Re: SIL 3112a Controller Issues....

Thanks for the contiuned help!

I guess the conclusion is that there are known issues with the controller,
I'm running into some of them, and there's no work-around :-) That's pretty
much what I figured - I just wanted to make sure by contacting some
knowledgeable people before making my decision.

I have several servers here with 'real' SCSI RAID controllers so I have some
experience with them. I didn't really expect that a 'built-in' home user
type solution would have the same robustness to it but on the other hand I'm
only running 2 drives in a RAID 0 configuration so I figured it couldn't be
that hard :-)

I'm still kind of thinking that the Intel controller _should_ be OK given my
past experience with the company and the rapidity with which they update
their drivers & firmware. I'll take a look at the 2cpu site mentioned and
see what people who are actually using it think of it.

Thanks again!
Dave

"DL" <notvalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:en10MxsDKHA.1376@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I had an A7N8(X?) delux, Asus stated there were known issues with the
onboard Sil sata controler, which they thought had been cured by a mobo
bios update - untill I spoke to them
I immediately changed the mobo and fitted a high end Adaptec sata pci card
controller

There are known issues with the earlier nvidea chip that uses Active
Armour (Not relevent in your case)

"Dave Onex" <dave@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:el3hfMoDKHA.5068@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi guys - thanks for the replies!

The mainboard BIOS is the latest and the SIL BIOS (that's integrated into
the mainboard BIOS) is the latest release from SIL - so, both BIOS's are
the latest. I did have to use a special system BIOS that included the
latest SIL one 4.2.x I believe (it's the latest on their site).

I also installed the latest driver from SIL for that specific BIOS. The
mainboard is an Asus A7N8X-E and I'm running (2) 500 gig drives in a RAID
0 Array (for 1 TB total).

These are SATA II drives with the jumpers set to SATA I mode. The problem
I'm seeing is that under heavy disk I/O errors appear and, at times, the
controller does not respond within the timeout period. This only happens
under heavy disk I/O.

The cables never gave an issue under the old O/S and they haven't been
disturbed since. Again, it only happens under heavy disk I/O - I know
others posted about similar issues on the 'net but I was hoping someone
would have a magic bullet. I've even ensured that the onboard SIL
controller is using it's own dedicated IRQ (hoping that would fix it).

Any more ideas? They're all appreciated :-)

Best;
Dave

"DL" <notvalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eYM9c7hDKHA.4004@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I experienced data files being 'out of sync' in a mirror array with this
chip, it was on an asus mobo, Tech support confirmed that there were know
issues, but though it had been cured with a mobo bios update

"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:h4i2ao$u7o$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dave Onex wrote:
Hi Folks;

I have a SIL3112a RAID controller in my mainboard (I know, it's old)
and I have the latest SIL BIOS for it and the latest driver (matched
pair).

I'm running MCE 2005 and I see a lot of disk error entries in the
event viewer and also controller entries. I know this controller was
problematic - does anyone recall if there was a solution of any sort?
There's quite a few posts about them on the 'net albeit mostly old
ones.

Thanks!
Dave

A SIL3112 on a motherboard, is handled a bit differently than a SIL3112
on a PCI card.

On the PCI card, there is a separate BIOS chip, which holds the
Silicon Image BIOS code. That BIOS has the extended INT 0x13
routine, for allowing the computer to boot from the PCI card.
The chip can be flashed, and by using the correct file from the
Silicon Image site, you can upgrade your PCI card. That makes it
relatively easy to update a card, as long as the flash chip
on the card, is one that the Silicon Image flasher program is
designed to support. (One brand is a PMC chip.)

On a motherboard, the necessary BIOS code module is stored in the main
BIOS.
The motherboard manufacturer may choose to upgrade the module,
or not. (My Asus motherboard had about 10 different versions
of the BIOS, and I verified that the same, old, stale module
was present in all of them.) If you want to handle changing the
module yourself, it is not without risks. Back at a time
when this was popular, a person might own a BIOS Savior
duplicate BIOS chip for the motherboard, so that flashing
a bad homemade BIOS file, would not brick the motherboard.
If you don't have a BIOS Savior, and you make a mistake, you
may have to purchase a replacement chip from a site like
badflash.com .

http://www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html#SATA_Update

Silicon Image denies there are any problems with their chip.
The chip is relatively simple in design, and most of the
intelligence comes from the firmware or system level software.
One of their firmware bugs, was the system BIOS freezing when
a 1TB drive was plugged into the SIL3112. Apparently that
can be fixed, but to fix it, you'd need to prepare a new
motherboard BIOS, as sketched out in the above FAQ.

You should examine the SATA cables, and make sure that they're
seated properly. First generation cables have virtually no
retention properties. If a cable is bent or pinched, that
can also cause problems. While it is unlike to be your
cables, you should still take a quick look at them.

There have been some other obscure bugs, just to annoy users.
One person, set up a RAID 1 mirror on a SIL3112. One of the
disks died. Upon examining the "mirror" copy on the other
disk, the data on the disk was three months stale. It appeared
that the array had silently stopped mirroring some time ago,
leaving the owner with old information on the degraded
array. Pretty hard to check for stuff like that, if
no error messages are showing at the time.

Paul








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