ASUS A7V8X and Promise 20376
 

I have this mobo: asus A7V8X with RAID S-ATA. I use chipset Promises PDC 20376

I'm a newbie....and I have an HD in RAID on IDE...no S-ATA but it is a 1+0 strip.

Linux...redhat8, or mandrake9, or kernel 2.4.20 doesn't support PROMISE PDC 20376.

CAN YOU HELP ME?

bye by CNC

P.S: I'm sorry for my english...but it isn't my language

A lot of the newer RAID/ATA100(133) controllers haven't had drivers make it into the kernel yet. In the case of HighPoints, they have modules available on their site as well as the source! I know promise had the same for some of the pdc202xx series, but I don't know about this new one. Poke around there and if you can't find anything post back. Actually, post back if you find something too :)

Cheers,

Finegan

Got the Promise 20376 to work (SuSE 8.1)
 

Hey,

I had trouble with the Promise 20376 as well (using SuSE 8.1, Asus A7V8X Mobo, AMD Athlon 2200 XP+, 1GB RAM)
I finally found a driver which allowed me to install the system using RAID 1. It is from the promise site, even though difficult to find:

http://www.promise.com/support/file/...v1.00.0.14.zip


This is what the Readme says (look at the chipset !, BTW on Startup you briefly see FastTrak 376)
******************
FastTrak TX4000/376/S150 TX Series Linux Driver
Version 1.00.0.x [01/08/2003]

[INTRODUCTION]

1.1 Foreward

This procedure applies to all Promise FastTrak TX4000/376/S150 TX Series
adapters and onboard chipsets running under the SuSE Linux operating
system. Do NOT use this procedure for other versions of Linux.

1.2 Support List

1. Controllers/Adapters List

PDC20319 FastTrak S150 TX4
PDC20371 FastTrak S150 TX2plus
PDC20376 FastTrak 376
PDC20378 FastTrak 378
PDC20619 FastTrak TX4000

2. Linux Distribution List

SuSE 8.1 (kernel 2.4.19-4GB)
SuSE 8.1SMP (kernel 2.4.19-64GB-SMP)
SuSE 8.0 (kernel 2.4.18-4GB)
SuSE 8.0SMP (kernel 2.4.18-64GB-SMP)
....
***********************************

This worked for me but don't ask me about the stability as I just installed it. So no PROMISEs ;-)

In case you need help for the Broadcom BCM4400 LAN. You'll find a driver on the ASUS Windowsinstall CD under Driver->Lan>-Linux
It is caled bcm4400-1.0.1.tar.gz (the version number may be different on your CD)


BTW, in case U use SuSe, you may have a look at this too:
(press english in case you don't like Germany)
http://sdb.suse.de/de/sdb/html/81_ide-scsi.html

This worked for me too

I hope this was of some help to you. :)

Regards Stephan
:Pengy:

Promise drivers for 20376 released!
 

There is a new link on the promise website for the TX2000 series of Raid controllers. I am assuming for now this will include the 20376 but have yet to try the installation.

http://www.promise.com/support/file/...1_ft2xssb1.zip

on page:

http://www.promise.com/support/downl...ry=driver&os=1

This is for SuSE8.1/8.2, yes that's right SuSE 8.2 is there. I am at work but I can't wait to get home and try it out.

There appears to be no source code though, but if it works I'll be a happy man!

Other promise raid controllers also appear to have drivers for SuSe 8.2. Good luck all, woo hoo!!!

-S

A new driver
 

Stuart, your link refeers to the PDC 20276 not the 376.
Check this one instead.
http://www.promise.com/support/file/...v1.00.0.14.zip for SuSE 8.0 / 8.1 (driver by Promise, not checked by me so far)
If anyone finds a driver for VIAs VT6420 I'd be most happy to hear about that.

Regards
Stephan

Just stumbled over something...
Some guy has found a source package for PSC203xx controllers.
It's half open half closed source, so it should work on any distro/kernel version. On my gentoo /w vanilla-sources-2.4.20, it runs perfectly.
On first test, I got memory exhaustion errors though; which were completely incomprehensible; but now everything's fine.

Check it out:

has anyone successfully compiled the source and make a working driver for the 20376 that is on the a7v8x?

I prefer to use slackware and I was wondering if anyone had pointers as to how I could accomplish that with this board.

Hey, I have compiled the recently published partially OpenSource driver from Promise on SuSE 9.0.
See my posting:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=124770

Might be usefull for other distros as well.

bad news to all who want to use kernel 2.5/2.6 (like me):
with a night long's effort i hacked around on the promise driver, and finally i could get it to compile for my 2.6.0-gentoo. it loads, but the initialization process stops when doing a check_region(). i sent a mail to promise, but didn't get a reply yet. maybe some kernel developer can help...
get my current work at http://www.hta-bi.bfh.ch/~riepg/fast...00.0.19.tar.gz and compile with
or whereever you installed it

The Promise Drivers that are listed for SuSE 8.1/8.2 worked great for me when I loaded SuSE 8.2. Download and follow the enclosed instructions.

I have tried the drivers listed for 8.2/9.0 with SUSE 9.0 and had no luck. Those drivers were compiled for an older kernel than I have in the 9.0 installation I downloaded from SUSE.

you should just get the half-closed source version then. install gcc and the kernel headers, unpack the .zip somewhere and do a it should compile without changes on the makefile. afterwards, just copy ft3xx.o into your modules directory and that's it.
you can find the package here:
http://www.promise.com/support/file/..._1.00.0.19.zip

This is correct but be carefull. You need to get clean dependencies.
Thus first do (I do this from memory, so no 100% guarantee for teh spelling):
cd /usr/src/linux
make cloneconfig
make dep

Now go back to your directory with the partial open source driver.
Modify the make file for SuSE (just change the # to work with SuSE) and compile it with "make all". If you should encounter errors see my posting HOWTO 20376 for a modification.

Then copy the resulting ft3xx.o to the appropriate directory.
If you boot from that drive you need to get this driver into your initrd.
See my posting on SuSE 9.0 and 20376.

Note:
You need to do this EVERYTIME you change the kernel and if you boot from this drive you need to do this BEFORE you boot with the new kernel (which makes cloneconfig difficult sometimes).
Note also that the 1.00.0.19 driver from promise is for RAID configured drives only so you should at least create a striping RAID with 1 drive (never done this myself as I need a RAID 1 (mirror).

Good luck
Stephan

I found what looks like mention of a patch for 2.6.0 for the Promise 20376 here:
http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2003112102526NWKN
"promise-sata-id.patch
add Promise 20376 PCI ID"

you are right, kernel 2.6 now includes a Promise driver that supports most SATA devices. I didn't notice that at all. :p
you can find it under Device Drivers->SCSI device support->SCSI low-level drivers->Serial ATA (SATA) support->Promise SATA support
the module will be called unfortunately, the closed source driver seems to access the drives in a slightly different way, so on partition table reading/fscking/RAID starting (my case)/mounting you will get a complain. it seems the new driver gives you additional space (64KB) at the beginning, which will be empty of course. i'll check that a bit more (why and how).
but i assume everyone who wants to work with kernel 2.6 only and has just installed a fresh disk can do it without problems.

Hey,

I had problems with the SATA-controller of my Epox 8KRA2+ (VIA 8112 Chip)using SuSE's 9.0 build in driver . I was using Software RAID 1 (mirror).
It seemd to work fine in the beginning but after 2 days (running 24h) it showed a drive failure. I replaced the drive and the next day it indicated the second drive as faulty.
Since both drives were new I coudn't believe that and so I switched back to the partially OpenSource driver from Promise (using Soft/HardRAID) and used the Asus A7V8X with the same drives which works without complains so far.
So I am a little bit anxious that the new built in drivers SATA drivers are not yet stable enough for a system that needs to run.

Has anyone experiences with a server running SATA-drives with software RAID using the 2.6.x kernel and its promise/via-drivers with respect to stability and performance in comparison?

Thanks a lot for posting....