Pci Mass Storage Controller

slinky

slinky

New member
Hello folks. 2 things. I was recently advised that adding another
256 mb ram would make my system run smoother. I did this but NOTHING has changed. I use a pc with windows 98, YAMAHA SW1000 XG with an epox main board. In the system devices the addition of the extra ram has showed up as unknown device, and and now to my main point. In the same place the pci mass storage controller has also got that fat yellow exclamation mark and then it says there are no drivers installed or none are required. What to do my friends? In case my address has swerved, its now holzherr@onetel.net.uk slinky......
 
This is most likely the ATA 100 IDE controller on your motherboard.
The driver will be available at EPOX's site.

- Download the driver, extract it somewhere
- Right click on the "pci mass storage device" in device manager, select properties.
- Update Driver, point it to the folder you extracted the driver to.

Afterwords it will probably show up as 'promise ATA controller' or something.

Adding RAM won't create a mystery entry in device manager. If these really were not there before adding ram, I have no explanation. Unless the unknown device is part of the chipset drivers for your mainboard, download and install those as well. If it's an intel board you can get the chipset INF at intel's site. Could be unboard sound as well, or any other onboard feature you don't use, and never installed drivers for.
 
First of all, your memory will not show up in the device manager. Memory is not a component that windows installs! To "see" your added memory, right click on my computer and choose properties, then look on that first tab (system properties)...at the bottom it will say how much memory you have installed. The best way to make sure that the memory is working, however, is to watch the memory count from the BIOS when you start the machine.

Secondly, the PCI Mass Storage Controller is an IDE or ATA controller on the motherboard (possibly SCSI but i doubt it). It is likely that your motherboard has both a standard IDE controller, and a secondary ATA controller made by Promise or Highpoint. You'll need to find out and get drivers for it...unless you're not using it in which case you can just ignore it (for best results try disabling it in the BIOS).

Thirdly, adding memory won't necessarily improve performance unless you're actually using that memory. And the way adding memory will appear to improve performance is that you'll see much less hard drive thrashing in memory intensive applications. Most recording apps are not very memory hungry though, and I see people quite often adding memory above and beyond what they need and wondering why the system doesn't feel "faster".

Slackmaster 2000
 
slinky said:
Hello folks. 2 things. I was recently advised that adding another
256 mb ram would make my system run smoother. I did this but NOTHING has changed. I use a pc with windows 98, YAMAHA SW1000 XG with an epox main board. In the system devices the addition of the extra ram has showed up as unknown device, and and now to my main point. In the same place the pci mass storage controller has also got that fat yellow exclamation mark and then it says there are no drivers installed or none are required. What to do my friends? In case my address has swerved, its now holzherr@onetel.net.uk slinky......
Click to expand...

My first question would be how much RAM did you have in the first place? Once you go above 512Mb, Win98 does not make as efficient use of the memory as 2000 or XP would.
 
All I have to say is that all three above comments are 100% right.

In almost all cases, 256meg is all the RAM you need in Win 98. However it should certainly show up. Now, when you upgrade to Win XP, all the extra new RAM will most definately be used, and you will be glad you have it.
 
unknown device

ok thanks my friends, I`ve sorted the pci mass thingy and the ram . The driver for the former was on the floppy disc supplied with the main board but I had to extract it myself from the disc and then offer it graciously to the computer. The ram card was just not located properly in the slot!! Now there just remains the unknown device under other devices. Now I ask myself, how do I find out what this device is if I`m given no clue as to what it is or where it might be hiding. It could be that it doesn`t matter but it bugs me to think that there is something unresolved on the system. slinky.......
 
If your mobo uses an Intel chipset, then look for the appropriate inf file at intel.com ... motherboard resources are a common thing to show up as "unknown device" on Win98.

Slackmaster 2000
 
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