Question 1

Does power connector and HDD activity LED connect wire come with this?

Accepted Answer

No, to get power to the SATA drives, you'll need to use one of the cables coming from the power supply. This card provides only the data.
It also doesn't come with any LED activity light cables. To view the HD's activity I use a program called WinBar on my Dell and one called MenuMeters on my Macbook Pro. These give you hard drive indicators on your screen.

Question 2

will this fi a dell xps 9100?

Accepted Answer

I can't find really good documentation on the XPS9100. But it appears that this computer has one PCI-e x16 and one PCI-e x8 slot(s). The x16 slot would work with this card, but chances are the blue x16 slot is occupied by a video card, leaving you the longer "black" x8 PCI-e slot toward the center of the motherboard (the 3 smaller ones will not work with this card). Provided that x8 slot (or x16 slot) is free, this card should work fine in either. You might want to open your computer up and make sure its free before ordering. For completeness, the card has worked for me under Win 7 and Linux (it is now running under Linux), so I can't speak to it's compatibility with Win 10 (although I don't doubt it will work with Win 10).

Question 3

Can this card be installed in a PCI Card slot (PCI 1)?? I have an upgraded dell studio xps. with Win 7. I can install it in a PCI express slot but I would like to avoid that, as both of mine have boards installed in them already and my PCI E x16 has a video board in it. The only open one left is the PCI Card slot (PCI 1)??

Accepted Answer

Correct, PCI is physically different and does not support the speeds needed to drive this card (PCI max performance is USB 2.0). This card MUST have PCIe (PCI Express) slot. Note, it will also not work in a standard PCIe 1x slot, must be in a 4x, 8x, 16x (since I've never seen a 2x) slot.

Question 4

I just installed this board today.  The Sata works great and USB doesn't work at all.  Loaded all the drivers more than once but cannot get the thing to even know a USB device is plugged into it.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Accepted Answer

you need to go back into the setup instruction sheet and find the jumper settings. It is internal OR external USB ports only. I beat my head on the desk a few minutes before I saw this.

Question 5

I bought 2 Samsung 840 pro SSD drives and Windows 7 professional 64-bit.  My motherboard is an Asus P5N-D motherboard, which has USB 3.0 & SATA I. Would you recommend using this or not?

Accepted Answer

The Syba combo card has worked well enough for my purposes, but if you want to run two Samsung 840 Pro SSDs, you'll probably want to go with a RAID stripe which will improve performance and longevity of the drives.  That said, the Syba combo card is not a RAID solution.  I have a similar setup in another machine and I'm using the HighPoint RocketRAID 640 PCI-Express 2.0 x4 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card which works like a champ for an inexpensive RAID solution.  If you want to go true hardware RAID, you are looking at much more money.

I'm using the Syba combo card in a Dell Precision workstation class machine that didn't have SATA III or USB 3.0, and for adding these features, it has been great.  Using it with a Samsung SSD EVO drive and an external USB 3 Seagate Drive on Windows Server 2012 R2 (similar to Windows 8.1).  Can't complain at all.

Question 6

Does anyone know the technical reasons for having to repair/reinstall the OS is you're booting from this card?

Accepted Answer

I have no reasons why this is happening. I only have half of this card as the usb3 port section... try removing the card first after you turn off the PC and removing all ac power. then turn on the PC without the card and uninstall its software. then reinstall the software to recognize the card first! then again turn off the pc and remove the ac power and insert the card. turn on the PC and see if the BIOS recognizes it as new hardware, then you can then install its drivers found in another folder and then the PCIe card will work...do not plug anything in except the FDD (Floppy Disk Drive connector or its SATA Power connector for its USB port power. You may have to add a ‘Y’ SATA or IDE cable to get an extra power port. Do not add anything else or connect anything else before the drivers are installed. I do have a full sized PCI card that was installed this way with the IDE port, one SATA 3 port and eSATA port and no USB ports... the other four PCIe cards is from HP was also instructed the same way, I know it is a bear to install.

Question 7

I am looking to maximize my throughput on a Samsung 850 EVO using a Sata 3 controller. The description says x4. The image of the box shows as x2. Question is, is this a x4 lane card, if not which is recommended? I'm currently using an ASROCK x58 Extreme motherboard with Sata 2.

Accepted Answer

Honestly, I'd avoid this thing all together. It works when it wants to. It's finicky on which PCI slot you put it in. On my p6t6, it worked on slots 2, 4 and 5. With my z170a m7 it worked on slot 3 only. Sometimes on restart the product would just stop functioning / be detected. Syba's response was to wipe my hard drives and start over with a new Windows install.

To answer your question, it is a PCIe x4 card. BUT it is built as a PCIe x2. So think lawn mower engine in a mustang. It is only 33% faster than a sata 2 connection. And as far as I know, this is the only sata 3/usb 3 card on the market. (it's a rebranded version of the abandoned Asus version)

You will also need your own Molex connection. It doesn't come with anything packaged with it other than the software.

Question 8

hi
will this card have a bios that allows you to boot the computer from a drive connected to this card?

Accepted Answer

This card is network ready, but I don't think it can run stand  alone, it needs a processor.. ie PC to run it, to the best of my knowledge

Question 9

Does the card come with the plug in cable?

Accepted Answer

No, it uses a standard floppy power connection from your PSU

Question 10

How much power will it draw from the power supply?

Accepted Answer

Sorry I don't know how much power it draws.  It did solve my issues (only had USB 2.0 and SATA I) and I've had no problems using it.

Questions & Answers