing (video/system BIOS) makes no difference.
o The SX4000 controller came with the latest available BIOS according to the Promise Web site (http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=94&category=All&os=100), v1.02.0.5. Just for the hell of it, I copied the controller BIOS from the flash ROM to an image using Promise's own PFLASH.EXE utility and file-compared it with the latest BIOS on the Web site to ensure they are exactly the same.
o The K7D Master-L came with BIOS v1.6, which, according to MSI's US (search for the K7D Master L) or Taiwanese (lists a v1.82, but I am hesitant since it doesn't recommend or caution against using it on the -L model of the motherboard) Web sites is not available. These list either v1.3 or v1.5 (the latter for the K7D Master) as the latest available that I can verify for K7D Master-L.
o I tried downgrading the SX4000 controller BIOS to the other, earlier one available on the Promise Web site, to v1.01.0.15. No changes. The card still doesn't work in any slot on the K7D Master-L, and works fine in any slot on the OptiPlex GX400.
o There *are* people on these forums who have similar systems, some with the same motherboard and controller, others with the same motherboard and similar cards like the FastTrak SX6000 who apparently are able to make it work. I know this only because they have open threads on other issues and happen to provide their configuration info. For example:
--same mobo and controller card, apparently working as reported problems are other issues--
2CPU forum post #1
2CPU forum post #2
2CPU forum post #3
MSI forum post #1
newsgroup post #1
--same mobo, very similar controller card--this person first asked on MSI forums and then walked the AMDMB, Tom's Hardware forums, with no response except a supposed "will not work" from MSI; the last one is another person describing my exact problem I think--only one so far--but with an SX6000--
MSI forum post #2
AMDforums post #1
Tom's HW Community post #1
newsgroup post #2
--same chipset though different mobo--
2CPU forum post #4
2CPU forum post #5
2CPU forum post #6 (the K7D Master L has no "jumperless mode")
--people building similar/identical setups--
2CPU forum post #7
AMDforums post #2
AMDforums post #3
What I have not done :
o I have not tried downgrading the BIOS on the K7D Master-L to an earlier (pre-1.6) version. I don't know if this is wise, though, considering this appears to be a newer (with working USB 1.x) revision of the motherboard that might minimally need the BIOS currently on it.
o I have not tried another SX4000 controller card, which I do not have. However, the card working fine on the OptiPlex GX400 indicates to me clearly that there isn't a functional problem per se on the card itself.
o No components are overclocked.
What I suspect :
o The fact that the two GeForce-based cards behave slightly differently than the TNT RIVA 128 (see above about how the hang occurs slightly later with the latter card) indicates to me that the problem is some combination of the motherboard, RAID controller, and video card conflicting (conspiring?) together. I am looking for the plainest AGP video card I have around to further test this.
o There appears to be a resource conflict *or* a BIOS/handover problem going on. It's not likely an IRQ conflict/sharing issue, since on the OptiPlex GX400, the SX4000 happily shares an IRQ with the video card (verified through the BIOS). The resources the SX4000 uses when on the OptiPlex GX400, as seen through its own BIOS/array utility are:
Installed Memory Address FF1F8000 Size 256M
Controller IRQ9
ATA IO Address EC00
XOR and HDMA IO Address E800
Sequence Control IO Address E400
Flash and SRAM Memory Address FF200000
I do not know which of these are retained as is when in the K7D Master-L (the IRQ certainly isn't necessarily retained, but don't know about the rest). I also am not able to easily check for a conflict with these. I can verify that as Windows XP can see it (which does assign its own resources via ACPI, of course,) there are not system or motherboard resources overlapping with any of these.
Also note this older K7T issue that may be relevant
What I need help with :
If you have a K7D Master-L and an SX4000, SX6000, or other similar Promise controller, please let me know how your system is configured.
What other peripherals, particularly video card do you have?
Which slots are all the cards in, particularly the SX4000?
What BIOS version of the K7D Master-L are you using?
What BIOS version is the SX4000?
Many thanks in advance,
MacGyver

Hi, I believe of having your same problem..sorry, I do not speak well English,
this is my system:
Mainboard Microstar MSI K7D MasterL chipset AMD 761MPX
CPU dual AMD MP2400+
RAM 2x512 Corsair pc2100 ECC Reg.
Primary Master DVD Rom Toshiba SD-M1712
1° slot PCI(66Mhz) controller FASTRACK SX4000
3° slot PCI controller USB
AGP 3Dlabs VP970
3 HD Western Digital WD0800JB 80Gb with 8Mb buffer (new)
AUDIO ONBOARD AC97
LAN ONBOARD INTEL
IRQ 11
RAID 5
BIOS FASTRACK SX4000 1.02.0.5
RAM Dimm 256Mb (test OK)
this is my problem:
1) the HD in master or slave the HD do not come recognized from the bios of the fastrack..HD not found..control cables ide or current
2) cable select or removing jumper from the HD the these they come recognized, it allows to make the Array (tried raid 5, 0 and the 1) ago boot of the fastrack but at the moment of the boot from floppy or cd rom (as from bios of the mainboard) remains the underscore that flashes. The PC is not of an all out..con ctrl+alt+del reboot.
3) tried to use also only 2 of aforesaid the HD, invert channel, user also channel 4, same problems
4) it recognizes the HD in master if I mount cables IDE to the contrary.. with the blue connector on the HD..ma remains problem of the boot from floppy or cd
5) I have tried to install others 2 not new HD (samsung 6,4 Gb + seagate4,6 Gb)..il fastrack recognizes them also in master..it allows the Array in raid 0 or raid1 but it remains the problem of the boot from floppy or cd.
6) tried to move fastrack on other slot Pci (also on one of those to 33Mhz) identical problems
7) bios mainboard all ok..also why if I do not make array..part the boot from floppy or cdrom..also if then to the fine ones it says nonexistent disc to me (lacks the Array..)
8) changed to cables courrent..do not creed is that one the problem..Enermax 460W..e then if septum in a determined way jumper the recognized HD
9) modernized bios..le tests son been made it is with that old one that with last (the 1.02.0.5)
10) tried to use other cable 80 pin connecting a single HD WD in master..l' HD it is not recognized!
11) tried also to detach controller USB
12) moved reader DVD in primary slave and also in secondary (it is master that slave)
13) mounted same fastrack SX4000 on other pc..same problems
14) I have modernized bios to version 1,3 (last the available on the site US..on the taiwanese site is version 1,82 but I do not trust myself)
15) I do not know what other to make!
I have read on the situated one that not there were problems of incompatible with my Mainboard and was compatible with HD Western WD0800BB (80 GB and 2 Digital Mb of buffer) and with WD1200JB (120Gb and 8 Mb of buffer)..i 8 WD0800JB are 80Gb and have Mb of buffer..but creed are not a problem of HD..inasmuch as the problems remain also changing discs (seagate and samsung).
I absolutely have need of this PC for job
if it finds one solution..please it makes to know me! ;( thanks

Is it Neccessary to update BIOS?

I am inclined to always update everything (drivers, BIOS, etc) every chance I get, thinking there are fixes to various problems. However, I have read that it is best not to update BIOS if the system is working well. In my case, although my computer is working with a BIOS dated April this year, I am never satisfied with my system speed and other issues.
The new BIOS was just released Nov 1. I am on an 1155 platform Sandy Bridge, ASUS brand, with i7 procesor running Windows 7. I have several hard drives, RAID arrays and other components internal and external.

Alex, I'm agreement with what others have said here but would like to add that you could also do some google searches on this particular new BIOS version to uncover any issues that people may be having with it. Sometimes BIOS updates are not that well tested by the motherboard company and they have to be quickly followed up by another update to correct bugs. Being that this new BIOS is a month old already gives some assurance but you should probably do some searches nonetheless.

KT4 Ultra (6590) need update of the Promise SATA RAID Controller PDC20376

The last Bios update AMI 1.4 for the KT4 Ultra (6590) have built in the bios version 1.00.0.18 for the PDC20376 (Promise 376).
I can configure 2 maxtor (6E040T0) sata1 in a raid0 array and it works under WinXP SP3,
but the 2 drives are working in UDMA5 according to the FastBuild Utility when the motherboard specifications talks about 150Mb (SATA1).
It's not an OS problem because the FastBuild Utility at Bios startup show the UDMA5 mode for HDD.
It's not a Maxtor 6E040T0 (SATA1) problem because have no jumper to set.
The Promise support center don't provide support for built in raid controller but the responce was that it's related to a known bios issue of the controller, so i have to update.
For the last Bios version for the S150 TX4 controller look at:
http://promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=108&category=all&os=100&go=GO
It's impossible to update the bios with the promise tool because the controller is integrated in the motherboard.
I read for example than on the motherboard K7N2 Delta-ILSR the bios version of the Promise 376 controller is 1.00.0.21:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=92756.msg665966#msg665966
I think the only solution is a modding bios, where i have to replace only the Promise controller bios but:
1) The tool amibcp.exe can't open the A6590VMS.140 AMI bios (renamed .rom), i don't know why!!!
2) What promise controller bios rom file is good?
Can anyone out there help . . . please ?

This is my results compared to my other UDMA6 HDD on IDE1, HDTach long bench stop with "Read Error" and only quick bench works.
The version of the Controller driver under WinXP-SP3 is 1.0.1.29 and I configured the driver in the PAM Utility with:
"Driver Write Cache" enabled and "Write Back" as cache settings (The 2 Maxtor SATA1 in RAID have 2MB of cache, but i don't know How many cache have the controller!!).
The Burst Speed is too strange!!! quick bench error?
I made it so your image is clickable.
-Frankenputer

Promise 378 RAID controller wierdness

Motherboard: MS-6728 865PE Neo2
Main BIOS: AMI v2.5 29th Sep 2004
Promise 378 BIOS: v1.00.0.27
Disks connected to promise S-ATA RAID connectors: 2 x Seagate ST2500630 500 Gb SATA2
Serious instability in Promise 378 raid. Over a few cold reboots, can get each of the following in the BIOS screen, with no way of predicting which:
RAID OK and functional
Channel 1 fail array critical
Channel 2 fail array critical
I have replaced SATA leads, swapped the disk connectors around, and beefed up the power supply to 850 Watts, but with no joy, and this is before we even get into windows.
If the array actually does identify OK and XP boots, trying to format the drive gives lots of these device timeouts in the system event log:
The device, \Device\Scsi\fasttx2k1, did not respond within the timeout period.
I have downloaded the lowlevel drive utility S/W from the Seagate website, and both drives have checked out OK when connected through the 'normal' ICH5 SATA connectors..
So I've basically I've bought 1 Tb of disk space and an 850W power supply and can't do anything with it. Are the any issuse with these BIOS versions? Any help/suggestions all gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Tony

Yep - both drives got the long version of the Seagate Disk Tools test, and both passed without a hitch. That's five hours of my life I'll never get back.
Anyway - the Promise TX2300 RAID card arrived yesterday, so I disabled the motherboard Promise in the BIOS, installed the card in a spare PCI slot (my last one!), and connected the drives. It turns out that this card also wont recognise the cards at 3 Mb/s, but they worked instantly when the drive jumper was replaced to limit them to 1.5 Mb/s. Partitioned and formatted I now have a working 2 x 500 Gb RAID 1, though I'm going to leave it a week before I move anything important onto it.... er, 'just in case'.
To summarise, the motherboard Promise and this new Promise RAID card use different silicon so their implementations could be different, but neither would talk to the drives at 3 Mb/s. I strongly suspect the Seagate drives have a SATA2 problem. I could easily be wrong of course, but I'm off to the Seagate forums now to try and pin it down.
Dufflepod.

Windows 8.1 shutdown options re: Bios

Am aware that 8 and its relation to Bios is different than other Windows versions. If I shutdown or restart from Win8 interface, the intro has a nice screen for selection of operating system to my dual-boot.
If shut down through command, it appears to actually shutdown with following boot going through Bios and I have the Bios selection for operating system.
In the first case, where Windows starts quickly and sort of by-passes Bios - seems to me that the user is not getting an "actual shutdown" and that the machine is performing hibernating function of some sort. For this reason, I have always
performed a full shutdown since the release of 8.
My question is: What is the best way to shut down the machine?
For security, I do not believe in leaving a computer running day and night. For functionality, I do not believe in Sleep, Hibernate, or anything else that gets between me and a running OS.
Since there is a possibility that I might function fine and even better with shutdowns from within the 8 UI ... I'm looking for some honest feedback on that. If have no information, which way do you shutdown and restart your Windows 8/8.1?
Other than quicker boot-times, is there any programming advantage to using the shutdown within the 8 UI? How big are the vulnerabilities, when any next machine start-up is set to run within those new Bios standards? Because it's kind of like
planting a bomb every time you shut down, and just hoping it doesn't explode on you the next day when you start up. Will it default back to the original Bios startup if the other one fails?

Hi,
You can create a small batch script that allows you shutdown /restart or put the computer to sleep.
refer to the following scripts :
1. First, open notepad and type :
shutdown -s -f -t 0
1.1 save the file and name it : PowerOff.cmd
2. Open notepad and type :
shutdown -r -f -t 0
2.1 save the file and name it : Restart.cmd
3. Open notepad and type :
shutdown -h
3.1 save the file and name it : StandBy.cmd
Place theses scripts files on your Desktop, then you just have to double clic on :
PowerOff.cmd : to power off your computer
Restart.cmd : to restart your computer
Standby.cmd : to put the computer to sleep
A+
HK.
Hicham KADIRI | Just Another IT Guy

Might be a dumb question...bios flashing...

I created the DOS boot disk, rebooted, but I can't get to C drive...only A
I went through first 6 letters and none were correct.
I followed these directions;
When you get the A:\ prompt, type the following sequence:
C: <enter> (I get an unspecified drive notice)
cd\test <enter>
C:\test> awdfl783m BIOS file

Get the win98 bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com , and follow the instructions for bios flashing with a ntfs-formatted system :
(the RAM-drive is important) (all out of the official MSI-document from the zipped bios-file)
(I tried it with an official 98bootdisk first but had no ram-drive, the 1 from bootdisk.com has :D )
Flashing the BIOS for Non-FAT file system (Thanks to Forum Moderator Assaf for his valuable contribution)
1.Check your BIOS for BIOS FLASH DISABLED and ENABLE it, some boards have this function.For Example:
K7T266 Pro (MS-6380) -BIOS setup/chipset setup/BIOS protection/disabled
2.Know Your model number
a. Open your case and look for the MS-XXXX number on the motherboard between the PCI slots, also check the version number that is written there as well. (some motherboards are named like K7T Turbo, make sure you have the right version number)
b. Boot up your system & take a look at the top left screen during POST, you should see something like "A6380MS v1.7 122101" This means the board is MS-6380 with BIOS version 1.7
Hint: Many systems are clearing this message very fast, the bios version is then unreadable, you can either press “PAUSE” or disable the “Quick Boot” in the BIOS setup.
3.Download the BIOS that matches your motherboard AND version number (some motherboards are named like K7T Turbo, make sure you have the right version number). BIOS can be found according to the CPU type of your board like if your CPU is Intel P4 478 type then look here
<http://www.msi.com.tw/support/bios/socket_478.php>
if you cannot find the BIOS that matches your board, try here <http://www.msi.com.tw/support/bios/more.php>
4.Extract the file you have downloaded to a floppy (not the win ME/98 startup floppy) by double clocking the file in windows mode and supplying the path a:\
5.Boot the computer using a windows ME or windows 98 startup disk. It must be one of these! A plain boot disk will not be good enogh.
If you do not have Windows ME or 98 to create the floppy you can make one on a friend's computer.
6.When boot is done there will be a message on the screen showing :"Diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive" followed by a single letter.
This letter is the leter assigned to the RAMDRIVE. This RAMDRIVE is a virtual drive in the system memory and can be accessed and controlled like any other drive with DOS commands such as:
MD - Make Directory
Copy - copy a file
Deleate - Deleate a file
There is one important difference which is that being in the system memory this drive is wiped once the computer is restarted or shut down.
7.Replace the startup floppy with the one containing the flash utility and bios ROM files previously extracted in windows.
8.Copy the 2 files to the RAMDRIVE by using the DOS command copy.
Here is an example, in this example the flash utility is AWFL814B.EXE ,the ROM file is w6373nms.220 and the RAMDRIVE letter assignment is D
copy awfl814b.exe d:\
copy w6337nms.220 d:\
9.Change the current working directory to the RAMDRIVE root directory, with the example case of the RAMDRIVE being drive D this is done by simply done with the command d:
10.Execute the flash utility with the ROM file as a command line argument, with this example:
awfl814b w6373nms.220
If you wish to save the current bios you must specify the full path a:\filename. Specifying only a file name will save the bios to the RAMDRIVE which will be wiped after restarting the computer and the file will not be saved.
a:\bios.old is an example of the correct way to save the bios.
11.Reboot your system when prompted
12. If your system doesn't boot after you flashed, please refer to the BIOS recovery method as described

GTX580 Twin Frozr II OC BIOS File Help Please

Hii guys! I just got my GTX 580 Twin Frozr II OC installed today and I'm really excited but I'm having a bit of a problem.
I've tried flashing the BIOS using the MSI HQ USB Flasher but the program says that the BIOS file I downloaded from the MSI website is not a valid file. Live Update 5 can't seem to detect my motherboard model or BIOS Version and, possibly, as a result does not find any updates for the card. Also, the MSI website mentions an EXE file that's supposed to be in the BIOS file archive, yet there is no EXE file in the archive.
I need to flash the BIOS (?) because my graphics card keeps crashing when playing games. Most times: black screen, followed by the card reverting back to stock speeds. Twice, however, the screen got completely messed up and I had to hard reset the computer. That was when I set the voltage to 1150. And yes, even at stock speeds and the stock voltage (which is how I have the comp running atm), the card crashes.. just after a longer while. It's also not a heat problem because my in-game temps stay around 65ish.
I'm sure the rest of my computer is stable because most of the components have been replaced including the old PSU I had; to a Corsair TX 750W.
I feel like I'm missing something obvious, because flashing the GPU BIOS is new to me.
But, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot Svet! I was able to flash the BIOS without any problems, however I quickly returned to the old BIOS ROM because the graphics card was much more unstable with the "new" BIOS. (Which ironically also has a lower BIOS version number than the one that came with the card). Overclocking at all would really mess up the screen and at stock speeds (800, 1600, 2048) it would crash. I reinstalled Windows (went from 7 Home Premium x64 to 7 Ultimate x64) because it got messed up during some installations I was doing and now... everything's running like butter. :\
After booting it up, I reinstalled all my games and every single one of them runs fine. I still get some really bad FPS in Splinter Cell Conviction, which is upsetting because I was looking forward to maxing it out and playing it at 60.. but whatevs.
I've tested the card also using
Assassin's Creed (From 1 to Revelations)
Battlefield 3
Dragon Age 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Crysis 2
Saints Row The Third
NFS Run,
and Arkham City.
The card has a lot of trouble playing Arkham City with Physx on or with any of the DX11 features and I'm surprised I'm getting poor FPS at all in some games because I'm actually only using a 1600x900 display. I'm not complaining because all the other games run maxed out pretty well; and the card seems stable. I was also able to overclock it, which was tricky until I decided not to overclock the memory - so that the Afterburner values are 1150 (voltage), 900, 1800, 2048, 85 (fan). It looks like if I overclock the memory at all the graphics card crashes. Was a tad disturbing as I read that others have gotten better overclocks but... again, the important thing is that it's stable and running well. But, out of curiosity, why can't it overclock higher like others have managed to get it to?
Two questions though:
I'm using Nvidia's 290.36 Beta drivers - is that okay? Or should I only use the drivers from MSI's site?
(To note, I've used all of Nvidia's drivers and they all appear to deliver the same performance across all games. By "all drivers" I mean the 280.26, 285.62, 285.79, as well as the 290.36.)
How long is the standard warranty on this card?
Again, thanks Svet for pointing me in the right direction. :D
I'm even more excited now for SW: The Old Republic.
Aphax my GPU's serial number is "602-V255-060B1107208512" - why do you ask though?

K7t 266 pro: promise chip won't work

the promise controller (as far as i know the: pdc 20265, fasttrack 100) won't start after install of both windows 2000 professional and windows 2003 server enterprise. In both cases it gives the errormessage: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"
I've tried the following:
using the latest bios version: v 1.9 013102
load latest promise drivers from msi site both with install and after install
2 operating systems: win 2k prof & win2k3 serv. ent.
I'm really don't know what to try next, anyone any clue what may cause the problem?
Tnx a lot
System:
K7t 266 pro v 1.0
Bios v 1.9 013102
Athlon XP 2000+
512 mb ram
Asus V7100 graphics card
realtec ethernet card
on ide 0 and 1: 3x 160 gb maxtor and 1x dvd
on ide 3 (raid): 1x 120 gb maxtor

tnx for your reply osnavi,
The psu goes well, np at all. I finally found the reason of the problem: I downloaded the driver for the pdc 20265, where i should have choosen the fasttrack 100 Raid driver.
A not too smart action :(
Many greetz,
AaAtlantis

Quick follow up, Promise MB'Bios 1.5 Benchmarks

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