Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 18:33:52 +0100 (MET) From: Gerard Roudier <groudier@club-internet.fr> To: Marc van Woerkom <van.woerkom@netcologne.de> Cc: ngr@symbionics.co.uk, freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SC200/ncr53c810 problems Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.1000213175703.1123A-100000@localhost> In-Reply-To: <200002102357.AAA10864@oranje.my.domain>
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On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Marc van Woerkom wrote: > > The ncr53c810 is not PCI2.1 compliant, which I have found to matter. Early 53C810 are PCI-2.0 compliant. Differences between PCI-2.1 and PCI-2.0 should not explain 53C810 failures, on paper. However hardware has issues as software and may-be some issue can be triggerred when associating recent hardwares with old ones. And given the zero interest in things that donnot give income in our world, such kind of problem will for sure be ignored. On the other hand, the chip or board can be broken in a way that let it=20 work but with a high rate of problems that makes it unusable for real work. Another difference is that old PCI chips require 5 Volt PCI, while recent PCI boards uses 3.3 Volt PCI preferently but can support 5V PCI. I donnot know if this difference can explain problems encountered with 53C810 based controller, but I expect vendors to be more careful about 3.3 Volt PCI than 5 Volt PCI or mixed 3.3 Volt / 5 Volt PCI. I mean that we may not want to mix 3.3V PCI boards with 5V PCI boards on a given PCI BUS, even if this is claimed to be supported. > > Heavy pressure on the bus is more likely to reveal this. I'm sure > > an 875 based card would improve matters, but hey, I'm not there. >=20 > What worries me is that I have seen very few bug reports regarding > 810 cards. So most people seem to have no trouble at all. I still use a 53C810 rev 2 on my personal machine at work. Run Linux and FreeBSD and from time to time has to suffer running NT. No problem. But the machine is indeed not a server. > Heck, guess I will buy a new controller anyway. >=20 > What is preferable? >=20 > a) a SYM53C875 based card > b) a SYM53C885 based one=20 The 885 is a 2 function devices that incorporates a 875-like core and a=20 network chip. Linux has a driver for the network part and I donnot seem=20 to find one in FreeBSD. If FreeBSD hasn't a driver, the Linux one's could= =20 be ported. The source code looks fine. If you didn't want or need LVD (low voltage differential), the 53C875 (or= =20 53C876 dual-channel) will be just fine. For Ultra2/LVD a 53C895 or 53C895A or 53C896 (dual) would be ok. Depends on how much money one wants to pay for one's SCSI controller(s). Regards, G=E9rard. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message
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