even if u have no PCIE slots SIL3124 on PCI133 still benefits OSX TIGER+

[chrisNova777]

for early intel hackintoshes that may lack pcie express slots, (pentium 4s, early socket 775 boards etc) While the raw throughput is indeed limited by the legacy 32-bit/33MHz PCI bus (which caps out at a theoretical 133 MB/s), moving to an SiI3124-based controller offers significant architectural advantages over the integrated IDE or early SATA controllers typically found on motherboards of that era.

Even if you aren't "breaking the sound barrier" with transfer speeds, here is how those specific features and the controller's design provide a better experience:

1. Beyond Throughput:
IOPS and NCQThe most noticeable benefit isn't the top speed, but the responsiveness of the system.Native Command Queuing (NCQ): Standard legacy IDE controllers handle requests one by one.

If the OS asks for ten files, the drive waits for one to finish before starting the next. NCQ allows the drive to accept all ten requests at once and reorder them so the drive head moves the shortest distance possible.

System Feel:
This drastically reduces latency during multi-tasking or heavy OS disk activity (like booting or launching large applications), making an old mechanical drive or SATA SSD feel much "snappier" than it would on a non-NCQ controller.

2. Hot-Plug Support & StabilityOn many mid-2000s motherboards, SATA ports were often treated like internal IDE drives—meaning if you unplugged them while the system was on, you risked a kernel panic or hardware damage.

True Hot-Swapping:
The SiI3124 is a server-grade chipset that natively supports the SATA hot-plug spec. This is perfect for using removable drive bays or external eSATA enclosures for backups without needing to reboot.

eSATA Capability:
Many of these 3124 cards feature eSATA ports, allowing you to connect modern external storage at the full 133 MB/s bus speed, which is still significantly faster than the 30-40 MB/s real-world limit of USB 2.0 found on those boards.

3. Overcoming "IDE Emulation" Limits
Many early onboard SATA controllers (like the Intel ICH7 or early VIA chipsets) operate in "Legacy" or "IDE" mode to maintain compatibility with older operating systems.

Breaking the 128GB Barrier:
If your motherboard BIOS has trouble seeing large modern drives (e.g., 2TB+), the SiI3124 uses its own independent BIOS. This allows you to use much larger drives that the motherboard’s onboard controller might reject.

SATA II Protocol:
Even though the PCI bus is slow, the link between the card and the drive is SATA II (3.0 Gbps). This ensures better compatibility with modern SSDs and HDDs that might struggle to "handshake" properly with ancient SATA I (1.5 Gbps) controllers.4. Efficient Data Handling (DMA)The SiI3124 is a sophisticated controller compared to cheaper "Win-RAID" cards.

It features:Large Internal FIFO Buffers: These help smooth out data transfers and prevent the PCI bus from becoming a bottleneck for tiny, "bursty" data packets.Reduced CPU Overhead: Because it handles the heavy lifting of the SATA protocol and NCQ in hardware, your CPU (like a Core 2 Duo or Quad) spends less time managing disk I/O and more time running your applications.

Comparison:
Integrated Legacy vs. SiI3124 PCIFeatureOnboard Legacy SATA/IDESiI3124 PCI CardMax Bus SpeedVaries (often shared)133 MB/s (Dedicated PCI)Command QueuingNone (Synchronous)NCQ (Asynchronous)Drive SwapReboot requiredHot-plug supportedMax Drive SizeOften limited by BIOSSupported via Card BIOSBootabilityNativeSupported (via Option ROM)

In short, you are trading raw bandwidth (which the PCI bus can't provide anyway) for modern storage intelligence. It’s the difference between a fast car on a congested one-lane road versus a smart car that knows how to navigate traffic efficiently.

will my sil3124 pci card worth with asus p5pe-vm
Gemini said
The ASUS P5PE-VM is a unique motherboard that uses the Intel 865G chipset, which creates some specific hardware constraints for your Silicon Image 3124 card.

Whether it will work depends on the specific variant of the Sil3124 card you have and what you intend to do with it.

1. Physical Compatibility (PCI vs. PCI-X)
The Sil3124 chipset is natively a PCI-X (Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended) controller.

The Card: Most Sil3124 cards are long, 64-bit PCI-X cards.

The Motherboard: The ASUS P5PE-VM only has standard 32-bit PCI slots.

Can you plug it in?
Yes, usually. PCI-X is backward compatible with standard PCI. If your card has the universal "notches" (3.3V and 5V), it will physically fit into the motherboard's PCI slot, though the "tail" of the connector will hang off the end of the slot.

2. Performance Bottlenecks
Because the P5PE-VM uses standard 32-bit/33MHz PCI slots, you will experience a massive bandwidth "choke":

Sil3124 Potential: Up to 1064 MB/s (in a 133MHz PCI-X slot).

P5PE-VM Limit: Approximately 133 MB/s total shared across the entire PCI bus.

If you are trying to achieve SATA II (3.0 Gbps) speeds, the card will technically provide the SATA II protocol, but the actual data transfer will be capped at the speed of the old PCI bus.

3. OS and Driver Support
Since you are likely working with legacy environments, here is how the Sil3124 behaves:

Mac OS X (Tiger/Leopard): The Sil3124 is generally well-supported by third-party drivers (like the old Silicon Image or Sonnet drivers). It is often preferred over the Sil3132 for stability in older builds.

Windows: Drivers are readily available for XP and Windows 7.

Booting: Whether you can boot an OS from a drive attached to this card depends on the card’s BIOS. Some "RAID" versions of the Sil3124 can be finicky with the P5PE-VM’s BIOS when trying to set the boot priority.

Summary Checklist
Feature   Compatibility
Physical Fit   Yes, if it's a universal PCI/PCI-X card.
Speed   Limited to ~133 MB/s (PCI Bus limit).
Boot Support   Variable; depends on the card's firmware.
Power   Check 3.3V vs 5V; ensure the card is keyed for 5V (standard PCI).
One thing to watch out for: The P5PE-VM is a Micro-ATX board. Ensure the length of the Sil3124 card (which is often quite long) doesn't hit your RAM slots or any capacitors on the right side of the board.

You said
i kno it will be capped at 133mb/s but it will support hot swap + NCQ? right?
Gemini said
Yes, you are correct on both counts. Despite the bandwidth bottleneck of the 32-bit PCI bus, the Silicon Image 3124 chipset handles these features at the controller level, meaning it doesn't "lose" them just because it's running in a slower slot.

Here is the breakdown of how those features will behave on your ASUS P5PE-VM:

1. Hot Swap (Hot Plugging)
The Sil3124 natively supports hot-plugging. However, there are two caveats to keep in mind for your specific setup:

The OS Matters: For Hot Swap to work, the operating system and the driver must support it. In Windows (XP/7), you usually need the "BASE" (non-RAID) driver for the drive to appear as a removable device. In Mac OS X (Tiger/Leopard), it generally works well with the Silicon Image SATARAID5 or BASE drivers, but the drive might take a few seconds to mount.

Power: Standard Molex-to-SATA power adapters technically don't support the "staggered" pin entry required for safe hot-plugging. If you plan to swap drives frequently, use a proper SATA power connector from your PSU.

2. NCQ (Native Command Queuing)
The card fully supports NCQ, which allows the hard drive to optimize the order in which it executes read/write commands.

Efficiency: Even though your throughput is capped at 133 MB/s, NCQ will still help with latency and "seek" efficiency, especially if you are running an OS with heavy background indexing (like Spotlight in Tiger/Leopard).

Drive Compatibility: Your SATA drive must also support NCQ (most drives made after 2005 do).

Important: BASE vs. RAID Firmware
Since you are likely using this for a boot drive or a single-drive setup, check which BIOS is flashed to your card. Silicon Image cards usually come in two flavors:

RAID BIOS: Good if you want to mirror drives, but can sometimes hide S.M.A.R.T. data from the OS.

BASE BIOS (Non-RAID): Generally better for single-drive performance and "truer" SATA behavior.

Potential Conflict: The P5PE-VM BIOS
The ASUS P5PE-VM has a somewhat "crowded" BIOS interrupt map because it’s a Micro-ATX board with onboard video (865G).

Tip: If the system hangs during the "Detecting storage devices" phase of the Sil3124 splash screen, try moving the card to the bottom PCI slot and disabling any unused onboard peripherals (like the Parallel or Serial ports) in the BIOS to free up IRQ resources.

[chrisNova777]

also for those people who wnat to dual boot between osx + windows using a SIL3124 card allows you to format a partition to be 32b or 64gb or even 96gb and use that as a partition to move data between the different OS installation reboots..

so does this mean using hte sil3124 card will allow me to have a drive of data that is shared between the two operating systems? that wil be accessible by the sil3124 card regardless which os i boot into?
Gemini said
Yes, that is exactly what it means. Using the SiI3124 card in the P5PE-VM allows the controller to act as a universal storage bridge that stays active regardless of which OS you boot into.

However, since you're dealing with the massive gap between OS X Tiger (2005) and Windows 98 SE (1999), the "sharing" part depends entirely on how you format that drive.

The Strategy: The Shared "Data Partition"
To make this work seamlessly, you should create a dedicated partition (or use a secondary drive) specifically for shared files.

File System Choice: FAT32 is your only native option.

Tiger: Can read and write FAT32 perfectly (appears as "MS-DOS FAT" in Disk Utility).

Windows 98: Native home territory for FAT32.

The Constraint: You will be limited to a 4GB maximum file size. This is usually fine for audio projects or documents, but if you have massive disk images or video files, they won't fit.

Accessibility Breakdown
Feature   OS X Tiger 10.4.11   Windows 98 SE
SiI3124 Driver   Native/Sonnet Driver   Silicon Image 9x Driver
Shared Drive Visibility   Appears on Desktop as "Untitled" (or your name)   Appears in My Computer as D: or E:
Hot-Swap Support   Yes   Limited (Safe to do only if no files are open)
Large Drive Support   Up to 2TB (GPT)   Requires 48-bit LBA Patch for >137GB
Critical "Gotchas" for the Shared Drive
Avoid NTFS and HFS+: * Windows 98 cannot see your Tiger boot drive (HFS+) without expensive, obscure third-party software (like old versions of Paragon HFS for Windows).

Tiger can only read NTFS; it cannot write to it natively.

Stick to FAT32 for the shared "transfer" space.

The 137GB Barrier in Windows 98: Even if the SiI3124 chip supports large drives, Windows 98 SE natively "blindly" wraps around data after 137GB, which will corrupt your Tiger data if you aren't careful. Since you have an X6800, you likely already have a patched setup, but ensure you have an LBA48 patch installed in Win98 before pointing it at a large shared SATA drive.

The "Boot" vs "Storage" Logic: I recommend keeping your OS installations on their own separate drives/partitions and using a third partition on the SiI3124 for the "Shared Exchange." This prevents one OS from accidentally touching the system files of the other.

Suggested Partition Map
Partition 1: HFS+ (Tiger OS - Invisible to Win98)

Partition 2: FAT32 (Win98 OS - Visible to Tiger)

Partition 3: FAT32 (Shared Data - Read/Write for both)

Does your SiI3124 card have two internal ports or four? If it has four, you could even just dedicate a cheap 120GB SSD purely to the "Shared Data" role to keep things physically separate and safe.

You said
it seems fat32 would be the only format for the partition that both os could see? right?
Gemini said
That is exactly right. For a "no-hassle" bridge between OS X Tiger and Windows 98 SE, FAT32 is the only filesystem that both operating systems can read and write to natively without needing third-party drivers or unstable "hacks."

While it's the most compatible, there are a few "rules of the road" you'll need to follow to keep your data safe between the two environments.

The FAT32 Compatibility Matrix
Feature   OS X Tiger (10.4.11)   Windows 98 SE
Read Support   Native   Native
Write Support   Native   Native
Max File Size   4GB   4GB
Max Partition Size   2TB (GUID) / 32GB (MBR)*   127GB (Native Limit)**
*Tiger Note: If you format the drive in Tiger's Disk Utility, it will let you create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB. However, Windows 98 might struggle to "see" the full size if the partition table isn't set to Master Boot Record (MBR).

**Win98 Note: Windows 98 has a built-in "Scandisk" and "FDISK" limit of 127GB. If your shared partition is larger than this, you must use the 48-bit LBA patch, or Win98 will eventually corrupt the data once you write past that 127GB mark.

How to Set Up the "Bridge" Partition
To ensure both the X6800 side (Win98) and the Tiger side see the drive perfectly, follow this setup order:

Initialize as MBR: Use Tiger’s Disk Utility to partition the drive. Go to the "Options" button under the Partition tab and ensure Master Boot Record (MBR) is selected, not GUID. Windows 98 cannot read GUID partition tables.

Format as MS-DOS (FAT): This is Tiger’s name for FAT32.

The "Naming" Rule: Keep the drive name short (8 characters or fewer) and avoid spaces or special characters (e.g., call it DATA or BRIDGE). Windows 98 can sometimes get confused by "Long File Names" in the volume label.

Are there any alternatives? (The "Why Use FAT32" logic)
Technically, other formats exist, but they are "Radioactive" for your specific builds:

NTFS: Windows 98 can't see it at all. Tiger can see it but can't write to it.

HFS+ (Mac OS Extended): Windows 98 can't see it. You could use a very old version of "MacDrive" on Win98, but it is notoriously unstable on fast Core 2 CPUs like your X6800 and often causes Blue Screens (BSODs).

ExFAT: Neither OS supports this. ExFAT wasn't introduced until late in the XP era and was never back-ported to 98 or Tiger.

One Final Pro-Tip for the SiI3124
Since the SiI3124 is a "PCI" card, Windows 98 will treat any drive attached to it as a Removable Drive by default. In your Windows 98 Device Manager, go to the properties of the disk drive under the SiI3124 and ensure "Removable" is unchecked and "DMA" is checked. This will ensure Tiger doesn't accidentally "lock" the drive in a way that prevents Win98 from mounting it properly after a reboot.

[chrisNova777]

whats the max size for fat32 partition under windows 9x
Gemini said
Under Windows 9x (specifically Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, and Windows Me), the theoretical and practical limits for FAT32 partitions are shaped by the architectural constraints of the era.

The Standard Partition Limit
While the FAT32 file system itself can theoretically support volumes up to 2TB, Windows 9x has a practical ceiling of 127GB (or approximately 137,438,953,472 bytes).

This limitation isn't strictly a "FAT32" issue, but rather a result of the 28-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing) used in the standard IDE/ATA drivers of the time. Once you exceed 127GB, the addressing system runs out of bits to map sectors, which can lead to catastrophic data corruption as the system "wraps around" and begins overwriting the beginning of the disk.

Key Constraints and Factors
Scandisk and Defrag: Even if you use third-party drivers to bypass the 127GB limit, the built-in Windows 9x utilities like Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter are 16-bit applications. They typically struggle or crash on partitions larger than 32GB or 64GB because they cannot handle the massive amount of cluster information in memory.

Cluster Size: FAT32 uses clusters to manage data. On a large partition, a 32KB cluster size is standard. If the partition is too large, the number of clusters becomes too high for the 16-bit FAT tables to track efficiently under 9x.

The 32GB "Format" Limit: While Windows 9x can read and write larger partitions, Windows 2000 and XP introduced an artificial 32GB limit when formatting new FAT32 partitions to encourage users to switch to NTFS. To create a 120GB FAT32 partition for a Windows 98 build, you generally need to use the 98 FDISK utility or a third-party tool.

Recommended Best Practice
For maximum stability on vintage hardware, it is generally recommended to keep partitions at or below 32GB. If you are using a larger drive (like an 80GB or 120GB HDD), splitting it into several 32GB logical drives ensures that Scandisk and other system tools remain functional and prevents the "out of memory" errors common in late-90s DOS-based environments.

You said
whats the max size of afat32 partition under windows 98SE when connected to a SIL3124 card
Gemini said
When using a Silicon Image SiI3124 controller on Windows 98SE, you are stepping outside the standard IDE/ATA limitations, but you still face the architectural ceilings of the operating system itself.

The 128GB Threshold
The primary hurdle for Windows 98SE is the 28-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing) limit. Standard Windows 98SE drivers cannot "see" or safely address storage space beyond 128GB (137GB decimal).

While the SiI3124 chip itself is a professional-grade SATA II controller that supports 48-bit LBA (allowing for Terabytes of storage), the Windows 9x driver is the bottleneck.

With standard drivers: You should not exceed a 120GB partition. Attempting to use a larger drive or partition will result in "wrap-around" data corruption once the 128GB mark is passed.

With 48-bit LBA Patches: If you use a third-party patch (such as the well-known Rudolph Loew's patch), Windows 98SE can theoretically handle FAT32 partitions up to 2TB.

Critical Constraints for the SiI3124
Even if you patch the OS to see the full size of a modern SATA drive, there are two major "soft" limits to consider for a stable build:

1. The Scandisk/Defrag Memory Wall
The 16-bit versions of SCANDISK.EXE and DEFRAG.EXE included with 98SE will fail on very large partitions.

32GB to 64GB: Usually the "sweet spot" for stability.

127GB+: Scandisk will likely report "Out of Memory" errors because it cannot track the massive number of clusters in a FAT32 table of that size.

2. The PCI Bus Saturation
The SiI3124 is a fast SATA II controller, but when plugged into a standard 32-bit PCI slot (like those on an ASUS P5PE-VM), it is capped at a theoretical maximum of 133MB/s.

While the card supports NCQ and Hot-Plug, using a massive partition (e.g., 500GB) doesn't provide a speed advantage; it only increases the time the system spends "thinking" during boot-up or disk repair cycles.

Recommendation for Your Setup
For a high-performance Windows 98SE build using that specific card:

Primary Partition: Keep your boot partition (C:) at 32GB. This ensures all native 98SE utilities work perfectly.

Extended Partitions: If you have a larger SATA drive, use FDISK (or a tool like Partition Magic) to create additional logical drives (D:, E:, etc.) in 32GB or 64GB chunks.

Total Disk Size: If you haven't patched the system for 48-bit LBA, do not use a physical drive larger than 120GB, regardless of how many partitions you make.