It has been a few years but I have had quite a bit of experience with the
original EIDE MAX and 486 boards.
Sometimes they work great, sometimes they only partially work..like as a
stand alone controller...and sometimes they don't work at all. It depends
on your board BIOS.
As I remember it you can jumper the MAX to either default settings = it
updates your existing BIOS and controller to support LBA drives and acts as
a secondary channel for drives 3 and 4 OR it can be jumpered to  act a a
separate stand alone controller = channel one drive 1 &2 and makes no
attempt to effect your existing controller or BIOS. try it both ways.
Sometimes it won't update but it will work as a stand alone.

Is it possible to remove or disable your existing controller and use the
Promise as a stand alone controller? Obviously you will have to not have a
floppy drive but you might at least want to try this to see if the old
controller card is your problem. With a CD ROM and network connection you
may not need a floppy drive....depends on what you are planning on using
this 486 for.

Mark Rode
The NOSPIN Group


>I've run into a blank wall with my attempts to up grade an old 486 SX
>system.  I want to put a somewhat larger hard drive and CD-ROM into it, and
>I thought that using a Promise EIDE MAX II upgrade and controller card would
>do the trick.  It seems like this should work, but it hasn't.

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