Promise Ultra 133 TX2 causing burner problems

[ROF]

I had a customer bring in a PC this morning because they had a drive that failed to burn DVDs. It would burn CDs alright but would lock up the software (nero) when trying to burn DVDs. This computer has a Promise Ultra 133 TX2 expansion Bus card installed. This only drive on there was the burner with two hard drives and a ROM on the motherboard IDE Bus. After seeing this odd configuration(local moron store installed) I switched the burner over to the MoBo IDE Bus and all was fine.

My question which I can't seem to find an answer to is will this card cause problems with burners?

The customer said after the drive had a problem with ripping back a couple months ago it has been burning DVDs much more slowly. Typical switch to PIO mode was my thought. After booting up and burning a SL DVD with the drive as the secondary master on the MoBo IDE bus in DMA mode I thought I'd switch it back to it's original config, charge the customer a fiver, and be done with it. When I switched it back to it's original config the BIOS and OS(WinXP) report it as UltaDMA. I tried burning a DVD and sure enough it locked up. MY next thought was software. So I tried burning with different software(CD Burner XP Pro). Still locked up. Next I attached the IDE cable to an NEC3540 I had lying in wait to be installed in someone elses machine. The machine again recognized it as working in UltraDMA mode but refused to burn a DVD. I removed the hardware in windows and shutdown, pulled the card from the PCI slot and booted the machine. I once again re-inserted the card and still it refused to burn a DVD. Oddly enough it will burn CDs and is reported the Bus as being in UltraDMA mode.

Any ideas are welcome as to what is causing the problems here.

[budz]

From my own experience with using the PROMISE PCI CONTROLLER card it never did work correctly with a DVD BURNER. Although redwudz mentioned in another thread he uses one and it works. I tried using it with different configurations but it didn't work. So I attached my hard drives to it so the mobo IDE controllers could be free to for the DVD BURNERS.

Long ago there was a thread at Cdfreaks.com about using a SILICON IMAGE 680 CHIPSET that works with DVD BURNERS. I bought one and sure enough it works well with DVD BURNERS. I only use PROMISE PCI CONTROLLER cards for hard drives.

[redwudz]

I don't recall any problems with the TX2 that I used for a couple of years. It's a cheap card, though. I used a Pioneer 106 and a Sony CD burner with it and finally a DVD ROM. I've got that computer in pieces right now, so can't do any tests.

The only things that come to mind, is maybe a IRQ conflict, but you may have already tried a different PCI slot. And it has it's own on-board BIOS, possible corruption there?

BIOS: http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productID=87&category=all&os=100

I did see one reference to conflicts with VIA Chipsets. (But that's not unusual. )

[blinky88]

I have a Promise chipset on my VIA motherboard. I have 2 HDDs attached as RAID 0 (stripping) and have never had a problem of any description. You have not stated if the HDDs are RAID 0 or RAID 1, RAID 1 is mirroring.

I guess if he is burning DVDs he would have elected to go with RAID 0.

With the price of HDD being so low, I suggest he install another HDD to take the system and software and use the RAID setup for his DVD activities.

The new drive to be installed on IDE 0 Master. The DVD burner on IDE 1 Master and the CD burner IDE 1 Slave = no problems.

[smearbrick1]

I have a Promise chipset on my VIA motherboard. I have 2 HDDs attached as RAID 0 (stripping) and have never had a problem of any description. You have not stated if the HDDs are RAID 0 or RAID 1, RAID 1 is mirroring.

I guess if he is burning DVDs he would have elected to go with RAID 0.

With the price of HDD being so low, I suggest he install another HDD to take the system and software and use the RAID setup for his DVD activities.

The new drive to be installed on IDE 0 Master. The DVD burner on IDE 1 Master and the CD burner IDE 1 Slave = no problems.

You realize that he's talking about a Promise Ultra ATA 133 controller (expansion) card?

I have hard drives attached to mine right now, but in the past I have had optical drives attached without an issue.

Odd problem, but at least you fixed it.

[ROF]

I have a Promise chipset on my VIA motherboard. I have 2 HDDs attached as RAID 0 (stripping) and have never had a problem of any description. You have not stated if the HDDs are RAID 0 or RAID 1, RAID 1 is mirroring.

This is a Promise Ultra 133 TX2 PCI Card. There are no hard drives attached only a solitary burner on the primary master channel. MY solution was to switch the drive over to the motherboard IDE Bus, but if anyone knows a solution to this or even a best guess solution I'd appreciate the info.

[blinky88]

Sorry, if I got it wrong, I believed the Promise Card was for a RAID set-up.

[ROF]

The Promise Ultra 133 TX2 is for expansion of the IDE Bus. It does not support RAID setups.

As a side note, for those looking for a 48bit LBA supporting bus(breaking the 137GB barrier) the Promise Ultra 133 TX2 card supports this.