Wow Iwill XP333 mobo onboard IDE controller REALLY DOES suck!

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 10:02 pm

Since I built a new workstation, I'm in the process of converting my old IWill XP333 system over for use at LAN parties.

I'm swapping the 80Gb drive in there for a 160. Doesn't look like the controller on the IWill mobo had any problem recognizing the 160 (BIOS and Norton Ghost both reported the correct size) but when I started copying data from the 80 to the 160 using Ghost (both drives connected to the the two seperate onboard IDE ports) the data transfer rate was only 200Mb/min!!!!!! WTF?

Drive to drive transfers with modern hardware are usually around 500Mb/min and up (I do a lot of this). I haven't seen data transfer rates that low since P-233 days.

Well I popped a Promise ATA100 contoller in there and connected the 160Gb drive to it (I left the 80Gb drive connected to the onboard IDE) and low and behold, Ghost's data transfer rate is ripping along at 1000Mb/min.

Guess I will DEFINATELY be using the Promise controller instead of the onboard.

Great mobo, but I've had a lot of problems with IDE performance. The onboard controller wouldn't talk to my Sony DVD-RW properly either - I had originally installed that Promise controller just for the DVD-RW to overcome that problem.

Absolut Talent · Post by **Absolut Talent** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 10:17 pm

you did try to update the drivers for it?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Jun 18, 2003 11:53 pm

Windows drivers wouldn't make a difference. This was during a Norton Ghost drive to drive copy operation from DOS.

But yes, using the latest drivers in Windows.

xsiled · Post by **xsiled** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 12:22 am

Originally posted by Absolut Talent
you did try to update the drivers for it?

me thinks he meant bios.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 3:21 pm

Ya, latest BIOS too.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 4:35 pm

Yea, shitty ali.

Greg

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:17 pm

If your using the newest drivers it does suck... gotta go back to the old 1.8's somewhere so that the IDE actually works like it should...

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:36 pm

What FP was doing was DOS and independent of Windows drivers.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:42 pm

What the hell is DOS?

Greg