Announcement

**Topcat** · 10-09-2003, 09:56 PM

Continued from above

I've also created a BIOS for this board that implements the latest Highpoint HPT37x firmware version 2.34. This will dramatically help in RAID performance, and also incorporated 48-bit translation enabling drives larger than 137GB to be used.

BIOS UPDATE
Aparently there was quite a stir of complaints with this board and ATI video cards... Iwill has a BIOS (which IS NOT posted on their site) that is supposed to remedy some of the ATI incompatibilities... Iwill doesn't seem too keen on giving this out, although it has been available since February of 2003. I have flashed and tested it for a while the other night, and while it didn't eliminate all problems, it did GREATLY improve stability and fixed a BUNCH of glitches!!

I also took it upon myself to update this revision with the latest Highpoint firmware since Iwill still uses some old beta firmware (for what reason, I dont know)....

Anyway, download the modded BIOS's @
http://www.kabalsrealm.com/downloads/

Here's a quick rundown on some DO's and DONT's for your DVD266u-RN:
1) DO NOT use low-quality RAM! Try to use Micron/Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, and Samsung! This board loved those brands.

2) Use a GOOD power supply! Nothing less than a 400w true power! Recommended: Antec, Enermax, and Sparkle.

3) KEEP IT COOL!! if your case has fan ports, make sure there are fans in those ports!

4) Don't use an 'All-in-Wonder' type video card, nothing but a HEADACHE! If it's being used as a server where graphics performance isn't as important, I'd recommend using a PCI video card if you have an open PCI slot. That eliminated ALL video problems.

5) DO NOT use an Adaptec AAA-131U2 SCSI RAID controller! This board (and MANY other boards I've had) did NOT like this controller and constantly corrupted data. This controller was a big blunder on Adaptec's part, as it had problems in many other boards aside from the Iwill.

If you have this board, you might give these a try if you've had any trouble with it....

Good Luck!
TC

**petabyte** · 10-09-2003, 10:33 PM

GULP

wow.. I'm impressed.. just \"listening to that makes my eyes water\" :cry:
you've obviously have time to tweak and mod.. and making your own bios'.. that makes me cry too.. I had an eprom burner but a \"friend\" \"borrowed\" it. if i coud just find that guy.. I'd.. I'd.. :evil:

so this is the box the forum and your ftp's are running off of.. on *nix.
yeah even before i joined the forum today i browsed your two sites and saw the stats page for the server.. again.. kudos..

so you get a bit intimate with the board.. you look, see a possible weakness.. mod it, move on.

and so.. i bring up this question.. especially in regards to APG's, or any other high current device not getting enough power..
a possible preemtive step ?
could it be that many of these on board regulators aren't really capable of handling the current draw required ? and that as they weaken due to bad caps/ripple and noise.. we'll start to see our other items on the board start to deteriorate ? do you think that we could suggest mods (like the heatsinks ) to further protect the regulators ? .. couldn't regulators be \"stacked up\".. an additional device in soldered in exact parallel ?

and like battery backups.. how much thought has gone into using an analog power supply coupled in with the normal swticher? but this supply would feed the 5v and core voltages.. along with the APG..

let's see, a 50A/5v analog supply about the size of a shoebox.. lol
hell.. functionality always prevails over aesthetics..
I'll mount it near my airconditioner..

**Topcat** · 10-10-2003, 04:26 AM

Well, I never really thought about it as getting 'intimate' with the board, but I guess that's a very accurate statement. I notice things like that, and then they bug me to no end.... Making me wonder how manufacturers can be so damn careless sometimes.... A good example is the VRM's on the DVD266u-RN... They're tiny little critters, not the standard T-220 packaged regulators... Those cheap-o's allowed to run that hot is an obvious problem, which should have been caught and cured by the Iwill 'engineers'... There's no room on the PCB to install quality ones, so modding the originals with heatsinks was the only option... However, the untrained eye would probably never catch that until it was too late and theirs burned up, leaving them S.O.L.... I've had 4 of these boards, and they all experienced it... After the heatsinks were installed, they barely got warm!! Well worth the $3.18 ($1.59 x 2) I spent on the heatsinks!

Roadrage mentioned the rediculous prices of the 1.4GHz P3 Tualatins with the 512k L2... I purchased a RETAIL pair of them over a YEAR ago for $210.00 (USD) each for a total of approx $420.00 for the pair.... YIKES what the hell was I thinking!! I have to admit, they perform exceptionally well!! Whipping the doo-doo out of a single P4 1.9GHz...

The really SAD part is that they're well over a year old and have not dropped in price AT ALL!! That tells us how crappy the tech market is right now, and why people are looking for alternatives to replacing/upgrading their boards with bad caps... That's why I figured the badcaps.net idea would be a success. A few bucks spent on caps is a much cheaper and attractive alternative than gutting the core of a system over $20.00 (or less) in parts...

**Stool Pigeon** · 11-08-2003, 01:24 PM

48-bit lba support

Does the modded bios you posted include 48-bit LBA support on the IDE channels?

**Topcat** · 11-08-2003, 11:15 PM

The modded BIOS includes Highpoint HTP37x firmware version 2.34, which includes 48-bit LBA for the RAID controller. I have not modified any of the drive tables for the standard VIA IDE controller. If you plan to use a drive larger than 137GB, use the Highpoint controller.

**latimo** · 12-15-2003, 02:17 PM

to top cat about the dvd226ur-n

hey top cat remember me \"latimo\"?? i think we used to talk alot at the iwill tech forum before they killed it off ( lol ! ) i was reading your stability fixes for the dvd266ur-n mb and thought that it was very well presented .my set includes now : 400w p/s, 256mb ( micron ) , dual p3 tutalituns @ 1.4g each,dvd drv/cd-rw burner. i have alot of questions here so bear with me.....i replaced my north bridge heat sink with a another one with more mass witha 4 k rpm fan ( but i have recentlly taken it off the board with no problems ...got good old artic silver under it ! i found that your idea of the heat sinks on the vrm's are a good idea ( maybe i should do that).

about a month ago i bought 2 maxtor ata 133 drives and i had a promise raid controller,when installed ...my system would not come out of standby mode (all the system's componets would wake up except for the raid drives ??? ) and also if i had my monitor shut off at a desinated time it would not come back either...weird huh? was this a big problem for promise? i mean especiality for the fast trax 100 tx2 cards?? since then i have stopped useing it and went with the highpoint controller on the main board...no problems at all !

and lets talk chipset drivers ....... i got this board from a friend about 7 month ago and he had all kinds of blue screens and was not satisfied with the boards performance so thats how i got it .when i first had it i must have used 2 or 3 versions at the time of via chipset drivers till i installed ver 48 or 49 and noticed that my system would not blue screen anymore .now i have just redone my o/s and installed the lateset ver. of drivers and still no problems! he said that the nature of this board would be that it would be fine for a while then start acting up like before and start blue screening all over again ,well...... i think that the earlyer versions were the major software/hardware problem that i had and that the newer versions may have corrected this issue.WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ?????

and one last thing ,memory latency....

i was told either by someone else or you ( can't remember ) that i could set it to \" enhanced 2\" and get a major performance increase. i did just that and noticed a big differance in my board but soon after that it went back to it's normal performance??? what happened? did my memory go bad so to speak?

well sorry for the long message and it's good to hear from you again since the good old days back at the iwill tech forum (ah good days ! lol !)
i think that iwill heard to many conflicts with there boards and kinda nipped it in the bud ..so to speak and decided to control who knows what and who helps who........sad-sad-sad !

thanks....

latimo..

**latimo** · 12-15-2003, 04:26 PM

sorry one more thing. . . . . .

sorry i forgot to ask you about the vrm's....i don't have any thermal epoxy to secure new heat sinks to them but can i use j-b weld?? someone told me that was a alternative to epoxy and still has good thermal conductiveity ?!?!

**Topcat** · 12-15-2003, 04:41 PM

Latimo!! when I saw that name, I knew that I remembered that from somewhere!! Glad to see ya back again, and that you haven't used your DVD266u-RN for target practice!

Anyway, try the heatsinks and my modded BIOS, that has remedied 5 thought-to-be FUBAR'd DVD266u-RN's... If uusing XP, I don't install any VIA service packs, as XP has the best drivers embedded in the OS. As far as memory timing, if you're not into hardcore gaming and tweaking, I would use the default settings that your RAM is spec'd for, that will eliminate a bunch of instabilities... I'll trade off a couple frames a second for a reliable system, although, I'm not a gamer anymore these days...

The heatsinks! VERY BIG HELPER, especially the VRM heatsinks! Yes, they can be attached with JB Weld... I believe I told ya about that one back in the Iwill forums before they canned them... JB Weld is a VERY good conductor of heat, and will obviously not conduct electricity! I've JB Welded many heatsinks, and off the record, it seems to work better than the \"thermal\" epoxy that's supposed to be designed for this application.

On 2 identical VP6's, running the same RAM and CPU's, and Zalman northbridge heatsinks, the chipset runs 5-8 degrees cooler on the board with the JB Welded heatsinks versus the other one attached with the zalman thermal epoxy. However, the JB Weld does have a drawback! It takes FOREVER to set!! You also have to watch it closely while it sets. The JB Weld will shrink a little bit when setting up and slightly change shape. If you don't watch it for the first hour, the heatsink may shift and set crooked... That annoys me, so for the first hour, keep an eye on it, and adjust as necessary. JB weld on the VRM's don't need that attention, since they're in such a small space, there's nowhere for the heatsink to shift, and they stay in place.

Good Luck!

**kc8adu** · 12-15-2003, 06:05 PM

i use the 5 minute version called jb kwik.
that will eliminate the shifting issues.
works great for mounting luxeons in maglights.

**latimo** · 12-15-2003, 09:45 PM

...

.thanks to both .... and maybe back long ago when i got the board it was about 2 clicks away from being food for my .45acp , but not now !

L.

**latimo** · 12-20-2003, 04:14 PM

hey top cat....today i went and bought the heat sinks for the vrms from radio shack.how much of the j-b weld do i apply? just a thin coating on the sink it's self or the the vrm...what works the best?

thanks...
L.

**Topcat** · 12-20-2003, 06:30 PM

I just buttered the bottom of the heatsink with a thin layer of mixed JB Weld, then pressed the heatsink onto the VRM's. I pulled the heatsink back off to make sure all the VRM's were covered and then put the heatsink back on... That was it... Don't ever try and take 'em off after it sets, the VRM's will come off with the heatsink... :o

**latimo** · 12-20-2003, 06:54 PM

cool........well have a merry christmas this year !

**latimo** · 12-22-2003, 12:18 PM

jingle bells...jingle bells.....ho-ho-ho !

hey man just thought i would tell you that i installed the vrm heat sinks with no problems at but now i have a another problem.....i'm not useing the board anymore ! i just got my other system yesturday which i have been working .i know have :

cooler master atc-111c case
4 maxtor ata 133 drvs in raid 0
giga byte p4 titan /ga-8ihxp mother board
p4 at 2.26 w/ 533 fsb
512mb or 1066 rdram
pc power and cooling p/s 500 watt
creative live sound card with bay controls
g force 3 ti 64mb ddr video card
promise raid controller card

whew...thats a mouth full ! what do ya think ?!?!?! cool huh

i'm still going to hang on to the iwill board and i'm sure that it will be put to good use here soon .well have a good one this year once again and thank for all the advice offered

L.

jk · 12-31-2003, 01:08 PM

DVD266u-rn RAID over 137GB works

I've confirmed that the 370 RAID controller
on the DVD266u-rn works with 250GB IDE drives.

Mine is running RAID 1, WinXP Pro, and quite well...

You will need:

TC's 266u-rn custom bios with Highpoint mods

The matching highpoint driver for your OS.

If the highpoint software does not recognize over 137GB,
there is a driver version mismatch.

Cheers.

**gcaofer** · 03-13-2004, 09:46 AM

where can I get that bios? I have a problem when ever I put a CD\DVD in any of my drives the system just halts is three a sulotion?

**Topcat** · 03-13-2004, 01:14 PM

http://www.kabalsrealm.com/downloads/

**visorgeneral** · 05-11-2004, 11:39 AM

Hi topcat, I have been reading up on some of the information and tid bits that you've posted about the Iwill DVD266u-RN motherboard Since November. I own the exact motherboard and I recentually just bought a Maxtor 250GB hard drive for my Iwill system. But it has been a huge hasle trying to set it up, as I still am trying to set it up. The motherboard of the bat doesnt seem to be able to detect the hard drive past 134GB and this is on the High Point RAID controller. You posted updates at the disscussion over the Iwill DVD266u-RN motherboard, that includes improvements of larger disk space support, etc. Im finding it very hard to update my motherboard's BIOS with these images offered at the website at KabalsRealm. I not sure if I was doing the steps right but after making a boot cd and then running the award flash bio upgrade program in full DOS i get "unknown flash type". I got this error message from trying to upgrade both 704_234.bin file or the 0226_234.bin file. I enabled Flashable bios option in Setup, and I removed the jumper cable from my main board enabling flashability, but to no avail I still cannot get this to update. My bios is v6.00PG DVD266u-RN/34242A (Jul. 04. 2002), and VT9633-8233-6A6LUI3BC-00. Im really in the need of that 48-bit LBA support that you talked about, could you help me out on how would you go about updating the motherboard's bios. Greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Clarence

P.S. Sorry if this writing is prett crummy, I've been up all night try to figure this bored out, and haven't gotten any sleep. :cry:

**Topcat** · 05-12-2004, 02:33 AM

To fix the 'unknown flash type' message, go into your BIOS, and under 'Iwill Smart Settings', set the BIOS from 'non-flashable' to 'flashable'. That will allow you to flash the BIOS. That's a safeguard placed by Iwill, and seems to confuse everyone. In some rare cases on very early revisions of the board, the 'unknown flashtype' message still shows up even after the BIOS is set to flashable. To get around this, try different versions of AWDFLASH.EXE. When you find one it likes, it will flash (If I remember right, I used 8.16).

I have not modded the drive tables for the standard ATA controller, only the RAID, so the standard ATA controller will be doomed to the 137gb barrier. Only the HPT372 will see a drive larger than 137gb. I know the .BIN's I made work, many have tried and use with no probs, and so have I.

Good Luck!

Announcement

Iwill DVD266u-RN Stability Fixes [UPDATED]

Iwill DVD266u-RN Stability Fixes [UPDATED]

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