SiI3112 and SATA drives on XE

Follow up on earlier topic. Please help.

I have tried five different 3112's, 4 different HD's, and new SATA cables. I'm booting from the onboard IDE CD-ROM, which will run for days on end without a hiccup.

I've tried the SiI 3112 in PCI slots 9, 10, and 8 with no difference. Access to the hard drives is still hit and miss. Even if I get one partitioned and formatted, it seems that the formatting is invalid and it won't let me write to any partition. Uboot is set to UDMA 6 for the SATA drives. Doesn't work any better at slower speeds.

All of the PCI slots are set to "level", which I thought was correct. Should they be set to "edge?" They are all set to use IRQ. I've stripped the XE down to one memory DIMM, the video card and the SiI card.

This had been in constant use since 2002 when new. Not a problem with anything, other than replacing wear items. Why won't the SATA work now?

Still waiting to get an X5000/40. But without the XE working, I'm missing my Amiga fix.

misc. info: 500 watt Corsair PSU, 1 GB memory DIMM (2 used to work without error) Grach MB fix, ATI Radeon 9250 working for years, and still displaying from boot cd.

Paul

SII3112 won't work reliably in the XE, you'd better use SII3114, much more stable.

@K-L

I have one I could try. But the XE won't boot from a 3114. Maybe I could find an old IDE HD to boot from.

But I've been using the 3112 for probably 10 years in the XE with no problem until now.

Paul

@Paul

I also have SIL3112 no problem, I have the DMA fix, so I use a AGP gfx card, no card in the 66Mhz slot, one thing however is that it's really picky about what PCI slots I use, XE has limited amount of IRQ’s and some of IRQ’s are shared, I believe the drivers handles shared IRQ’s poorly.

@LiveForIt

Do you still have your XE? If so, which slot do you have your SiI card in. I currently have it in the last slot (#8, I think.)

Paul

I have a 3112 in my XE (controlling SSD and CDROM) and it's always worked well.

It's installed in the last slot (furthest from AGP).

@musashi5150

I tried K-L's idea of a 3114. Last slot, as you indicated. It is allowing formatting and copying from disk to disk. Of course, it won't allow booting from the HD's hooked up to it.

It looks like I have a collection of four 3112's that are all bad! So far three 1TB drives are working connected to the 3114.

Two of the 3112's were just purchased as "new" from eBay. Do nay of our Amiga dealers have these or a 3512 in stock? I tried Amiga on the Lake but never heard back from Aaron.

Paul

@Paul

Try with a different power supply if you can .
Once had a problem with SATA cards on my Sam460ex with a power supply that tested ok and worked pefectly on PC's but caused problems with SATA operations on the SAM460ex. Problems disappeared when I swapped out that individual power supply.

@Spectre660

Power supply is worth a try. I have one sitting here which is just waiting for an X5000 MB. Might as well put it to use in the meantime.

But I also just found a SiI 3512 at Newegg. It's ordered. I might wait and try that first. Easier to swap a PCI card than to swap a power supply.

Thanks for the idea.

Paul

@Paul

I set up a little "assembly line" with everything laid out on a table and easy to access.

1. Replaced the power supply with a brand new Corsair 550.

2. Tried all four Sii 3112 cards in each of the three normal PCI slots. (not the video PCI near AGP.)

3. Tried a brand new 3512 card in all three PCI slots.

4, Tried a 3114 card in all three PCI slots.

Conclusion: The 3114 card is the only one that works. And as noted, one can't boot from the 3114.

This is beyond weird, but at this point I'm out of possible solutions. It's been a good long run with the XE, but at this point, financial wisdom says it's time to give up.

Aeon please help!!!!! Let loose with an X5000/40.

Paul

edit: Before I did all of the above, I did go into Uboot Prefs from the boot CD-ROM, and re-enable ALL of the IDE ports, so any of the SiI cards could access an HD if they worked correctly.

@Paul

Quote:Sorry if this has already been covered, but why not have a small(ish) HD on the IDE to boot from and then put Work: and all other partitions on SATA HD(s) off of the 3114?

That's (more or less) how I did it back when my XE G4 was still working.

Best regards,

Niels

@nbache

Good idea. I even have an old SiI 0680 card if I have trouble getting an HD to work on the Via bus.

I can ask around and see if anyone I know has an old computer sitting around I could scavenge from. Otherwise, I can get a pull/old stock IDE from Newegg for $18.

Thanks, Niels

Paul

@Paul

Did you get any joy with this problem?

I've tried the same thing (hadn't noticed this thread) and managed to get a Sil3112 card working in the end slot, as someone had suggested, and it worked.

At least it allowed me to partition the SSD, although it wouldn't then let me format any of them.

I still tried to install the OS (4.1Final) but it hung at 45%, locking my system up.

However, I've had that lots over the years and gone through at least 8 PATA HDD's, so I don't think that part is anything to do with this problem.

Fred

@AmigaOldie

Joy. . . yes. It pushed ms to stop waiting for an X5040 to getting an X5020 instead. I'm enjoying my 5000 a lot. I've parted out my XE, assuming the Mai chip was probably bad. It was a good run of almost 18 years.

Paul