User`s manual

Troubleshooting & Tips

This section is used to assist with troubleshooting conflicts and MBFastTrak133 Lite installation problems.

Also refer to the “README.TXT” file on the MBFastTrak133 Lite driver and utility diskette for more recent

information as well as the

PromiseOnline

services.

The section is divided into the following categories: Motherboard Issues, System CMOS Issues, Drive Errors,

Operating System Errors, and Audio/Video Editing Tips.

Motherboard Issues

Freeing additional IRQ resources

Since the Promise controller supports PCI Interrupt sharing, it is possible to use IRQs already assigned to

another PCI card. Interrupt Sharing is not supported with onboard IDE controllers. If the onboard IDE

controller(s) are not used, you may disable the controllers to free IRQ 14 and/or 15.

Configuring PCI IRQ resources

Setting the IRQ for a particular PCI slot will be different depending on the motherboard BIOS. This setting is

usually made in the PCI Configuration and/or Plug and Play (PnP) section of the motherboard BIOS setup.

There are three common methods that motherboard BIOS’s handle assignment of IRQs to PCI slots:

1. Specifically assigning an IRQ to a particular slot - You can tell the motherboard to use IRQ 10 for PCI

slot 1, IRQ 11 for PCI slot 2, etc.

2. Listing which IRQs are available to be assigned to the PCI slots - This BIOS has an option where you

specify “1st Available IRQ”, “2nd Available IRQ”, etc. The BIOS then scans the PCI slots for PCI cards

and assigns these IRQs in the order that it finds the PCI cards.

3. Excluding an IRQ from being used by a PCI slot - If you have an ISA card that is using an IRQ, change

the setting for this particular IRQ from “Available” to “used by ISA card” so that the motherboard will not

assign this IRQ to a PCI slot.

Consult your motherboard manual for information that is specific to your motherboard.

System locks up during bootup or when Windows starts

There may be a possible IRQ conflict with an ISA card. Identify what IRQs are used by ISA cards, enter the

Mainboard PCI Setup, and reserve the IRQ for use with ISA. PCI slots cannot share IRQs with ISA cards.

Intermittent data problems

Do not exceed the 33Mhz PCI Bus speed. Pentiums set to higher than default settings or AMD K6 and Cyrix

CPUs can exceed these limitations and cause intermittent boot and data problems.

System CMOS Issues

Set Mainboard CMOS Boot sequence to boot to MBFastTrak133 Lite

On some Mainboard BIOS, it is necessary to set the Boot sequence to “SCSI, A:, C:” since the Promise chip

is identified as a SCSI card.

Mainboard CMOS displays C: or D: drive failure during startup

See Drive-Related Errors section.

Using an Onboard IDE Card with MBFastTrak133 Lite

If an onboard IDE controller is installed with hard disks, enable support in the Mainboard Standard CMOS

Setup for the drives. Note that the onboard IDE hard drives will then be the bootable hard disk unless the

system BIOS has a boot sequence setting with a “SCSI, A:, C:” option.

Drive-Related Errors

Critical Array Status Error Reported during Boot

If a critical status error message appears on the FastTrak133 BIOS startup screen for a mirrored array (see

below), there is a drive in the array which has failed or is not responding. MBFastTrak133 Lite will identify the