I bought this cheap IDE card a few months back and couldn't figure out a
way to make it work properly. I just wonder if it's just a lousy card or it
does not work well with my motherboard.

My setup:
mainboard: MSI K7T Pro2
processor: Duron 600mhz (overclocked to 750mhz)
OG: Win2000 Service Pack 2

Problems:
1) The first one never worked. I had to send it back and the replacement
card worked (although with problems described below)
2) slow transfer rate that it requires burn-proof to be activated 50 times
if writing at 12X. It writes fine at 8X. The time required for 8X and 12X
is about the same due to burn-proof activation needed for 12X. Once the
writer was moved to internal IDE, it ran fine at 12X.
3) DVD plackback on a DVD-ROM connected on SIIG card has skipping sound
problem. DVD plays fine if the drive moved to internal IDE connection.
4) System won't boot if the card is taken out. It turns out, I have to
remove siig66.ddl from system folder besides removing the card from Device
Manager.

 From the card BIOS, it shows up as Ultra DMA 2. I cannot use Control-H to
access the card BIOS at all. I suspect it's not running at DMA mode, thus
the problem 2 and 3 is coming from. I cannot really see the speed as the
extra IDE card does not show up under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers but under
SCSI and RAID controller.  There is no advanced settings where you can set
Ultra DMA in transfer mode.

I think I have wasted too much time on this card that I might as well
bought a more reputable card. Just wonder if you can run it fine with
similar setup as I have. If you know of a good IDE card, please let me know
too.


Thanks in advance,


Changshu Liu

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