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sil3114 sata card



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 1st 19, 10:00 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
T. Ment
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Posts: 87
Default sil3114 sata card

I bought a cheap sil3114 sata card to try as an add-in card in a
motherboard that has no SATA ports. It worked OK until I tried flashing
its BIOS to the latest version. The updflash.exe utility started up, but
failed.

Now the sil3114 card hangs the computer when booting. Seems I bricked
its BIOS. I tried powering up and hot-inserting the card after boot, but
that freezes the keyboard and I can't do anything.

The card has a soldered on BIOS chip. I have the tools to get it off
without destroying the card. Then I can put it in my USB programmer and
reload the BIOS. Then I can put a chip socket on the card to take the
fixed BIOS.

But that means I have to drag out the tools and make a big mess. It's a
lot of work to fix a $9.49 card.

I've not found a way to get the motherboard BIOS skip the bad BIOS on
the add-in card, and boot up. I've tried two different motherboards.

Any ideas?


  #2  
Old July 1st 19, 10:21 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default sil3114 sata card

T. Ment wrote:
I bought a cheap sil3114 sata card to try as an add-in card in a
motherboard that has no SATA ports. It worked OK until I tried flashing
its BIOS to the latest version. The updflash.exe utility started up, but
failed.

Now the sil3114 card hangs the computer when booting. Seems I bricked
its BIOS. I tried powering up and hot-inserting the card after boot, but
that freezes the keyboard and I can't do anything.

The card has a soldered on BIOS chip. I have the tools to get it off
without destroying the card. Then I can put it in my USB programmer and
reload the BIOS. Then I can put a chip socket on the card to take the
fixed BIOS.

But that means I have to drag out the tools and make a big mess. It's a
lot of work to fix a $9.49 card.

I've not found a way to get the motherboard BIOS skip the bad BIOS on
the add-in card, and boot up. I've tried two different motherboards.

Any ideas?



Turn off "Interrupt 19 capture".

I haven't tested this with a corrupted config EEPROM,
so I don't know how early the BIOS consults the
chip and whether it will still screw up.

But turning off capture should stop it from
loading config EEPROMs.

Obviously, if some *other* port was relying
on that kind of config EEPROM loading, there
could be trouble.

Paul
  #3  
Old July 1st 19, 10:35 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
T. Ment
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Posts: 87
Default sil3114 sata card

On Mon, 01 Jul 2019 17:21:10 -0400, Paul wrote:

Turn off "Interrupt 19 capture".


I never heard of that, I had to look it up:


Interrupt 19 Capture - Tech ARP
https://archive.techarp.com/showFree...ng=0&bogno=290

Interrupt 19 is the software interrupt that handles the boot disk
function. It is typically handled by the motherboard BIOS although
it can also be handled by the optional boot ROM BIOS in some
IDE/SCSI host adaptors.


May be worth trying, but I don't have that BIOS option in any computer
of mine. Unless it goes by some other name.



  #4  
Old July 2nd 19, 12:47 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default sil3114 sata card

T. Ment wrote:
On Mon, 01 Jul 2019 17:21:10 -0400, Paul wrote:

Turn off "Interrupt 19 capture".


I never heard of that, I had to look it up:


Interrupt 19 Capture - Tech ARP
https://archive.techarp.com/showFree...ng=0&bogno=290

Interrupt 19 is the software interrupt that handles the boot disk
function. It is typically handled by the motherboard BIOS although
it can also be handled by the optional boot ROM BIOS in some
IDE/SCSI host adaptors.


May be worth trying, but I don't have that BIOS option in any computer
of mine. Unless it goes by some other name.


In my non-UEFI computer (P5E Deluxe), the setting is

Boot Settings Configuration

Interrupt 19 Capture [Enabled] == makes add-on cards boot

The number is 19 decimal or 0x13 hex. So you might have
to search for 0x13 in the manual.

I believe that routine is the Read Routine used for
storage controllers. Each storage controller "registers"
as bootable, and then can participate in boot menus
and the like. Or in the case of RAID cards, you might
even get the RAID BIOS screen add-on to load.

This setting might be needed to get a RAID addon
screen to show up.

Addon ROM display [Force BIOS]

*******

I cannot find this setting in the UEFI machine I got.

The user manual for my UEFI machine makes reference
to "storage OPROM" (Option ROM) but only for the
hardware on the motherboard. No control is offered
for PCIe cards that I can see.

Perhaps you have to use a UEFI shell command
to fix it ? Dunno.

Paul

  #5  
Old July 2nd 19, 01:30 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
T. Ment
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 87
Default sil3114 sata card

On Mon, 01 Jul 2019 19:47:24 -0400, Paul wrote:
to search for 0x13 in the manual.

This setting might be needed to get a RAID addon
screen to show up.

Addon ROM display [Force BIOS]

*******

I cannot find this setting in the UEFI machine I got.

The user manual for my UEFI machine makes reference
to "storage OPROM" (Option ROM) but only for the
hardware on the motherboard. No control is offered
for PCIe cards that I can see.

Perhaps you have to use a UEFI shell command
to fix it ? Dunno.


My computers are old, pre-UEFI. I can't find any of the options you
have.

The sil3114 flash update program supports SST39SF010, and mine is the
same, but with an A suffix.

I found a web thread that says not all cards can be flashed. I guess if
they don't connect all the lines to the chip, that could be true. That's
probably why it failed.

My USB programmer claims to support the A suffix chip, so if that won't
work, nothing will. I had hoped to avoid all that work, but it seems the
hard way is the only way.


  #6  
Old July 2nd 19, 03:52 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default sil3114 sata card

T. Ment wrote:
On Mon, 01 Jul 2019 19:47:24 -0400, Paul wrote:
to search for 0x13 in the manual.

This setting might be needed to get a RAID addon
screen to show up.

Addon ROM display [Force BIOS]

*******

I cannot find this setting in the UEFI machine I got.

The user manual for my UEFI machine makes reference
to "storage OPROM" (Option ROM) but only for the
hardware on the motherboard. No control is offered
for PCIe cards that I can see.

Perhaps you have to use a UEFI shell command
to fix it ? Dunno.


My computers are old, pre-UEFI. I can't find any of the options you
have.

The sil3114 flash update program supports SST39SF010, and mine is the
same, but with an A suffix.

I found a web thread that says not all cards can be flashed. I guess if
they don't connect all the lines to the chip, that could be true. That's
probably why it failed.

My USB programmer claims to support the A suffix chip, so if that won't
work, nothing will. I had hoped to avoid all that work, but it seems the
hard way is the only way.


Is your computer a Dell/HP/Acer OEM type ?

Or a home build with an Asus or MSI motherboard ?

The home build boards come with pretty decent
manuals.

If you have the model number for your home build,
I might be able to find a copy.

The OEM computers, only in the rare exception cases
(Trigem boards), might you get an actual manual.

On PCChips motherboards (in a cheap OEM), the board
doesn't even get a model number! There used to be
a website called "PCchips Lottery" to cover those
cases :-) Not everybody is born lucky.

*******

"not all cards can be flashed"

What this means is, the Flasher program is designed for PMC or
SST brand flash chips. If the manufacturer uses an "oddball"
chip, if you have a universal programmer, of course you
can flash it up. But that means getting out your soldering
iron and so forth.

The boards I've seen, the SIL ones, have pretty good
compliance on Flash brand.

The "A" could be a speed grade, which means the pinout
and registers would likely be the same as the non-A one.

I think those flash used to run at 33MHz or so. Or
whatever the PCI bus clock happens to be. That might
be a typical value. It might say on the lid, what
the speed is.

The only SIL I've got here, is a SIL3112 on a motherboard,
where the "flash" is a chunk of code in the BIOS chip.
The Flash in that case, I needed a newer BIOS to take
care of the "won't work with 1TB drives" problem. That
was a bug in the Silicon Image code, which could be fixed.

Paul
  #7  
Old July 2nd 19, 04:45 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,407
Default sil3114 sata card

On Mon, 01 Jul 2019 21:00:40 +0000, T. Ment
wrote:

I bought a cheap sil3114 sata card to try as an add-in card in a
motherboard that has no SATA ports. It worked OK until I tried flashing
its BIOS to the latest version. The updflash.exe utility started up, but
failed.

Now the sil3114 card hangs the computer when booting. Seems I bricked
its BIOS. I tried powering up and hot-inserting the card after boot, but
that freezes the keyboard and I can't do anything.

The card has a soldered on BIOS chip. I have the tools to get it off
without destroying the card. Then I can put it in my USB programmer and
reload the BIOS. Then I can put a chip socket on the card to take the
fixed BIOS.

But that means I have to drag out the tools and make a big mess. It's a
lot of work to fix a $9.49 card.

I've not found a way to get the motherboard BIOS skip the bad BIOS on
the add-in card, and boot up. I've tried two different motherboards.

Any ideas?


Good ol' SIL. Look familiar?
07/26/2005 10:16 AM 25,468,006 SI3114.exe
SiI3114_RAID_1002.zip
Silicon Image Serial ATA IDE Driver
V1.0.0.2 and Raid Driver V1.0.0.7
for Windows 2000/XP/2003
Ver 1.0.0.2 2005/07/26 update
OS Win2K / WinXP / Win2003
Size 24.69 (MBytes)

Ran it with ASUS, so it was ages ago. I've since switched two times,
maybe three, upgrading with Gigabyte MBs.
asus_K8N-E+ AMD 754 3000

I also ran with a couple other controller boards. It really doesn't
matter what the names are in terms of performance. They're basically
cheap, less than a gamble, as you may have to take what you can get
(without a lot of offerings). So SIL is just fine and peachy.

I had one, I recall, the performance was off or operation
characteristics didn't seem right. I replaced that was an updated
model, which didn't evince problems -- so it was fixed. Same board
maker -- or call it SIL for convenience or an example. (Only a
Gigabyte with only two SATA ports).

And I had one, as you do, which I flashed its BIOS and it ate the big
one. Not sure which card I killed, but it's strange they're made
with, rather for a utility to download that then it kills perhaps
better than your average mousetrap. You might want to kiss it goodbye
before tossing it into the trash.

You need to reset your MB with a paper-clip bend across the two pins
marked for a RESET;- or pull the MB battery for a minute or thirty.

That I never managed to do, to kill a BIOS boot bunged-up settings
with SIL. That I've bricked a BIOS, done in other inventive ways
perhaps goes unsaid. As in permanently bricked, though, that should
be able to happen unless it's a BIOSTAR (that one and another brand,
twice, I've had MBs sold to me that would boot, except they wouldn't
hold user changes to BIOS settings). It's permanently 1980 everyday
for the rest of life.

Maybe you should update like me. Now I have 6 and 8 SATA slots on my
newest MB and I still don't like the MB's HDD controller chipset
performances;- In fact the last performance I did like was ...

Discounting when MBs hadn't totally cheaped out on slots and didn't
have no stinkin' HDD controllers (ISA HDD controllers). That kind of
talk makes my memory go hazy.

These SIL cards I've also owned ... Guess this makes four. And what
have we now learned? ...That's right -- don't ever flash one again.
But you can buy another one now, if you want. And it may as well be a
SIL: for the money you may not find better in another brand. (Under
$10 on Ebay ... original-packaging new and m a y b e).

-

; This file installs the SiI 3112 non-RAID serial ATA driver as part

-

Description: PCI 2-channel Serial-ATA host controller card. With
optional software RAID function. The most popular version of 2-channel
Serial-ATA host controller add-on card, with optional RAID 0, 1
function.

* PCI Specification Revision 2.2 compliant
* Silicon Image SIL 3512 host controller chip
* Support 66 Mhz PCI with 32-bit data
* Compliant with programming interface for Bus Master IDE
Controller, Rev1.0
* Support programmable and EEPROM, FLASH & EPROM loadable PCI
class mode
* Integrated SATA Transport, Link Logic & PHY layer
* 48-bit sector addressing
* Virtual DMA
* Serial ATA Specification Revision 1.0 compliant
* Dual independent DMA channels with 256KB FIFO per Serial-ATA
channel, transfer rate up to 1.5Gb/s
* Internal Serial-ATA port x 2
*
* Supports 3TB HDDs
* Supports SSD.
* Support Boot to CD/DVD

-

use included CD and at driver prompt:
search CD (for drivers)

SD-SATA150R
Description: PCI 2-channel Serial-ATA host controller card. With
optional software RAID function. The most popular version of 2-channel
Serial-ATA host controller add-on card, with optional RAID 0, 1
function.

* PCI Specification Revision 2.2 compliant
* Silicon Image SIL 3512 host controller chip
* Support 66 Mhz PCI with 32-bit data
* Compliant with programming interface for Bus Master IDE
Controller, Rev1.0
* Support programmable and EEPROM, FLASH & EPROM loadable PCI
class mode
* Integrated SATA Transport, Link Logic & PHY layer
* 48-bit sector addressing
* Virtual DMA
* Serial ATA Specification Revision 1.0 compliant
* Dual independent DMA channels with 256KB FIFO per Serial-ATA
channel, transfer rate up to 1.5Gb/s
* Internal Serial-ATA port x 2
*
* Supports 3TB HDDs
* Supports SSD.
* Support Boot to CD/DVD
  #8  
Old July 2nd 19, 09:03 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
T. Ment
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 87
Default sil3114 sata card

On Tue, 02 Jul 2019 11:45:17 -0400, Flasherly wrote:

Good ol' SIL. Look familiar?


And I had one, as you do, which I flashed its BIOS and it ate the big
one. Not sure which card I killed, but it's strange they're made
with, rather for a utility to download that then it kills perhaps
better than your average mousetrap. You might want to kiss it goodbye
before tossing it into the trash.

That I never managed to do, to kill a BIOS boot bunged-up settings
with SIL. That I've bricked a BIOS, done in other inventive ways
perhaps goes unsaid. As in permanently bricked, though, that should
be able to happen unless it's a BIOSTAR (that one and another brand,
twice, I've had MBs sold to me that would boot, except they wouldn't
hold user changes to BIOS settings). It's permanently 1980 everyday
for the rest of life.


Even a bricked BIOS can be fixed with skill and the right tools. It's
harder if the chip is soldered on instead of socketed, but still doable.
I just finished this one, putting a PLCC32 socket where the chip was.

I reprogrammed the BIOS chip with my USB programmer and put it in the
socket. Now it boots again.

But I get disk errors when writing to the disk. Seems the card was bad
all along. I did a lot of soldering work to figure that out. And I can't
return the card now that I modified it.

Maybe I trashed the card when I hot plugged it trying to get it booting
after the bad flash. I won't do that again. Oh well, $9.49 is not a big
loss.


Maybe you should update like me.


I have other motherboards with SATA onboard, and the disk works fine
there. But I want to get it running in an old board that has no SATA
onboard.


But you can buy another one now, if you want. And it may as well be a
SIL: for the money you may not find better in another brand. (Under
$10 on Ebay ... original-packaging new and m a y b e).


Maybe I'll try again for $10 more. I'll think about it.



  #9  
Old July 2nd 19, 10:15 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
T. Ment
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 87
Default sil3114 sata card

On Mon, 01 Jul 2019 22:52:27 -0400, Paul wrote:

Is your computer a Dell/HP/Acer OEM type ?
Or a home build with an Asus or MSI motherboard ?


I don't have any name brands. All white box, most from Ebay parts for
pennies on the dollar. I did buy some new power supplies a long time
ago. All still running, after some failed capacitor replacements.


If you have the model number for your home build,
I might be able to find a copy.


I have all the manuals, either paper or PDF.


On PCChips motherboards (in a cheap OEM), the board
doesn't even get a model number!


Some people trash PCChips and Biostar. But I have some running fine.


"not all cards can be flashed"

What this means is, the Flasher program is designed for PMC or
SST brand flash chips. If the manufacturer uses an "oddball"
chip,


The flasher program claims to support the chip but something went wrong.
Just enough to erase the chip it seems. If you don't connect all the
chip pins to the right wires it's not going to work.


if you have a universal programmer, of course you
can flash it up. But that means getting out your soldering
iron and so forth.


That's what I did. Chip flashed. Computer boots. But the card itself is
bad, I get disk write errors.

A lot of work for a small piece of knowledge.



  #10  
Old July 2nd 19, 11:30 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Flasherly[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,407
Default sil3114 sata card

On Tue, 02 Jul 2019 20:03:54 +0000, T. Ment
wrote:

Even a bricked BIOS can be fixed with skill and the right tools. It's
harder if the chip is soldered on instead of socketed, but still doable.
I just finished this one, putting a PLCC32 socket where the chip was.

I reprogrammed the BIOS chip with my USB programmer and put it in the
socket. Now it boots again.

But I get disk errors when writing to the disk. Seems the card was bad
all along. I did a lot of soldering work to figure that out. And I can't
return the card now that I modified it.

Maybe I trashed the card when I hot plugged it trying to get it booting
after the bad flash. I won't do that again. Oh well, $9.49 is not a big
loss.


I've never run into a MB or had a bricked BIOS, apart the two
mentioned. The Biostar I had to fight them they accepted a dispute
and settled for a RMA/refund. The other one, a power outage, the
clock multiplier would drop default down on the CPU to the lowest
multiple. I got rid of and sold that one.

Maybe you should update like me.


I have other motherboards with SATA onboard, and the disk works fine
there. But I want to get it running in an old board that has no SATA
onboard.


But you can buy another one now, if you want. And it may as well be a
SIL: for the money you may not find better in another brand. (Under
$10 on Ebay ... original-packaging new and m a y b e).


Maybe I'll try again for $10 more. I'll think about it.


I've three or four of those SLI boards in working order and great
shape. Also one or two older MBs with two at the most SATA ports, or
I'd probably be happy to give them away. All that older SLI stuff,
including the MB HDD controllers, runs great with plattered HDD
defragmentation routines, nice and slick, whereas these two newer MBs
I've updated to, (AMD3+ Bulldozer stuff), it's like pulling hair
trying to perform a defragmentation. Godawful slow.

Not that I did always have perfectly performing SLI boards. One, it
seems, over time got worse, and may have (helped) wear out a HDD. Hard
to say, but the SLI replacement model, one up from that, there were no
issues/complaints. Before, budget MBs cheaped out on SATA slots,
maybe two;- their MB controllers also worked fine. Now that I've a
$59 MB board with 8 SATA ports, I couldn't use those SLI boards on it
anyway, not without giving the only PCI slot it has, one, where my
soundboard sits.

What I'm thinking about, is I hope those newer controllers aren't
adversely affecting my HDDs with defragmentation nonsense that takes
in an order exponentially longer than the copy routines. 15 or 30
minutes to defrag I file I just copied in 15 sec (writes/copies work
fine). Ridiculous. Anything substantially a large data capacity, is
better defraged through mounting up a blank disk and doing manual
copy, which usually results in low to no fragmentation.

$10 more, I hear you. I didn't like it either. Not quite sure now,
but seems I may have made that BIOS rewrite attempt on more than one
card. That it was a possible second instance with another SLI card
that evinced the brick. Bricked mine and never went near another SLI
with another thought of BIOS rewrite, that's for sure. I don't like
spending money on "normal" stuff that shouldn't be lacking on a MB,
whether the MB was cheap to me or not. And things could be different
than me saying, offhand, a $10 board is a remote chance. I'd be as
easily wrong if in fact a SLI is now a pricier proposal.

(I think some SLI boards may POST before the BIOS, it's been a few
years ago, as well have a key sequence procedure to an internal SLI
response for activating RAID -- in conjunction and in either case to
use with supplied OS drivers.)
 




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