Promise Fastrack tx2 not compatable with agp graphics cards

DarylP · 01-18-2004, 02:01 PM

Hello all. I'm having a really bad problem with a Promise Fastrack 100tx2. I have one of these cards installed in my sister's pc doing mirroring on two harddrives sence she does not like to do backups of her work data.. Sence i have installed the card on a k7sem m/b I have not been able to install any AGP graphics cards. When I do the Fastrack will not post bios and is passed by. I have upgraded both m/b and fastrack bios hoping for a fix but no luck. Currently I'm trying to install a Powecolor 9600 pro with 256 memory. The pc info is as follows.

Athlon 1.2 gig
512 megs ddr
Fastrack 100 tx2 mirroring.. updates bios
elite k7sem updated bios.
Trying to install PowerColor 9600 pro

I would guess there is a pnp conflict between the Fastrack and agp slot. I have tried different m/b bios setting but no luck. There is no irq settings that can be changed in the Raid controllers bios.

Anyone have any ideas or has had this problem.. Please help..Daryl

Peter M · 01-18-2004, 03:28 PM

That's probably because the machine is running out of add-on ROM space. Even in most modern machines, this is still only 128 KBytes. AGP graphics cards today tend to have up to 64 KBytes, and along with a potentially bootable onboard LAN channel, that'll leave too little room for an add-on mass storage controller. See whether you have any "Shadow" blocks disabled (enable them) and disable any "Onboard LAN boot" options. You don't lose onboard LAN altogether by doing that.

DarylP · 01-18-2004, 05:19 PM

Heck I'll try anything right now. Will check the bios for those items and make the changes and see what happens.
Thanks for the quick reply

DarylP · 01-18-2004, 05:19 PM

Heck I'll try anything right now. Will check the bios for those items and make the changes and see what happens.
Thanks for the quick reply

DarylP · 01-18-2004, 05:19 PM

Heck I'll try anything right now. Will check the bios for those items and make the changes and see what happens.
Thanks for the quick reply

DarylP · 01-18-2004, 05:20 PM

Sorry about the duped reply

Kuasimodem · 01-18-2004, 08:04 PM

You could also try moving the controller card to another PCI slot, which might correct an IRQ conflict. PCI slot 1 and AGP share an IRQ.

Peter M · 01-19-2004, 03:45 AM

This is not an IRQ conflict, and there are no IRQ conflicts between PCI and AGP cards to begin with. This because a shared IRQ is a FEATURE of PCI and AGP, not a problem.

Besides, in these early stages of system boot, where the PCI IDE card's BIOS runs, interrupts aren't even being used yet.

DarylP · 01-19-2004, 11:22 AM

That was what I thought. But I don't have any idea how to go about fixing the problem other than leaving one of the two cards out of the system.. This m/b's onbroad graphics card will not do and of the newer games. So I guess I'll pull the Raid card and put the h/d's back on the m/b... Thanks for the help.. Daryl

Kuasimodem · 01-19-2004, 11:53 PM

From the FastTrack100TX2 users manual

Quote:

Miscellaneous problems such as the FastTrak100 BIOS not appearing
during boot, the FastTrak100 driver not loading, or slow data transfer rates
Move the FastTrak100 to a different PCI slot.

Quote:

Since the Promise card supports PCI Interrupt sharing, it is possible to use IRQs
already assigned to another PCI card. Interrupt Sharing is not supported with onboard
IDE controllers. If the onboard IDE controller(s) are not used, you may disable the
controllers to free IRQ 14 and/or 15.

There are hardware IRQs allocated by BIOS on boot, it shows during the boot sequence on all of my systems.