a7v266-e
 

based off of the outstanding things i have read on this forum i decided to use the a7v266-e motherboard for my new pt computer. just one question...which is the best pci slot to plug the digi card ito so i dont get any irq conflicts? thank you.

Re: a7v266-e
 

Plug it into PC slot 3, (not including the AGP video slot). Hook your hard drives to the Promise ATA controller in parallel, each to their own port, with the system drive on port A. Print out IRQ settings when finished in Device Manager.
Good luck
Allen [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Re: a7v266-e
 

2 question:
1)won't hooking the hard drives to the promise controller put them in radi?
2)how do i print our my irq settings, and which one do i want the digi to be?
thanks as always

Re: a7v266-e
 

Hi,
You won't be a RAID system until you load RAID software. That won't be a problem for you. Just hook each drive to a separate controller with indepedent cables and you'll be fine.

In Device Manager use the print button on the bottom right.

Mark

Re: a7v266-e
 

one more question...i'm tring to enable the dma setting on my hard drives, but there is no option to adjust this setting. i looked on my old computer and found where it was, did the same thing on the new one, and nothing. is this that importnat? if so, how should i fix it? thank you as always.

Re: a7v266-e
 

If you are using the onboard Promise controller, I don't think that option is available or needed. I saw a report on the A7V266E against the rest of the KT266a chipset motherboards, and when they utilized the onboard Promise controller as an ATA100 it improved performance 10-20%. What is important is that you use two ATA100 ribbon cables on those two seperate drives. The old Asus boards only came with one. I would check to see that you have two with this new board.
That is worth it.
Good luck.
Allen [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Re: a7v266-e
 

Yesterday I bought the A7V266-E with an XP1900. I should have it together tonight or tomorrow. I'll be sure to post results. If anybody has any configuration tips for this board please post them. Maybe we could keep this thread going for all users of this motherboard.

I'll be running two harddrives. Should I ignore the Promise controllers and just use the regular IDE controllers? After reading about the 20% improvement with the RAID controller I'm tempted to use those except I'm not ready to use RAID yet. Can I do this?

Thanks guys.

Re: a7v266-e
 

i like the idea of keeping this thread going. i do have each hard drive plugged into its own promise controller, but i didnt use the ribbon canles that came with the board because the had ata66 printed on them, so i made sure to use two ata100 cables. i have each drive set to master, each drive is plugged into the master portion of the cable, and each cable is plugged into its own promise controller (not in raid). everything seems to be running fine. is this the best way to set it up that you can think of?

Re: a7v266-e
 

Hi,
Sounds like you have them hooked up just fine to me.

One thing you will want to do, no matter how you hook them up, and especially no matter what Windows is telling you, is test the drive speeds you're getting. That's the most accurate way to know how they are going to operate under Pro Tools.

Get HDTach 2.61, and maybe Sisoft Sandra. HDTach draws great charts of the speeds you're getting from your drive. The free version only does read tests, but that will definately tell you if DMA is up and running.

Sandra only seems to compare to otehr drives, and the numbers it prints aren't as clear, at least to me.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: a7v266-e
 

what kind of numbers should i look for when i test the drives to make sure dma is up and running?