Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 7 Sep 1999 05:21:27 -0400 (EDT) | From | Rik Faith <> | Subject | Re: Adaptec 2920A & fdomain.o (again) (Bugzilla #4670) |
| |
On Mon 6 Sep 1999 15:57:26 -0400, Chuck Mead <chuck@moongroup.com> wrote: > banner: > AHA Adaptec2920 BIOS Version 3.0 1994-1995 [...] > scsi0: <fdomain> No BIOS; using scsi id 7 > scsi0: <fdomain> TMC-36C70 (PCI bus) chip at 0x6100 irq 10 > scsi0 : Future Domain 16-bit SCSI Driver Version 5.50 > scsi : 1 host. > > We have 3 of these cards with two of them in operation right now so I've got > plenty to choose from for testing!
It is always good to try more than one card. And it sounds like you tried more than one motherboard. Did you also try more than one disk drive? And more than one SCSI cable? (E.g., vs. moving the drive and cable from one machine to another? -- I can't tell if you're doing this or not.)
When I sent you private email about this a week ago, I suggested that the kinds of problems you are seeing are typical of incorrect termination or a bad device. Incorrect termination doesn't always make the SCSI bus fail completely. Instead, incorrect termination can make the SCSI bus fail for certain regions of the disk and/or under certain kinds of load. I think this is what you are seeing, especially with the SCSI timeouts you reported.
Since it sounds like you have two SCSI devices in your machine (the disk drive and the SCSI controller), you should have each physical end of the cable plugged into a device. If there are terminating resistor packs on the devices, they should be plugged in. SCSI controllers often have termination settings in BIOS, or do autodetection (which is often wrong, so you should use a jumper or BIOS setting if available). Modern disk drives often have jumpers for termination, and a separate jumper for "active termination" or "termination power". You should have the SCSI controller and _one_ disk drive provide termination power (drives often autodetect the need for termination power (or autodetect when the proper jumper is in place)). There should be nothing plugged into the external SCSI connector on the card, and you should not use passive resistor packs plugged into the end(s) of the SCSI cable.
I'm really sorry that I can't help more. On occasion, there are people who report bugs like the ones you have reported. Most of the time, when those people solve their problem, the problem is bad termination, a bad cable, or a failing disk drive. The rest of the time, they get another controller, and we never reach resolution of the problem. Since I can't duplicate failures like this on my test system, I suggest you try another type of SCSI controller. The Future Domain chipset is very old, and most modern SCSI cards, even cheap ones, will have better performance than the one you have now.
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |