Re: My 2940uw doesnt work on a Dec Alpha

[Maurice Hilarius <maurice harddata com>]

With regards to your message at 05:14 PM 02-09-99 +0100, Stefan Boresch.
Where you stated:
>Sorry,
>
<snip>
>
>So, after following this thread my questions refer mainly to this last
>post by Maurice:
>
<snip>
>> I think that many of you may benefit by running the configuration program
>> for the adaptec card and setting each device for its bus width and data
rate.
>> Also setting the termination options there is a good thing.
>> While the Adaptec cards are <supposed> to autodetect these things and set
>> themselves, in my experience it simply isn't reliable.
>
>So, ...can I mix or not, the reports seem to be slightly contradictory.  
>
>> If you have ARC, AlphaBIOS, or similar BIOS types, you can get the
>> program to run for doing the setup (ACU.EXE) at:
>> http://www.windowsnt.digital.com/support/drivers/drivers.asp
>
>Why ACU.EXE, under AlphaBios one can execute the
>setup program anyways (or should I run acu.exe rather than hitting Ctrl-A?)
True, you can, as far as I know..
The point is I suggest that people should actually configure the
termination, width, speed, etc. for each device properly, rather than
trusting the card to "automagically" do it by itself.
>
>> In my experience, on almost any machine, with mixed drives, on any OS, with
>> whatever drivers, the 2940 is very reliable, *IF* you set it up properly.
>> If you don't they get "flaky".
>> I am sitting at my machine with an Adaptec 2940 in it and 5 devices,
>> various widths, types, speeds, typing this. It has been running this card
>> and most of these drives for 2 years. No problems.
>
>What does reliable mean: I thought this machine was reliable until one
>of my users started these GB transfers... -- anyone beating an Adaptec
>with this type of load?
I would bet $20 that if you stuck a decent active terminator after the
external disk, and disabled the termination on the adaptec ( make sure to
match the width) it would behave much better..

>BTW: With the Adaptec driver that came with 2.0.35, I could hang the
>machine by local file transfers between the internal and the external
>disk (swapper cannot sync, kernel panic, Aic7xxx: interupt routine
>seems to have segfaulted). I am reasonably sure that my network card
>(a 2114x based card by Lantronix) is OK, since without the external
>disk there are no problems. Also, the problem can be reproduced by nfs
>or ftp.  What is annoying is that with the 2.0.36 I don't get any
>error messages (neither to the console nor to the syslog), the machine
>is just *dead*.  I have lowered the maximum transfer rate to 5MB/sec;
>this delays the problem, but doesn't prevent it from occuring
>eventually.  Personally, I am currently not excluding bad termination
>or a bad cable for the external disk -- this is something I need to
>check next, but I appreciate all hints concerning Adaptec drivers.
>Alternatively, what are good Ultra-SCSI controllers -- I really need
>this external disk on this machine...

Well, I always have thought the Intraserver cards based on a Symbios Logic
chip are better. In my experience thay are more reliable, and faster.

www.intraserver.com   available through many reputable Alpha Linux resellers.


Best regards,

  Maurice W. Hilarius             NEW!  Telephone: 01-780-456-9771
  Hard Data Ltd.                  NEW!  FAX:       01-780-456-9772
  11060 - 166 Avenue                    email:maurice@harddata.com
  Edmonton, AB, Canada  - T5X 1Y3       http://www.harddata.com