Harddrive Controller Cards

[lgvelez]

I am doing a bit of upgrading of my Gateway P2 450 desktop computer. I am running (very happily) Win2K, and have bumped up the memory to 256K. I bought a WD 30 gig harddrive, ATA/100 (replacing a 10 Gig drive). My motherboard only supports ATA/33. I bought a new controller card (with Win2K drivers) that will support the ATA/100 drive (CompUSA brand). My question is, does anyone have any problems with these IDE controller cards? My new drive also has a software option to be run from DOS that will bump it down to ATA/33. Which would be the wisest move? Upgrading the motherboard is not an option at this time.

Laura Velez
lauravelez@home.com

 

[edfair]

Cripple your onboard controller. Plug in the expansion and go for it. You can always go back the other way.
Maybe a SIIG product?
And the controller will probably transferable when you get around to M/B upgrade.

Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[lgvelez]

Thanks for the reply Ed.
My mb does not have jumpers, so that may be difficule, but is what I wanted to do from the beginning.
I have inserted the CMD expansion card, and it does work like a champ. These two upgrades have really breathed new life into this system.

Laura Velez
lauravelez@home.com

 

[ray436]

I bet in the BIOS setup you can disable the mboard IDE controller, most will allow it. I'd do it there, insert the card and not look back.

As for the onboard controller;
I thought that the drive would automatically 'revert' to what ever spec ( ata33 or ata66 ) the controller would supply. Thought that got all sorted during initialization when the drive is ID'ed. Of course you need the properly impedance matched 80 pin cables to get near the promised 100 speed.

Am I wrong ?

Ray

 

[lgvelez]

I have not found a place to disable it in the BIOS -- a Phoenix which I just updated to v6.0, rel4.
The specs on this ToroII (Intel) motherboard states that it will not handle anything faster than UDMA Mode 2 or ATA100 (UDMA33), so that is why I reverted to the card, which is working beautifully.
Laura Velez
lauravelez@home.com