Promise Fasttrak 150 SX4 - can't install XP

[Benjamin Rein]

Hi there!

I'm using a Promise Fasttrak 150 SX4 (BIOS 2.0.0.4)with 3 Western
Digital 1600JD (160GB SATA) drives and RAID 5. The mainboard is a
Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra (Bios F6=current).
When I try to install XP SP1 the Windows Setup program freezes
completely before the screen where you can choose the destination hdd
and partition appears (reset is the only way out).
I have removed all other PCI cards and deactivated everything in mobo
BIOS which isn't required for install procedure. After calling the
hotline, I tried various RAM chips (including 128 and 256MB Kingston)
and the new 1.2.70.14.62x driver version, which is not on the homepage
yet. Moreover I wanted to avoid booting from the array and installed
another drive on the mobo IDE controller. On the next reboot after
installing the Promise driver I got a blue screen with
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL message. This error message is nonsense, because
of all devices are deactivated and no single IRQ has to be shared.

After some days of testing I thought the controller is defect and sent
it back, but all problems also happen with the new one.

The funny thing on this story is that even the Gigabyte motherboard
appears on the Promise mobo compatibility list or whatever...

I bothered the Promise hotline a few times, but they have no more ideas
and mentioned that only few people have this problem.
If someone has a solution, it would be great to write some lines. Thanks
for your help.

Best regards,
Benjamin Rein

 

[J. Clarke]

Hi there!

I'm using a Promise Fasttrak 150 SX4 (BIOS 2.0.0.4)with 3 Western
Digital 1600JD (160GB SATA) drives and RAID 5. The mainboard is a
Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra (Bios F6=current).
When I try to install XP SP1 the Windows Setup program freezes
completely before the screen where you can choose the destination hdd
and partition appears (reset is the only way out).
I have removed all other PCI cards and deactivated everything in mobo
BIOS which isn't required for install procedure. After calling the
hotline, I tried various RAM chips (including 128 and 256MB Kingston)
and the new 1.2.70.14.62x driver version, which is not on the homepage
yet. Moreover I wanted to avoid booting from the array and installed
another drive on the mobo IDE controller. On the next reboot after
installing the Promise driver I got a blue screen with
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL message. This error message is nonsense, because
of all devices are deactivated and no single IRQ has to be shared.

Do you have ACPI and APIC turned on and APM turned off in the BIOS?

Did you try the Promise board in each slot on the machine?

Did you try selecting each of the different possible machine types at
install?

Did you try running the memory compatibility test?

Did you try installing on one drive and not an array?

Where did you get the 1.2.70.14.62x driver that "is not on the homepage
yet"? The number alone makes it suspect--software venders do not normally
go from 1.2.0 to 1.2.7 without an intermediate step. Did you try the most
recent driver that _is_ on the homepage?

Have you researched this at all? There are 99 hits on that message in the
Microsoft knowledge base, 4900 on google, and 9900 on google groups. That
message usually indicates a driver or configuration problem and has nothing
to do with interrupts.

 

[Benjamin Rein]

Benjamin Rein wrote:




Do you have ACPI and APIC turned on and APM turned off in the BIOS?

I have tested the controller with several mobo BIOS settings (loaded the
fail-safe defaults, deactivated all integrated stuff that isn't needed
for install like LAN, AC 97 etc). In this mobo BIOS APM can't be turned
off completely (only S1 or S3 possible). There are no specific options
for ACPI and APIC, but I suppose these can't be switched off.

Did you try the Promise board in each slot on the machine?

Yes I've tried all PCI slots.

Did you try selecting each of the different possible machine types at
install?

I don't know what you exactly mean with "machine types". Could you
please explain this a bit more?

Did you try running the memory compatibility test?

I have run the compatibility test on each module I used. The test showed
"pass" on all subtests every time.

Did you try installing on one drive and not an array?

I tested RAID 0 with 2 drives attached to the controller and RAID 1 with
1 and 2 drives and JBOD with just one drive connected.

Where did you get the 1.2.70.14.62x driver that "is not on the homepage
yet"? The number alone makes it suspect--software venders do not normally
go from 1.2.0 to 1.2.7 without an intermediate step. Did you try the most
recent driver that _is_ on the homepage?

I have basically tested three driver versions.
1. V 1.2.0.9 (is the offical latest driver on the homepage)
2. beta driver on the homepage for Promise SX Family Boards (150 SX 4,
SX 4000 and SX 4000 lite)
3. 1.2.70.14.62x (mailed to me by Promise support, will be released soon)
I have tested all described RAID configurations with these 3 drivers.

Have you researched this at all? There are 99 hits on that message in the
Microsoft knowledge base, 4900 on google, and 9900 on google groups. That
message usually indicates a driver or configuration problem and has nothing
to do with interrupts.

I tried to use the mentioned sources for finding a solution without
success. Now as you put the question I noticed that I forgot to say that
the fastsx.sys driver is shown on the blue screen when trying to install
the controller in addition to another hard drive (not booting from the
array). Fastsx.sys is the driver of the controller. When the controller
is removed, everything works fine.
Thanks for your help. Any ideas are welcome.

Best regards,
Benjamin Rein

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

When you install XP, try to disable the Silicon Image controller in
the BIOS and install with drives only on the SX4 controller. That's
the only thing I can think of. If Win XP Pro SP1 won't even install,
then it must be some driver issue. I get a BSOD of
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with my SMC Tigercard 1000 ethernet card, and
it the caused by the same problem, viz. a shitty XP driver. It seems
that when one buys cheap hardware, the accompanying software is
invariably short shrifted.

I don't know what your application is, but RAID-0 with the on-board
Silicon image controller will probably be a heck of a lot faster than
the SX4 RAID-5. The 7VAXP is a lot like the Asus A7N8X that I have.
It has 32-bit 33Mhz PCI slots that probably are a bottlneck for the
SX4. Combine that with a bad XP driver and the performance is awful.
I had tried RAID-5 with the SX4, but switched back to RAID-0 with
the sil3112A when the performance 'benefit' for my purposes I found to
be negative. I just do a weekly manual backup to a third IDE drive.
If you need more reliability, I'd suggest buy another drive and run
RAID 0+1 with a controller from someone other than the dog-eared
people at Promise, i.e. someone who has released a driver that
actually works, and someone who actually maintains their faq for more
than marketing purposes.

http://www.somacon.com/fasttrak_sx4/

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

When you install XP, try to disable the Silicon Image controller in
the BIOS and install with drives only on the SX4 controller. That's
the only thing I can think of. If Win XP Pro SP1 won't even install,
then it must be some driver issue. I get a BSOD of
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with my SMC Tigercard 1000 ethernet card, and
it the caused by the same problem, viz. an incompetent XP driver. It
seems that when one buys cheap hardware, the accompanying software is
invariably short shrifted.

I don't know what your application is, but RAID-0 with the on-board
Silicon image controller will probably be a heck of a lot faster than
the SX4 RAID-5. The 7VAXP is a lot like the Asus A7N8X that I have.
It has 32-bit 33Mhz PCI slots that probably are a bottlneck for the
SX4. Combine that with a bad XP driver and the performance is
inferior. I had tried RAID-5 with the SX4, but switched back to
RAID-0 with the sil3112A when the performance 'benefit' for my
purposes I found to be negative. I just do a weekly manual backup to
a third IDE drive. If you need more reliability, I'd suggest buy
another drive and run RAID 0+1 with a controller from someone other
than the dog-eared people at Promise, i.e. someone who has released a
driver that actually works, and someone who actually maintains their
faq for more than marketing purposes.

http://www.somacon.com/fasttrak_sx4/

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

When you install XP, try to disable the Silicon Image controller in
the BIOS and install with drives only on the SX4 controller. That's
the only thing I can think of. If Win XP Pro SP1 won't even install,
then it must be some driver issue. I get a BSOD of
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with my SMC Tigercard 1000 ethernet card, and
it the caused by the same problem, viz. an incompetent XP driver. It
seems that when one buys cheap hardware, the accompanying software is
invariably short shrifted.

I don't know what your application is, but RAID-0 with the on-board
Silicon image controller will probably be a heck of a lot faster than
the SX4 RAID-5. The 7VAXP is a lot like the Asus A7N8X that I have.
It has 32-bit 33Mhz PCI slots that probably are a bottlneck for the
SX4. Combine that with a bad XP driver and the performance is
inferior. I had tried RAID-5 with the SX4, but switched back to
RAID-0 with the sil3112A when the performance 'benefit' for my
purposes I found to be negative. I just do a weekly manual backup to
a third IDE drive. If you need more reliability, I'd suggest buy
another drive and run RAID 0+1 with a controller from someone other
than the dog-eared people at Promise, i.e. someone who has released a
driver that actually works, and someone who actually maintains their
faq for more than marketing purposes.

http://www.somacon.com/fasttrak_sx4/