Promise controller cards. - Tech Support Forums

Bovon · November 19th, 2002, 10:38 PM

Anybody else have boot problems with Promise controller cards?

I have several Ultra66 and Ultra100 cards...about every 3 or 4th cold boot, I get a boot disk failure. a warm reboot gives the same results. A cold boot usually will now boot the system (a cold boot after the failure to boot the first time). This anomaly apparently is not just with my setup. I have done a few searches for Promise controller problems, and find that this problem is not an isolated issue. As soon as I made this known to the Promise tech support people, they clam up and do not answer e-mails.

Just curious if anybody else has these glitches...

Xeroid · November 19th, 2002, 10:47 PM

Hey Bovon, how ya been? This is news to me. I used an Ulrta66 to boot off of for about 2 years on my old 440-BX mobo. I no longer use it to boot from, but it's in my new PC (1 year old) and I use it to connect extra drives to. I've never had a problem with it.

Mike

Jeordiewhite · November 19th, 2002, 10:49 PM

Well, do you have a floppy in the drive? Maybe get try getting a bios update for it or driver to make sure it's working properly.

Bovon · November 19th, 2002, 10:58 PM

Hey Mike...well, the problem could be here on my end somewhere..but it ticks me off when I am attempting to get an answer from tech support for an item I have that is flaking out (apparently).

This dang card (3 different ones) fail about every 3rd or 4th cold boot in the mornings...a re (cold) boot will work every time...a warm reboot will fail. It could be a PCI bios setting..or the lack there of due to the PCI support this mobo has...but for Promise tech support to just dry up without even attempting to help resolve the problem is a bit much. After two weeks of trying to pry info from them, I wrote them that I may just remady the situation concerning their lack of interest in their product.

I have found that this is not an isolated issue. If yours has worked flawlessly...great...others are not so lucky

Bovon · November 19th, 2002, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeordiewhite
Well, do you have a floppy in the drive? Maybe get try getting a bios update for it or driver to make sure it's working properly.

I haven't tried to update the bios on the ultra66 cards..but I did with the ultra100 cards...after which I got a registry error when arriving at desktop and had to reboot...this got into an endless loop of registry errors and rebooting/fixing..until I removed the ultra100 and either put the HDD on the native controllers or back on the ultra66 cards. Sence I am running a SS7 board with ATA33 controllers, I much prefer the speed of the controller cards...even with the glitch. All I want to know is why...and apparently promise dosn't know..and drops you like a hot potatoe!!

Xeroid · November 19th, 2002, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bovon
Hey Mike...well, the problem could be here on my end somewhere..but it ticks me off when I am attempting to get an answer from tech support for an item I have that is flaking out (apparently).

That seems to be the norm these days.
Tech Support = a lack thereof.

Richard Cranium · November 20th, 2002, 12:02 AM

In the BIOS, is the 1st boot device set to the PCI card, which is prolly called SCSI if I'm correctly thinking this time of day

Xeroid · November 20th, 2002, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Richard Cranium
In the BIOS, is the 1st boot device set to the PCI card, which is prolly called SCSI if I'm correctly thinking this time of day

It's been over a year since I used the Promise card to boot to so I had forgotten that tip Doc. And, yes the bios does consider the Promise IDE controller card a SCSI device.

Mike

Bovon · November 20th, 2002, 12:08 PM

Hey Doc, yep...I have it set to SCSI; A:; C: ..but I have tried it other ways...it will boot fine A:; C:; SCSI...which is backwards of course.

It may have something to do with this FIC 503+ mainboard. There are issues with the PCI controllers on this board...but what bugs me is, this only happens about 1 out of 5/6 cold boots...a reboot at the time it fails will not cut it...the machine must be turned completely off and after maybe 10 seconds or so...back on. Then, it boots normally. This is no real biggie, and I am never in that kind of hurry..its more of simply knowing why...and I absolutely detest a company that sells stuff and does not back it up. After two weeks, and 3 e-mails to their tech support with no replies...I decided maybe others need to know that Promise is one of, or has gone the way of non support as so many other companies have.

Richard Cranium · November 20th, 2002, 09:05 PM

Ya know that the order of the PCI slots have to do with "priority" ?

Change the card to the PCI slot closest to the CPU