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Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 12:42:32 -0700
From: Scott Long <scottl@freebsd.org>
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To: Ade Lovett <ade@freebsd.org>
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cc: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org
cc: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: dump card state: amd64 + 300G seagate + Adaptec AIC7902 +
	5.3-stable
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Ade Lovett wrote:

> Scott Long wrote:
> 
>> The firmware on two of those drives is dangerouly old and broken.  I'd
>> suggest contacting Seagate for an update, and keep a fire extinguisher
>> and some holy water nearby until they are upgraded.
> 
> 
> Newer firmware doesn't make any difference to this particular problem.
> 
> The combination of U320, Adaptec, Seagate, and ahd is very, very prone 
> to weird and wonderful warnings, errors, failures, lockups, and general 
> crapness.
> 
> Somewhat unsurprisingly, things seem to be significantly worse with 
> integrated aic7902 chipsets on the motherboard, than with the equivalent 
> PCI-X cards.
> 
> By all means update the firmware -- particularly in this case -- but 
> don't expect it to be the Holy Grail.  You *might* get lucky, but the 
> odds are significantly stacked against you.
> 
> -aDe

Some versions of the Adaptec U320 chips work better with cables, and
some work better with backplanes.  In general, none work well with
anything that isn't very simple and clean.  68->80 pin converters are
very problematic, for example, as are cable->backplane junctions.  In
any case, whomever at Seagate tech support is making wild claims about
64-bit support and FreeBSD should be ignored.

Scott