Re: nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
jason wrote: O. Hartmann wrote: Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regaurdless of what the motherboard manufacturer says a SilI3114 SATA controller is SATA spec 1.0. Yes , that is exactly what I got from http://www.siliconimage.com/. Every report I read about ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium gave the same technical specs: the second RAID5-capable SATA chip (SilI3114) is attached to the 32Bit bus (*NOT* PCIe). Also, there is *NO* 64Bit bus on any of the mentioned mainboards! And, by the way, the nForce4-SLI MCP is capable of NCQ, but the capability is *NOT* AHCI conform, so it seemes to me that we need a special treatment using this add on - but we all know how restricted nVidia is offering internal details about their chipset to open source projects like FreeBSD. This is what I found out searching the net, some articles and watching this list. Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
We found an Asus support page saying that you have to run the hitachi software to enable the 3Gb/sec on the drives. I did that, and it said the motherboard was not compatible. I called Asus -- and they confirmed what you have been saying. The Si3114 supports RAID5 and the nVidia SATAII -- which is unfortunate, because I bought the motherboard based on their false advertisements. I am in the process of switching the drives over to the nVidia controller now. Malachi On 9/23/05, O. Hartmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: jason wrote: O. Hartmann wrote: Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regaurdless of what the motherboard manufacturer says a SilI3114 SATA controller is SATA spec 1.0. Yes , that is exactly what I got from http://www.siliconimage.com/. Every report I read about ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium gave the same technical specs: the second RAID5-capable SATA chip (SilI3114) is attached to the 32Bit bus (*NOT* PCIe). Also, there is *NO* 64Bit bus on any of the mentioned mainboards! And, by the way, the nForce4-SLI MCP is capable of NCQ, but the capability is *NOT* AHCI conform, so it seemes to me that we need a special treatment using this add on - but we all know how restricted nVidia is offering internal details about their chipset to open source projects like FreeBSD. This is what I found out searching the net, some articles and watching this list. Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
Asus's site seems to be down right now but at least Google caches it... http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:CG_qYngXXLYJ:usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-p/overview.htm+a8n+sli+premium+site:asus.comhl=en It could very well be marketing hype. All I know is that one of the selling points I chose it on was: SATA 3Gb/s (on that page) site and manual both say that the Si3114 supports 3Gb/sec, but they don't say that about the nVidia, which is why I was choosing it. I am not sure why it would be via the PCI32 bus... checking this page ( http://www.buzzsurf.com/speed/) it says that a PCI 64-bit bus running at 66MHz would be 4Gb/sec maybe they reserved the pciE for the SLI? As far as the performance, the manual says that the performance of raid 5 is greatly affected by block size.. from what I have seen online it has to do with whether the files being written are big enough to end up striped. Maybe the 10Mb/s is with a very large block size and very small files? Maybe a 4k block size and larger files would do better? Just guessing here, really not sure. As far as why I chose the Premium instead of the Deluxe (for my Windows workstation and my FreeBSD server), there were a few reasons. The workstation primarily because it allows software-controlled flipping between SLI and non-SLI, which I thought would be nice if I were to accidentally play games. For the server, I was going to go with a different board, but it didn't support RAID5, so I switched to this one. Of course, now I am seeing that RAID5 doesn't appear very realistic with FreeBSD :( Malachi On 9/8/05, O. Hartmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello. Are you really sure the onboard Sil SATA controller supports SATA II? When I studied the handbook of both motherboards, the A8N-SLI Deluxe and A8N-SLI Premium I found both motherboards are idetically equipted with the *not* SATA II capable SilI3114 SATA controller. By the way, as I know, the second SATA controller is attached via the PCI32 bus, not via PCIe! That means (in my opinion) there is no benefit using this controller. It is more a marketing GAG than a serious add-on. RAID5 performance of ICH7R and SilI is said to be very, very poor (about 10 MB/s read/write performance), so what benefit I do have using this controller with it's senseless 'capabilities' and non-PCIe attachment? This is only a thought based on my personal available informations and maybe wrong ... Oliver Malachi de Ælfweald wrote: I have noticed the same thing with the onboard Silicon Image controller. I am using the A8N-SLI Premium. I am using the Silicon Image controller instead of the nForce4 controller because it specifically said SATAII and said it supported RAID5 (whereas the nForce did not support RAID5). However, on boot it recognizes it as SATA150 (which should be SATA300). Malachi On 9/6/05, *O. Hartmann* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
O. Hartmann wrote: Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regaurdless of what the motherboard manufacturer says a SilI3114 SATA controller is SATA spec 1.0. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
Hello. Are you really sure the onboard Sil SATA controller supports SATA II? When I studied the handbook of both motherboards, the A8N-SLI Deluxe and A8N-SLI Premium I found both motherboards are idetically equipted with the *not* SATA II capable SilI3114 SATA controller. By the way, as I know, the second SATA controller is attached via the PCI32 bus, not via PCIe! That means (in my opinion) there is no benefit using this controller. It is more a marketing GAG than a serious add-on. RAID5 performance of ICH7R and SilI is said to be very, very poor (about 10 MB/s read/write performance), so what benefit I do have using this controller with it's senseless 'capabilities' and non-PCIe attachment? This is only a thought based on my personal available informations and maybe wrong ... Oliver Malachi de Ælfweald wrote: I have noticed the same thing with the onboard Silicon Image controller. I am using the A8N-SLI Premium. I am using the Silicon Image controller instead of the nForce4 controller because it specifically said SATAII and said it supported RAID5 (whereas the nForce did not support RAID5). However, on boot it recognizes it as SATA150 (which should be SATA300). Malachi On 9/6/05, *O. Hartmann* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nForce4-SLI, AHCI and NCQ and FreeBSD 6.0
I have noticed the same thing with the onboard Silicon Image controller. I am using the A8N-SLI Premium. I am using the Silicon Image controller instead of the nForce4 controller because it specifically said SATAII and said it supported RAID5 (whereas the nForce did not support RAID5). However, on boot it recognizes it as SATA150 (which should be SATA300). Malachi On 9/6/05, O. Hartmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello. I have a little question about the popular nForce4-SLI chipset for the Socket 939 platform. The onboard SATA controller of the nForce4-SLI chipset claims to be NCQ (or SATA II) capable, but nVidia implemented this feature in a not-AHCI-standardised way, but as an own solution. My question is: Is the FBSD 6.X driver for the nForce4-SLI chipset capable of using NCQ (as I know, the driver has to enable NCQ and it's not done automatically by the harddrive-controller interaction). Thanks in advance, Oliver ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
