Intel D865PERLK + IDE controller compatibility

[ToonGal]

Full detailed parts list on home page at my HTPC home page (machine=SageTV).

My PERLK mobo has a 1GB ethernet onboard and two sets of IDE controllers each controlling two IDE HDs. In addition to those 4 IDE peripherals, I have a DVD-RW, CD-RW, and ZIP drive I'd like to add, as well as more HDs in the future. I use a SATA HD (controlled on the mobo) as the boot drive.

Bundled with my WD drives, I got a promise controller card (Ultra100 TX2) with each, and they also control up to 4 IDE peripherals.

When I use the onboard NIC and Ultra100 together, they conflict and seem to hang on the U100. I can't tell if it is trying to boot off the U100 or not, but the U100 BIOS message is the last I see. The Intel BIOS does not acknowledge the U100 or any drives attached.

I spoke to Intel, Promise, and Western Digital (since they redistro the card), and at best, each points to the others' BIOS as the issue. Working with Intel, they suggested I disable some of the onboard items (NIC, sound, etc) to find which one with which the U100 conflicts. Turns out it is the onboard NIC, because when disabled, all runs 100%. I installed the SMC 10/100 (from machine=Slave) temporarily to make this machine work, but am hoping for advice to recapture the 1GB NIC, especially since it's the reason I bought this one instead of the PERLK (a 10/100 mobo, only diff).

Using latest BIOS of PERLL and U100, so know that's not the issue.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help.

[mdmint]

Sounds like you're out of resources and or your Mobo isn't handling resource sharing nicely. If the mobo bios doesn't allow manual config of IRQ's to come up with workable combinations you may need to reconsider your configuration. Specifically numerous stand alone IDE HDs (currently 4 and wanting to add more) plus wanting to add DVDRW, CDRW (why both when DVDRW will do everything a CDRW will) and Zip drive IDE devices too. If you got a controller possibly like a Promise SuperTrak SX6000 which support 6 IDE HDs (in your case would just run them JBOD) the DVDRW etc could be run off the mobo IDE ctrls. However, there's no gurantee the SX6000 Bios wouldn't also clash with your onboard Gb NIC... Unfortunate reality is unless all hardware is from same mfg as a turnkey solution supposedly compatible hardware 'taint necessarily compatible.

Might be better/easier to have a SageTV Server that is only used as a SageTV Server. Actually, not might be easier but IMO is easier, cleaner and highly likely more stable solution. Off load video editing burning game playing whatever to some other PC.