RAID review missed something important: CDRipping

zittware_dot_com

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Tom's Raid review missed an important fact. After troubleshooting a problem with our product CDMaster32 (an MP3 Ripper/Burner), I noticed that the Promise controllers Suck.

I submitted a detailed bug report to Promise technology over 4 mths ago... to which they have ignored.

Short answer: "Ultra100 card/driver/bios has incompatiblity with ASPI layer"

Perhaps Tom can shed some light on this and provide a public confirmation of my report?

My report can be found here:
http://support.promise.com/Report/elookup.asp?email=zitt@bigfoot.com

John
 

FatBurger

Illustrious
It is not the responsibility of the reviewer to search out every possible bug, that is the repsonsibility of the company producing the product.
The reviewer is there merely to show the features and performance of the product, as well as give their experience and opinion on it.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
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zittware_dot_com

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Why am I getting attitude?

I have a legitimate concern / observation about a defect in these controllers.

I fail to see why the only two posts / comments I received from this community are negative?

What the hell did I do to offend / receive your misplaced wrath?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by zittware_dot_com on 10/24/01 02:18 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

Lars_Coleman

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Dude, I wasn't being negative. All I was stating is that if they didn't get back to you there is probably a good reason why! Which could be tons of reasons. Maybe not negative on you but maybe Promise! Maybe they don't have a clue why it is happening and they are ignoring you hoping you will go away!

Sorry to have come off wrong!

<font color=red>BIOS updates do wonders ....</font color=red>
 

FatBurger

Illustrious
(Your second one didn't help, Lars :)

Zitt (can't remember your first name),

Looking at the means to duplicate the problem (as you listed on Promise' website), it is a very detailed problem. Do you really expect a reviewer to try EVERY possible set of options, with EVERY combination of coming in/out of hibernation, with EVERY cd ripping program on all the cards they reviewed, and then do the same for ripping a DVD, saving a Word document, copying from different brands of floppy drives, etc.

I understand your frustration, but it is simply NOT the responsibility of the reviewer to spend months on end looking for hard-to-find bugs in order to report them.

See what I'm saying?

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>
 

zittware_dot_com

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Glad that wasn't your intent to be negative.

Fatburner,
I completely understand the Reviewer's responsibility.
Perhaps their could be a part two covering "advanced" configurations.
I'm sure many people would be interested to know if other RAID controllers exhibit the same problems. (I hope not)

I have 2 motherboards with Promise Si onboard... I refuse to use/enable that Si because of the problems I found.

I would personally be interested to see if other Manufacturers have the same problem.

Lars,
I now understand your position. Thanks.
I wonder where else I can post to put some "pressure" on Promise. I'm thinking a public WWW page on zittware.com would go along way.

John
 

FatBurger

Illustrious
I guess the second one did help after all.

Zitt, let's take this one step at a time. What you're saying is that the reviewer (can't remember who it was), should've spent enough time on the card to find your specific problem, correct?

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>
 

zittware_dot_com

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No.
I would be insane for me to think that anyone would be able to figure out this type of problem unless they were specifically trying to find it.
(other than the manufacturer that is)

The only reason I found this problem with Promise controllers is because:
1) I had one.
2) I use Win2k and Hibernate exclusively / every night.
3) I am the owner/developer of CDMaster32 and was trying to figure out why I suddenly started having "bugs" appear in my software after I "upgraded" to the Promise controller.

After doing a little research/debug, I narrowed the ASPI/Hibernate problem down to the card/drivers.

My only suggestion is that perhaps a "review" of other manufacturer's cards is in order to determine if this problem exists in their card/driver. Perhaps Tom's hardware isn't the proper place... not sure. For the "good of the consumer" someone who has the resources should look to see if this is a trend or just a problem with Promise. I'm sure the consumers/public would want to know.

John
 

FatBurger

Illustrious
How many other people have reported this bug to Promise?

What I'm trying to get at is that you're reporting one obscure bug, and for all you know (unless you have more information than me), there are thousands of similar bugs. So there should be people (unrelated to the manufacturers) researching thousands of small bugs?
To me, that doesn't make sense.

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9/11 - RIP</font color=green>
 

zittware_dot_com

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I have no idea how wide spread / many people see this problem.

Any bug which requires me to "red switch" Win2k while it is running is Serious and should be fixed regardless of the number of users.

John