Fujistu GA-8STXCFS F9 FSC 12-08-2003

[JEWilson]

Have a problem with this mobo and HDDs

Bit14 reports
ROM BIOS by Award Software International Inc., http://www.award.com/
BIOS ID Strings: 12/08/2003-SiS-645-6A6IXG0QC-00, 6A6IXG0Q
Model: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG (Medallion BIOS), 12/08/03
Vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd
Version String: GA-8STXCFS F9 FSC 12-08-2003
Designed for: SiS 645(DX)/650(GX)/961(B) (XP4) | 651/962
Peripheral bus(es): ISA/PCI

It appears from the BIOS, in order to run an extra PCI EDIE Card
you are required to disable the mobo IDE channels!

So.. as I cannot (it appears use a Promise ATA-66 EIDE Card),
I have installed the optical drive on Primary master.
This is detected ok
However, I have installed (thus far) a Seagate 20GB ATA100 7200rpm
HDD on the secondary as Cable Select, Master and Slave but
the HDD is not recognised.
I changed the cables and installed a Maxtor 20GB ATA100 7200rpm
Same problem.

I suspect there is an issue with the BIOS as it will not support
extra HDD adapters

Any advice to impart?

Please advise

Thanks for your consideration

[Denniss]

Why is there a need for the promise card? Are the OnBoard connectors not fast enough?
Please keep in mind: do not attach optical devices (or ATAPI-devices in general) to a Promise UDMA33/66/100 controller. This won't work properly. It may be better if you flash a more recent controller Bios.
My Promise UDMA33-controller did never detect ATAPI-devices.

[edwin]

onboard IDE is ATA133, way faster than that Promise card:
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/rl/ser ... txc_uk.pdf

In the BIOS under integrated peripherals make sure all IDE stuff is set to enabled.

Last but not least check the board itself for bad capacitors.

http://www.badcaps.net
to see what they look like.

[JEWilson]

Thx for responding

I have checked the ESR of all the major lytics - these are ok.
The problem appears to be with the IDE2 port only.

IDE1 reports both optical and HDDs correctly.
As stated, if you wish to use an extra IDE adaptor with
this mobo, you have disable both of the on-board ports.

This is not useful as you cannot use an extra IDE adaptor,
e.g. a Promise to boot optical drives and load OS etc.

I have run system board diagnostics and these report
the mobo is healthy, e.g. PC Check v6.5 reports for the
EIDE controller;

Vendor ID - 1039H (SIS)
Device ID - 5513H (SIS 5513 EDIE Controller (A, B Step)

And both the Primary (IDE1) and Secondary (IDE2) channels report;
Primary command base address - 01F0H
Primary control base address - 03F0H
Secondary command base address - 0170H
Secondary control base address - 0370H

and pass the diagnostics test

So...

It may yet be an electrolytic cap
I will need to remove these and check them individually
or...
It may be line termination at the connector, a semiconductor or a discrete component at the south bridge.
I will require to get the datasheet for the SIS 962L part

Thx

[edwin]

any SiS datasheet seems to be a problem to get by and I wondered why until I read this:
http://www.sis.com/support/support_tech.htm

sigh...

[Denniss]

Not a problem of the SIS chipset - lots of boards work properly with an add-on SCSI or UDMa controller card. Either something of your board is damaged or it's a Bios bug.

Try loading Setup Defaults in Bios, try a different PCI slot and/or a new Bios for your Promise card.

What about running optical drives on the onboard IDE1 (disabling only onboard IDE2) and running HDD from the Promise?