Promise SATA300 TX2plus Controller Card & My MOBO

[endeavors]

I have a Promise SATA300 TX2plus PCI SATA IDE Controller Card
it's this one:
http://www.promise.com/product/produ...product_id=138

I have a Seagate Barracuda ST3750330AS Hard Drive
(750GB 7200 RPM 32MB SATA 3.0Gbs with firmware SD15)

It's hooked up to an Intel D865PERLL motherboard
it's this one:
http://www.intel.com/support/motherb.../cs-008963.htm

The HD is fine, and the Motherboards onboard Two Serial ATA SATA150 works just fine with the HD as well.

~I wanted to step up to the SATA300 capabilities of this HD, and so I bought a Promise SATA300 TX2plus card to utilize the ability of my HD.
The CC's pdf specs shows my chipset in it, etc..., and so I thought I was good to go.

After installing the CC's drivers, etc, it boots fine and works, but, the problem is that HDTune or HDTach shows the drive is still operating at nearly the same SATA 1.5 level, as well, using HDTune and under the info tab, the HD info is Not populated fully? (the firmware listing is wrong too saying SD51) also all the checkboxes are grayed out - whereas when using my MB onboard sata controller, HDTune info tab shows everything about the drive just fine and the checkboxes are accurate. And so I assume the drive is good and the problem points to the CC not working right with my setup?

To maybe help show and tell ..I made a Screenshot showing HDTune's information comparing the ST3750330AS hard drive running through the D865PERLL Motherboard's onboard SATA 1.5 ports, or through the Promise SATA300 TX2plus PCI Controller Card.

Maybe it's just that the CC wont work with my setup, although I don't know why?

I received an RMA to send the CC back since I figured my board just won't work with it - but before I go to the post office I thought I would try and post here to see if I am missing something. Thanks

[BipolarBill]

Remember that the PCI bus is much slower than the chipset where the native controller is connected. You can never get full performance on the PCI bus. The fact that it even matches the onboard SATA ports is a good thing.

Despite the speed limit, you are getting the other features like NCQ, so you are getting better performance overall.

[endeavors]

Originally Posted by BipolarBill

Remember that the PCI bus is much slower than the chipset where the native controller is connected.

Please elaborate some more if you would please and reclarify the specifcs wiith more details. Thank you very much.

You can never get full performance on the PCI bus. The fact that it even matches the onboard SATA ports is a good thing.

Could you reclarify that with more details too, thank you. I just want to understand the fine details better.

Despite the speed limit, you are getting the other features like NCQ, so you are getting better performance overall.

Did you look at the specs of my particular MB on that link, and then are you saying that my particualr MB's BUS or is not setup for 3 but only for 1.5? I mean I thought that the add-on promise cc with it's internals would take care of most things, and performance would come up to maybe 2 or so, at least.

If you would very much please, elaborate on what the reason my specifc D865PERLL MB's specs wont let the Promise SATA 300 Controller Card do better than what my screenshot shows, and why wont the CC let HDTune see the info tab's information? As the screenshot shows though the HDTune info tabs information is complete when the HD is connected via the MB's onboard builtin SATA 1.5 ports

oh btw, it did not matter or make much of a difference that the 1.5 Gb limit jumper on the HD is on or off with performance readings.

Thanks for your time,

[BipolarBill]

The PCI bus is old technology. PCI Express is the new.

The PCI bus hosts all cards connected to it as well as the USB bus and perhaps others, depending on the chipset. The PCI bus is limited to about 133MB/s.

Peripheral Component Interconnect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SATA 3.0 Gbit drives are theoretically capable of 150-300MB/s.

Serial ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Right away, you have a problem because the PCI bus is limiting throughput to 133MB/s maximum - and that is assuming that there are no other devices connected to the PCI bus. That assumption, however, is wrong because USB is connected and running on pretty much every PC. Any other cards or devices would have to share that 133MB/s with your drive. Add another drive and you're really choking.

Your onboard SATA controller is *not* connected through the PCI bus, most likely. It is probably connected directly to the southbridge chip on your motherboard. The throughput on that path is much higher than 133MB/s, so there is a wider bus for your drives - no choking.

Now, newer motherboards have PCIe (Express) and that gives you 250MB/s in each direction per lane. A lane is 1x. 2x is 2 lanes, 4x is 4 lanes. etc. If you count throughput in both directions, you can get as much as 8GB/s (8000MB/s) of bandwidth for a single 16x PCIe card!

PCI Express - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So PCI is pretty wimpy at a total bandwidth of 133MB/s vs. 8000MB/s+.

To sum up, that drive will not operate at even the bottom of the 150-300MB/s bandwidth range that SATA 3.0 is capable of because the PCI slot is choking it. This makes you pretty fortunate that performance on the card matches the chipset-mounted onboard SATA port.

[endeavors]

That's a great explanation throughout your entire post, thank you so much Bill...!

Okay and so you're saying that my particular MB's PCI slots can't get past 133MB/s irregardless of whichever fancy 3MB/s PCI controller card I use - because the PCI maximum spec is 133MB/s anyway!

I have a number of questions but I'll keep it to the most important one for now.

My new question is then, what can I do with my D865PERLL motherboards onboard SATA ports to help them achieve a higher performance level than its stock 1.5 spec, trying to take greater advantage of what my ST3750330AS Hard Drive 3.0Gbs capability can do? Are there any better Drivers that I can use other than with what came stock within my MB's chipset drivers? You said that the throughput on that path is much higher than 133MB/s - how can I take advantage of that better then? ...I already have a 3MB/s capable HD for starters.

ps ...without having to use RAID though. I have a floppy that came with my MB that says Raid Driver intel application accelerator, I never installed it and I don't feel the need and have Raid turned Off in my bios ..I like to use the second onboard port just for occasional but important to me, Disk to Disk transfers when I plug in a backup HD to clone, etc

[BipolarBill]

I'm afraid that there's no way to connect directly to the southbridge chip. These connections are hardwired and fixed.

The only way to get better performance from your drive is to upgrade to a motherboard that has onboard SATA 3.0Gbit. It doesn't make sense to upgrade to a motherboard that has PCIe without 3.0G because you will just have to buy a PCIe card too. If you are going to upgrade, you should just go whole hog and get the works. It's cheaper that way.

Of course, the motherboard upgrade will require a new CPU and RAM too. Socket 478 motherboards are hard to find these days. I don't think that any were made with PCIe.

Sorry.

[endeavors]

ohhh, I thought you were going to say that.

I understand though.

I was wishful hoping that there was a driver or something that could help a little in the meantime.

[BipolarBill]

Well, I may have at least saved you some dough. You should return that card for a refund and take the hit on shipping and restocking. It's money back in your pocket, where I'm sure you can use it for gasoline.

[endeavors]

Thank you so much Bill for all your help to clarify things for me; you did an excellent job of explaining, and I understood it well. I appreciate it very much!

Have a great day, and I'll be back again for more.

Sincerely,