ATA100 controllers and IRQ's

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I'm getting a UDMA 100 drive for recording. My board (ABIT BE6II) only has 33 and 66 slots built-in, so if I want to actually run 100 I need a PCI controller card. My MOBO manual gives the following info:

- PCI slot 5(I have 5 slots) and the Ultra ATA/66 controller "use the same bus master control signals. Therefore, you can't install a PCI card that will occupy the bus master signals into PCI slot 5.... Generally speaking, most of the PCI cards need to use the bus master signal. "

-"PCI slot 3 shares IRQ signals with the Ultra ATA/66 controller. The driver for the controller supports IRQ sharing with other PCI devices. But if you install a PCI card that doesn't allow IRQ sharing with other devices into slot 3, you may encounter some problems. Furthermore, if your O/S doesn't allow peripheral devices to share IRQ siglnals with each ther, you can't install a PCI card into PCI slot 3." I have '98se.

-PCI slot 1 shares IRQ signals with the AGP slot.

-PCI slot 2 shares with slot 5.

-"If you want to install two PCI cards into those PCI slots that share IRQ with one another at the same time, you must make sure that your OS and PCI devices' driver support IRQ sharing."

Whew! So my question, as you've probably guessed, is which slot should I use for the ATA100 controller card? I have Delta1010 card in slot 4 and a generic 56 modem in slot 2.

With a PIII 800, 256mb RAM, and this will be a 7200 rpm drive, how great is the advantage of 100 over 66 in the first place?
 
Disable the Highpoint controller via the BIOS and all your problems will disappear.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I had a similar situation. (Documented a few threads back). Now I'm not sure about any of the IRQ stuff...but as for the difference between ATA66 and ATA100? I bought a Quantum Fireball As 30gb 7200 drive and at UDMA3(ATA 66) I got transfer rates of about 17mb/s with a UDMA5(ATA100) PCI card that I added...I got rates of 33mb/s. So in my case it was literally twice as fast.

Chris
 
Whoa hold on one minute. You saw 17Mb/sec because of the VIA controller on your Gigabyte motherboard. You should have been seeing numbers in the mid 20's to lower 30's.

In reality the difference between ATA/66 and ATA/100 in terms of sustained transfer rates is probably pretty small. This does not mean, however, that all controllers are created equally. An ATA/100 Promise controller might beat the crap out of an ATA/66 Highpoint controller, but the 66 and 100 have less to do with it than you might think.

A long time ago I did some benchmarking of UDMA/33 vs. ATA/66, and saw VERY little difference. In fact, UDMA/33 outperformed ATA/66 with a 5400RPM drive. I had a few others run similar tests and results varied a little bit, but the general consensus was that the higher burst ability was not very important in acheiving high sustained transfer rates.

If the 10,000 and 15,000 RPM IDE drives every come out, then things might change of course.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Hey Slackmaster, do you mean to actually disable the port or just uninstall the driver? The ports actually work without the drivers, just not at 66.

If I disable it completely, then what do I hook up the O/S drive to? One of the 33 ports? Or will the Promise controller card(I'm assuming that's what you recommend) allow me to hook up my first drive (Seagate 7200 ata66 30gb)to it as well and still run at max capacity without bringing down the 100 drive to it's level?

And then what PCI slot should I use? I'm guessing 3 since 1 and 5 would still be sharing with the AGP and modem respectively, right?

Of course this could all be moot if there's no major advantage in the first place, and I've read this before. It seems you may be saying the best thing I could do is get a Promise controller over the High Point (very clever you knowing it's High Point BTW- I just realized I never mentioned that). Is there anyway to get Promise drivers for my 66 ports, or is High Point the maker of the actual hardware on the MOBO?(please excuse me if this is a stupid question- I'm working hard just to get this far)

If the ATA 100 controller is the only way to get a Promise controller, then perhaps that combined with the fact that it's ATA 100 would make it worthwhile. Waddya think?
 
Whoa hold on there...you're getting ahead of yourself...I think.

- If you are adding a controller to the Abit board, that would make for a total of THREE IDE controllers. Not necessary. Disable the highpoint controller IN THE BIOS SETUP. You can do it on a BE6II. This will allow you to use slot 3 without any negative side effects.

- I'm not recommending Promise...I just mentioned them. There are only a handfull of companies making controllers....Highpoint, Promise, Adaptec....maybe a few more. My point was that ATA/100 was not guaranteed to be better than ATA/66 for multitrack audio. I think that the controller itself has more to do with it...I've never seen a good comparison of the various controllers, though I do know that Promise has a better reputation.

Personally, I say you just use the onboard highpoint and forget about adding an ATA/100 controller....unless you have a specific reason.

Good luck to ya.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Sorry, I was being presumptuous. But do you really mean that Promise is superior to HPT or were you just speaking hypothetically?

BTW, I was about to order a Deskstar 'till I saw your post about their incompatibility with HPT. Thanks for the heads-up.
 
Haha, you're not going to give up on this one are ya :) The answer is "I dunno". I've never had a Promise controller. All I know is what I've heard. People seem to have better luck with Promise controllers. But you've already got a Highpoint, so you might as well use it.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I see you guys are on the subject of the Abit ATA/100 -- I just bought a Abit RAID -- Is it true you only get a fast data transfer on the ATA/100 Highpoint CHip..because when I plugged up to the 1st and 2nd IDE channels my data tranfers where soo slow I could barely do a hard drive--very doggish-- I cant find in my manual how slow the IDE 1 and IDE 2 channels are.. When the Highpoint chipset is enabled all hell breaks loose on the USB end of things... Anybody ABit gurus out there????????
 
They are UDMA/33...your hard drive was probably not running in the right mode. The stock Intel controllers are fine performers.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I have the Maxtor ATA100 controller which IS the Promise controller - its the exact same card, just re-labeled. Seems like a nice unit although I am not using it in a system that is doing heavy recording - that system is using ATA66 technology with no problems.

Regarding the Abit motherboard, be sure to check on their website for more recent drivers, rather than using drivers off a CD that may have come with the board.
 
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