the quest for (cheap) 64bit sata *os9 bootable*

[supernova777]

compare :



these cards are virtually identical with the exception of the pcb cut + the size of the firmware rom chip and the addonics "chip heatsink"
of course the left one, is mac bootable.. + supports SMART  both of which must be facilitated by code from the larger firmware chip

http://www.bergertom.net/Electronics/SIL-3124.html#2
this page provides a closer look at the chips

here is another similar card:
http://www.ioisata.com/products/Host-Adapter/sata2-pcix01.htm

these cards support port multiplication:

[Protools5LEGuy]

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2se4/spec/
Bootable, but OSX only, I guess.
I will report back if 2se4 works for storage uses on OS9. The page of the user that reported badly over it seem to have a conflict with the pci, I think.

[supernova777]

yes but we will be looking into changing that possibly  it might work it might not.. as i showed u there are many different firmwares to try

mactron have u checked the chip on your 1eVE2+2? is it sil3112? or sil3124? or is it this other type? "Vitesse" (that i spoke of here: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=825.msg3071#msg3071)


we have the firmware for the 1v4 family of cards - we just need to find a card powered by the same chip..  OR try to flash these above cards with the firmware from the seritek 1v4 family WHICH DOES SUPPORT OS9 BOOT and also supports 4 port card

the writing on the chip:
GD31244 SL786 intel 03

http://www.seekic.com/newstock/GD31244_SL786_,GD312444,GD313.html
datasheet?

is this just the same as a SIL3124 it even has those numbers in it.. and 4 ports like any other sil3124

here is the old thread:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=825.msg3060#msg3060

we need to find a card powered by this chip:
http://www.digchip.com/data/514/514-616-0-VSC7174.pdf

The VSC7174 is a single chip PCI/PCI-X to
Serial ATA Host Bus Adapter that provides a
robust, high-performance interface to Serial
ATA Disk Drives, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROM's and
Tape facilities. The device supports 8b/10b
encoded data at Serial ATA v1.0 operating
speeds of 1.5 Gb/s - equivalent to 150 MB/s
of raw transfer performance; in addition, the VSC7174 can deliver
burst transfer rates of up to 1064 MB/s.
The VSC7174 is driver compatible with existing operating systems
supporting parallel ATA interfaces – providing an easy migration
path for existing IDE customers.
The ease-of-use, flexibility, superior performance, and attractive
price of the VSC7174 make it an ideal choice for your Serial ATA
Host controller needs.
Contact your local Vitesse sales representative for future Serial
ATA products.

whats so different about sil3124 is:
-its sata2 300mb/s
-supports port multiplier

while the other card is
-sata1 150mb/s
-no port multiplier

[supernova777]

this is the 100% confirmed mac os 9 compatbile + bootable version
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve4/

this is the card u should have bought PTLEguy
and this card uses the exact same chip as the card mactron has, the 1ve2+2 (also written as 1eVE2+2) also the 1v4, these 3 cards (1v4, 1ve4, 1ve2+2) are all in the same "family" and these are the absolute best cards for mac os 9!!!!!!!! these 3 models...

this is the card that perplexed me as it has no rom chip on the card
maybe this is why:

is the 128k serial flash EEPROM is built into the chip itself??? is that why this card has no PMC or MX flash rom chip on it??
or is the rom chip on the back of the card?

i cant remember where i got this info from... about the chip being the vitesse chip "vitesse vcs7174"
mactron did u tell this name to me? maybe i found a higher res pic

heres a higher res pic of the 1v4:

**** another similarity i see between these cards and the SIL3124, in common they both have these PLED 2 pin jumpers for connection to a hard drive light for monitoring disk activity, this is really cool because no other mac os 9 compatible hd interface has this i think?? but it also draws a line connecting these with other sil3124 cards... so.. is it possible to take the firmware for the 1v4 family of cards and use on a sil3124 card? has this been attempted by anyone? probably not!!!

heres the chip a bit closer up

u can see it says GD31244
this is the vitesse chip rebranded as "intel GD31244" i think

compare with the vsc 7174 image:



here u can see how the card is viewed in apple system profiler the model comes up as VSC__7174
(which stands for Vitesse VSC7174 sata chip)

this pic shows this card has the 5.1.1 firmware

pic showing the full length "Wide" pci 64bit card installed in a g4
the 2+2 card providing 2 internal ports + 2 external ports.. perfect! *THE BEST* card.. 100%

[supernova777]

....

[supernova777]

here is info on the pmc flash rom chip.. re: sizes of the chip
note that pm39LV010 is only 1Mbit, and PM39LV040 is 4Mbit, 4 times the size

lucky for us we can use google to convert Mbit size to KiloByte:

and the result:
pm39LV512 512Kbit = 62.5KByte
pm39LV010 1Mbit = 125KByte
pm39LV020 2Mbit = 250KByte
PM39LV040 4Mbit = 500KByte

compare with the size of the seritek firmwares:
http://macos9lives.com/downloads/public/seritek/

[ ]   SeriTek1S2_513.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    458K   
[ ]   SeriTek1SE2_513.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    493K   
[ ]   SeriTek1SM2_5.3.2.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    208K   
[ ]   SeriTek1V2E2_513.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    449K   
[ ]   SeriTek1V4_513.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    427K   
[ ]   SeriTek1VE4_513.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    451K   
[ ]   SeriTek2SE2_5.3.2.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    1.0M   
[ ]   SeriTek2SE4_5.3.2.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    624K   
[ ]   SeriTek2SM2_5.3.2.zip    2014-03-22 08:17    502K   

and those sizes are zipped.. but i think they also contain 'installation app' so the size isnt the real size of the firmware file

looking inside the 1v4 firmware zip..
i see the file: ROMFILE.7174 which is 127KB
the exact size that this vitesse vsc 7174 documentation says the eeprom is, 128KB.

and looking inside the 1s2 firmware zip.
i see the file: ROMFILE.1S2
the size: 139KB

the reason we cant take this 1s2 firmware and flash to generic sil3112A card.. the rom chip is too small to hold this data.

[MacTron]

is the 128k serial flash EEPROM is built into the chip itself??? is that why this card has no PMC or MX flash rom chip on it??
or is the rom chip on the back of the card?

There is a small smd chip that can be a EPROM...
It's really small. I'll try to read or made a picture of it from my SeriTek 1VE2+2 ...

i cant remember where i got this info from... about the chip being the vitesse chip "vitesse vcs7174"
mactron did u tell this name to me? maybe i found a higher res pic

I don't remember...

pic showing the full length "Wide" pci 64bit card installed in a g4
the 2+2 card providing 2 internal ports + 2 external ports.. perfect! *THE BEST* card.. 100%

Totally agree.

[supernova777]

comparing here u see the only ones of "sata_vsc" types are vitesse + intel

so i think there must be an actual "intel" brand card called the Intel 31244 Serial ATA
that is the same as the seritek 1v4 family of cards

or perhaps it is vitesse which uses intels chip??
they look identical i dont know which is which.. if intel took from vitesse or vitesse from intel

http://www.electronicproducts.com/Semiconductors/Applications/Intel_31244_PCI-X_to_Serial_ATA_Controller.aspx

see here is a guy who has posted saying he has a card of this name
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/intel-31244-pci-x-to-serial-ata-pv-745n.19455/

I am using a dell powervault 745N, with the 4 port SATA controller module (Intel 31244 PCI-X to Serial ATA). This is not the same as the on-board 2 port SATA controller.

anyways, keep an eye out for this !

[MacTron]

There is a small smd chip that can be a EPROM...
It's really small. I'll try to read or made a picture of it from my SeriTek 1VE2+2 ...

[supernova777]

can u look up this ATMEL chip to see if its 128KB eeprom? i cant read the picture its not big enough LOL need a magnifying glass
http://www.atmel.com/products/memories/serial/i2c.aspx

AT24C128C 128Kb I²C-compatible 2-wire Serial EEPROM
http://www.atmel.com/devices/AT24C128C.aspx
http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc8734.pdf

definately looks like they make 128KB

strange that the 1S2 has a bigger rom firmware then the 1V4 family cards...

[MacTron]

can u look up this ATMEL chip to see if its 128KB eeprom? i cant read the picture its not big enough LOL need a magnifying glass

I can hardly read it. It seems to be ATMEL 552 25F 1024... ...

[supernova777]

can u look up this ATMEL chip to see if its 128KB eeprom? i cant read the picture its not big enough LOL need a magnifying glass

I can hardly read it. It seems to be ATMEL 552 25F 1024... ...

according to google, 1024 Kilobit = 128KBytes so that is the perfect size to hold this seritek 1v4 ROMFILE.7174 firmware file


i wonder if they purposely made this firmware slightly too big to fit on a 1MBit chip (125KB) (the rom chips ending in 010)
its just 3KB too big to try to burn onto a card with the chip below;
i wonder if this rom could be reduced by 3KB somehow
125KB

if we could find someone to reduce this rom
we could have endless supply of bootable cards i think these generic sil3112 cards all feature the 010 125KB rom chip - ** max do u know if they come with the 512 chip? or the 010 chip?
another obstacle is that there is also some type of protection code check in the programming of the firmware file aswell
which checks the manufacturer of the flash rom + its size... but if this code could be removed somehow maybe it would equal the extra 3KB!! LOL

[supernova777]

heres a better shot of the chip on mactrons card

[supernova777]

even inside the 1v4 firmware it says its compatible with the intel 31244


http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/52338-intel-intros-serial-ata2-controller

found this article tallking about the introduction of the intel controller "31244" which is supposedly a clone/compatible with the VSC 7174 drivers

Quote

   

Intel Corp. introduced a Serial ATA-2 controller today for high-end storage systems, the first time the chip giant has brought the technology to market.

    Intel’s four-port Serial ATA Controller 31244 can transfer 1.5 Gbits/s on each of its four ports and can be paired with the Intel IOP321 I/O processor for RAID on the motherboard applications.

    In this case, the term “Serial ATA-2″ is a bit of a misnomer. The 100 members of the Serial ATA Working Group, including Intel, Dell, Seagate, and other vendors, decided to first tack on networking and high-end storage features to the existing Serial ATA standard, which was completed this past August. These products, which include the Intel 31244, are expected to begin rolling out during the first quarter of 2003.

    In the second half of 2003, members are expected to define a higher signalling rate for Serial ATA-2 for product delivery in 2004; 300-Mbytes/s has been suggested as a likely target. Serial ATA products transfer data at 150 Mbytes/s.

    Intel’s new controller features support for PCI-X-based communications applications, including increased voltage to interoperate with backplanes, technology that facilitates visual monitoring, and planned support for command queuing, which improves performance in multi-user applications for NAS and RAID systems.

    Intel also introduced an iSCSI adapter an a 400-MHz ultra-low-voltage embedded Celeron for storage applications.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2342984/data-center/intel-expands-storage-component-offering.html
Quote

 

  Intel expanded its line of components for storage products on Monday, announcing a serial ATA controller, an iSCSI storage adapter and a low-voltage Celeron processor.

    The new Intel 31244 serial ATA controller can transfer data at 1.5G bit/sec on each of its four ports. The controller, which links a system's motherboard with a hard disk drive, improves performance in network-attached storage devices and RAID systems, according to an Intel statement.

    The Intel PRO/1000 T IP iSCSI adapter is meant for storage-area networks (SAN). The adapter uses Intel's Xscale processor technology to take over IP and iSCSI tasks from the host processor, which increases throughput in SANs, according to Intel.
    MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 13 awesome and scary things in near Earth space

    Intel also announced a version of its Celeron processor that does not need extensive cooling and can thus be fitted in small storage devices. The 400 MHz ultralow voltage (ULV) Celeron processor dissipates 4.1 watts of heat, Intel said.

    Available in the first quarter of 2003, the 31244 serial ATA controller will cost $22 in 10,000-unit quantities and the iSCSI $695 in single units. The ULV Celeron processor at 400 MHz is now available for $38 when bought in quantities of 1,000, Intel said.

[supernova777]

oops wrong thread

[supernova777]

another card... the tempo-X
sticker on chip says marvell but chip looks the same? as the vitesse chip?

[macStuff]

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2se4/spec/
Bootable, but OSX only, I guess.
I will report back if 2se4 works for storage uses on OS9. The page of the user that reported badly over it seem to have a conflict with the pci, I think.

can we get an answer on this?

[Protools5LEGuy]

@seritek 2se4

Mac OS X version 10.4.0 or later (works best with 10.4.6 or later)

It works on Panther too.

[macStuff]

Does it work in os9? at all? as a data drive? or not at all? completely invisible??

[Protools5LEGuy]

Oelmuvun said;
Sil3124 (found on SeriTek2SE4)
Mac OS X only, I cannot remember more about it off the top of my head. I might say it is the least interesting aside from it supporting 4 ports. PCI-X


Chris I have this card in a QS 867mhz it only works in macosx. Supports sataII
It has a Sil3124ACBHU chip check photos.
If it can be flashed to work in macos9 I would be very happy.