Text 31811, 74 rader
Skriven 2007-05-02 21:45:41 av Gerald Miller (1:342/512)
  Kommentar till text 31807 av Charles Scaglione (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Just a little behind schedule
=====================================
Hi Charles,

    On Wednesday May 02 2007 at 20:18,
    Charles Scaglione [1:123/789] wrote to Gerald Miller,
    about: Just a little behind schedule

 JG>>> Have you tried other slots?

 GM>> That was my plan for Wednesday and/or Thursday.  Due to what you
 GM>> told me about slot #2 (routed to the SMBus), I only have one
 GM>> other slot available.

 GM>> Don't quote me on this, but I think there could be an IRQ
 GM>> conflict between the motherboard and this secondary controller
 GM>> card _AND_, of course, there are no jumpers on the controller
 GM>> card to permit resolving such an issue. The only jumpers on the
 GM>> card are for setting the four internal SATA ports *OR* the two
 GM>> external SATA ports...

 CS> Moving it to another slot should give you some idea whether or not
 CS> there is any conflict.

I tried the card in the other two PCI slots (there are only three "normal"
PCI slots on this motherboard -- the other three slots are those "dinky"
PCI Express X1 connectors) before I sent email to ST Lab.

 CS> You should be able to go into your CMOS setup and set the IRQs to
 CS> manual - that will allow you to do some juggling.  But keep this in
 CS> mind....

 CS> If you're using XP, that probably means your HAL is ACPI.  ACPI uses
 CS> IRQ sharing.  If there is indeed some kind of conflict it will be
 CS> difficult to resolve.  Some users have reported that they had to
 CS> resort to using the "Standard" HAL rather than the automatically
 CS> assigned ACPI HAL.  The Standard HAL allows the user to set IRQs and
 CS> addresses whereas the ACPI does not.

 CS> The disadvantage to using the Standard HAL is that you will no longer
 CS> be able to use the Standby and Sleep functions.  Hibernate may or may
 CS> not work.

Thanks for your suggestion.  I mean no disrespect, but I feel that messing
around in the motherboard's CMOS to accomplish IRQ changes is akin to
swatting a fly with a sledgehammer and is a measure of last resort.  All
the negatives that you mentioned make me shrink similar to when the
salesman told me that the only way I was going to run two monitors
(extended desktop) was to disable the Intel graphics and to use a dual head
graphic card.

This card only cost me $34.00 CDN (and I guess I got what I paid for).

My idea is that a "better" (read - more expensive) controller card would
have a flash BIOS chip _and_ ability to read the motherboard for any
existing RAID systems.

JG has given me a couple of suggestions that I will try, after I obtain
some clarification from him and I hope to get an email response from ST Lab
SOOOOOOON!

I may be wrong but I think the controller card that I purchased was
intended for motherboards that didn't have RAID capabilities.  I'll have a
look inside the Duron 750MHz case and if I have any vacant slots, I may try
the controller card (and SATA drives) in there to test that theory.

If I can't get a resolution within three weeks, I'll send email to Intel
for suggestions (take a ticket and wait for your number to be called).

Thank you for your interest.

           Cheers ... Gerald

... Scotch: one bottle's too much for one man, but not enough for two.
--- GoldED+/DPMI32 v1.1.5-b20060121 [msg of Wednesday May 02 2007]
 * Origin: Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer. (1:342/512)