From owner-freebsd-hardware  Fri Jun  7 12:42:26 1996
Return-Path: owner-hardware
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA15160
          for hardware-outgoing; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 12:42:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from GndRsh.aac.dev.com (GndRsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA15151;
          Fri, 7 Jun 1996 12:42:22 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by GndRsh.aac.dev.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA11811; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 12:42:02 -0700
From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com>
Message-Id: <199606071942.MAA11811@GndRsh.aac.dev.com>
Subject: Re: Which dual Pentium motherboard? Cyrix SMP?
To: michaelv@HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 12:42:02 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: gpalmer@FreeBSD.ORG, dave@persprog.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG,
        freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <199606071808.LAA12249@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> from "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" at "Jun 7, 96 11:08:34 am"
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL11 (25)]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> 
> >David Alderman wrote in message ID
> ><26C84A7DC0@novell.persprog.com>:
> >> Moral of the story:  EISA/PCI is fine as long as the floppy controller is 
> >> on the motherboard.
> 
> >Umm. You must have had a weird card. The Adaptec 1742 (for example)
> >has onboard floppy, is an EISA card, and works under FreeBSD. As I
> 
> The floppy on my BusLogic BT747s also works great under NetBSD on my
> 486-based EISA system.  Are you specifically saying that something
> specific to a PCI/EISA bus breaks EISA-based floppy controllers?
> Because, I haven't seen any problems in a strictly EISA system.

The problem is that if you take a brand new EISA motherboard out of the
box, plug a 1742 or BT747 or any other EISA card with the floppy controller
on it you can not boot from the floppy since the EISA card containing the
controller has not been configured into the EISA conf structures, and thus
by default the board will be disabled until you configure it.

Catch 22, can't boot from the floppy controller on an EISA card to
configure it.  This is a very annoying problem with EISA cards that
happen to also be your floppy controller card.

It also rares it's ugly head even once you get it configured if the
EISA config in NVRAM gets lost or corrupt, or if you move cards, etc, etc...


-- 
Rod Grimes                                      rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Accurate Automation Company                 Reliable computers for FreeBSD