whats teh catch?

citrixmeta

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2739725433&category=3753

LSI22915A 64-bit Dual channel PCI to Ultra160 SCSI
host bus adapter (32bit compatible) for 89$

this a good controller?

Ageek

Well-- if you have a mobo with the latest 64\66 PCI slots, this is a decent price. At a guess, someone thought this was a good deal and discovered that they had normal PCI slots and that this card did nothign for them because without the right slot it does not work. IF you have that kind of unusual server board, I am surprised you do not have builtin SCSI U160 support. Also, I am not sure he knows exactly what it is worth--though if you live in Canada you might pay import duties also as he is in US, as well as having the conversion of funds to deal with as that is a US price.

It is the kind of thing that could have been used on a high-end AMD MP-based server that died (some of the Tyan boards have what you need to begin considering testing this puppy as far as bus support)-- card might be good, and might be an unknown as not many peaple coudl even test it. So I would say depends on how much you trust this person and where you live.

It is also possible someone could not unload it and he did not realize simply that it would not work on most mobos when he bought it from someone else who got stuck with something that would cost about 500-600 wholesale in parts(mobo is retailling 200-300 alone,and double check speed also as there are Tyan boards that support 64\33 only and this board would stink on that kind of socket) just to support card for most folks and thus is having to unload it. Next, if I had SCSI U160 true HDs to sell, would want 2-400 EACH for them if were selling decent sizes.

Cost for card great, what goes with it is expensive.When you price Tyan mobos of that sort, price Power Supplies,the ones that Tyan supports boards on are not ATX 2.03, they are typically custom LeadTechs that cost 2-3 times the ATX 2.03 prices I can get reasonable ATX 2.03's for . Those are the most obvious catches I can see in 10 minutes (not a flame, I do system integration for fun and money and that includes total cost evals).

John Danielson.

citrixmeta

the board this is going into is a MSI dual AMD board, supports 64/66mhz

i plan on putting in 2 x ibm 18gig 15krpm drives, (89$USD each on ebay)

Ageek

Then you have a VERY decent deal going if the guy can be trusted to sell you a card he has tested or verify it is still under mfr warranty in writing. That is not the best such on the market but what he does say makes sense to what I know. SATA is going to obsolete SCSI when it is embedded and SATA drive costs get lower as R&D is paid off. What makes me hiesitate is that the price is about $45.00 TOO Low for a totally issueless used card that is a known (and proven thus) good card for that bus spec-- half price is usually the lowest most folks will go if they are not system stripping brokers.

I would question him closely myself. The number of reviews he has is encouraging if he knows his U160 SCSI devices and has bench-tested the card. If not both true, you might be buying an untested piece of junk bought in a batch deal and never checked after purchase, which is what this price on its face makes me suspect-- the other "think twice" issue is there is no pic of THAT EXACT CARD he is selling out of a static bag so you can see it was not shipping damaged in any way obviously, and one pic is missing from the ebay linking. If you kknow the guy,buy it-- if not talk tosome folks who know and have used U160 with that card,getsome time guesses for a gig of backup and ask him how long it took for a gig of flow on what mobo when he tested it and what drive models he used. If he comes back agressively, tell him why you asked-- if still agressive reject unless you have testing rights and a credit card that guarantees ebay purchases. I ebay very seldom, and know a ghuy locally who lost more than he has spent and was addicted to ebay. RAID cards can flake too bad with minor damage for me to ebay them except for fun. That is all I will say other than-- good luck.

John Danielson.

citrixmeta

damn.... u like to type dont ya?

Ageek

Nah, too many things to think about and have go wrong with RAID and ebay. .... ESPECIALLY the two TOGETHER.

I know one guy who sold, rebought, and resold same video card-- and in the first place it did not work. He got banned on ebay US and sold it on ebay.ca. This from the guy who has traded on ebay forthree years and has an unpaid CC bill of 4 grand in US funds that he cannot resell stuff to pay.

He is also on unemployment. He is not this guy, nor has this guy messed with my friend that I know of, but as many have had to find out ebay can be very dog-eat-dog. And I have not been HERE long enough to know who knows that here.

And you did ask what the catch was....

John Danielson.

Tex

Its a decent controller. My buddy has bought a couple off eBay. He won't pay over 80 bucks.

Tex

primesuspect

btw citrix: You can use that card in a 32bit slot as well, but you will get better performance from a 64bit slot.

CCW

Originally posted by Ageek
At a guess, someone thought this was a good deal and discovered that they had normal PCI slots and that this card did nothign for them because without the right slot it does not work.

Wrong, that card works in 32bit, a single u160 drive wont saturate the PCI bus anyway.

Craig

Tex

Yes it works fine in a 32bit slot.

Btw... the single channel model of the same controller usually runs 40 bucks or so.

Tex

COGeek

Heh, I think it's pretty funny that the auction is titled 'Adaptec Equal' when it's a superior product!

By the way, I highly recommend this adapter

(Disclaimer: it has nothing to do with the fact I work for LSI)

Tex

I also think its superior to the adaptec in every way. Most folks just still don't know the name like they do adaptecs though.

Tex

Ageek

Um,err... Where do the card edge traces shown on card in picture on ebay (the whole section that would not fit in a PCI socket that is 32 bit) that woudl normally go in longer part of socket of 64 bit PCi go then???? Are you saying that like some old ISA sound cards which would run as 8 or 16 bit ( if you insulated the extra edge that hung out beyond an 8 bit ISA slot and could touch othr things and short them and card if not insulated) that this is a dual bussed card??? The pic on ebay shows a very nice 3-segment card-edge trace set that only fits into a 64 bit PCI socket completely--and in fact the bag color leaves that as the only thing that is clearly discernable. Normally cardedge traces need to connect or mesh with something-- in fact only 95% of the time is this true.....

Meac Culpa if not, sorry, but would be flabbergasted.

Logic Systems Incorporated does decent SCSI and SATA, yes. Adaptec has a better QC Rep for longer duration of company and product life, that is all(I know of Adaptec SCSI I cards which are 15 year old being used in schools to introduce SCSI therory to students, for example, and they were donated)-- for used cards which could be out of warranty, that lends value. For new, this is a wash and not relevant, but for used it might well be relevant.

John Danielson

Tex

The extra part that fills the end of the 64bit slot just hangs out. As long as the front part of the slot is cut right... meaning it fits in 3 or 5 volt slots then it runs in both just fine and adjusts the voltage and speed to fit the slot. I Have run that very same card but with a single u160 channel in both 32 and 64bit slots fine. Very very few pci 64bit cards will not also run in 32bit slots. They were designed to fit both basicaly by adherering strictly to the modern pci specs after like pci2.0 I think it was.

Tex

Ageek

Thanks. So long as it will seat fully and contacts nothing surface mounted, all should be well then. I have had to cover the hanging out portion with electrical tape or use a certain slot that had space beyond the slot end with no ICs in way on some mobos where you just let things hang out of slots. And have had some mobos with no such thing possible due to height and proximity of ICs to slot ends where only shorter slots were used and designed onto boards.

As BIOSs tend to autodefault slots to certain IRQ ranges, sometimes had to force a slot to an IRQ (in BIOS) also in order to get things to work at full effectiveness. This has been true with both PNP and pre-PNP boards (mobos and\or cards) I have worked with.

John Danielson.

COGeek

Yes, I know for a fact all LSI SCSI cards will work in 32-bit PCI slots.

Actually in the PCI physical standard, there is a limit on what can be put beyond a 32-bit slot so the 64-bit portions of the connectors can hang off freely.

So, really, the only time you'd run into a problem is if your motherboard does not fully meet the PCI 2.0 or higher specification.

COGeek

Originally posted by Ageek
Logic Systems Incorporated does decent SCSI and SATA, yes. Adaptec has a better QC Rep for longer duration of company and product life, that is all(I know of Adaptec SCSI I cards which are 15 year old being used in schools to introduce SCSI therory to students, for example, and they were donated)-- for used cards which could be out of warranty, that lends value. For new, this is a wash and not relevant, but for used it might well be relevant.

Actually, if you were to go back more than 3 or 4 years, you won't find any LSI SCSI cards. Before that they were Symbios Logic, and previous to that NCR (which almost basically created the SCSI standards based of the SASI standared)

I may be biased since my paycheck comes from LSI, but I do believe we have better SCSI products. The big difference, however, is that Adaptec does more marketing to end users, whereas LSI has traditionally focused on selling to OEMs.

Tex

I love the cards but have gotten really shitty customer support trying to get help with LSI products. It comes down to not caring basicaly. I have had some unreal sessions with some company's regarding customer support where I thought the guys even went way above and beyond the call of duty to help out and my experiance with LSI customer support has been universally opposite. They just don't give a rats ass and do as little as humanly possible to dismiss you. In my 20 years in this buisness I put the LSI customer support reps I have had the pleasure to either call or email correspond iwth in the bottom 10 percent of pond scum sucking support reps on earth.

But the products are great and luckily most folks will not need to ever actually call customer support.

Tex

COGeek

Originally posted by Tex
I love the cards but have gotten really shitty customer support trying to get help with LSI products. It comes down to not caring basicaly. I have had some unreal sessions with some company's regarding customer support where I thought the guys even went way above and beyond the call of duty to help out and my experiance with LSI customer support has been universally opposite. They just don't give a rats ass and do as little as humanly possible to dismiss you. In my 20 years in this buisness I put the LSI customer support reps I have had the pleasure to either call or email correspond iwth in the bottom 10 percent of pond scum sucking support reps on earth.

But the products are great and luckily most folks will not need to ever actually call customer support.

Tex

You'll be happy to know our support system has changed dramatically over the past 4 or 5 months... Hopefully it's a change for the better if that's how bad it really was. I'm not sure since I just help make the cards, I don't support end users

Tex

I think they get graded on how many tickets they close each day and not how good a job they do. The goal seemed to be to simply close the ticket and do as little as humanly possible to accomplish that goal. Or that was my impression.

The last round was in the last 4 months and I was writing an article and explained that I need info for the article I was writing and it concerned their Elite 1600 megraid controllers. These are $1000 controllers btw... and I was just dismissed.

Tex

COGeek

I would think that would be the job of Marketing to provide that, not tech support.

Tex

I was having trouble with a controller. Thats not marketing.

Tex

COGeek

I see, I misread your post, I thought you mean you were writing an article about the controller...

Yes, admittedly, our support system is geared more towards OEM, but I think there are still many imporovements in progress.

Tex

I was. And it was performing horribly and I indicated it was not going to look real good for LSI if I couldn't get a little help.

I finally got it sorted out without them fortunatly but it sure left a bad taste in my mouth.

It wasn't even just NOT getting info but that they gave incorrect info that really pissed me off also. Pretty bad when you get better support on a $1000 controller from reading web forums then the manufactures customer support.

Tex