VIA VT6421A PCI SATA controller firmware

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larrymoencurly

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 18, 2002
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Rosewill has firmware ver. 5.20 and a flash utility that works with all PCI SATA controllers based on the VIA VT6421x chips, but what does this firmware fix? My generic controller came with ver. 4.95. As usual, VIA is mum about this and won't answer anything.
 
Are you having a problem with the current firmware?
Is it possible to downgrade?

If no problem, may not be worth it, if you want to anyway, make sure you can get the current version you have so if you do have a problem you can downgrade again.
 
With the VT6421A and firmware 4.95, HDtune rates a Samsung at <20MB/sec max, a WD at 90MB/sec, but when with a Silicon Image SiL3512 controller the Samsung also does 90MB/sec. Both drives are 2T with 4KB physical sectors and aligned partitions.

But I can't simply use Silicon Image controllers because with some other configurations they run terribly while the VT6421A works fine, such as with one HD attached to the motherboard's controller (SATA or PATA) and certain drives connected to the PCI controller, including two 1TB WDs that seem to differ only in firmware. Even the Promise cards haven't always worked.

There doesn't seem any way to downgrade the firmware in a VT6421A card. VIA's utility doesn't seem to have a provision to back up firmware to file, and UniFlash can't read this card. So the only option seems to be unsoldering the BIOS chip and reading it in a Silicon Image card.
 
With a 1TB WD and VT6421a I get ATA errors. Word is they only support up to 750 GB.
Are you not getting "Ultra ATA CRC error rate" increases each time you use 2TB drives with the 6421a?
 
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