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Date:      Sat, 30 Nov 1996 18:00:17 +0100
From:      se@freebsd.org (Stefan Esser)
To:        marcs@znep.com (Marc Slemko)
Cc:        hardware@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Tekram 390U and Seagate hawk ST32151N
Message-ID:  <Mutt.19961130180017.se@x14.mi.uni-koeln.de>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.95.961130030000.5685A-100000@valis.worldgate.com>; from Marc Slemko on Nov 30, 1996 03:09:01 -0700
References:  <Pine.BSI.3.95.961130030000.5685A-100000@valis.worldgate.com>

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On Nov 30, marcs@znep.com (Marc Slemko) wrote:
> Anyone have any trouble making a Tekram 390U SCSI controller work with
> certain disks?  What we are seeing is that it hangs on probing the disks
> after the SCSI bios is installed, but if you go into the bios setup it can
> probe them, scan them, etc. with no problems.  It works fine with tape
> drives and an old 300 meg drive we tried.

I'm using an DC390F, and it seems to be a very nice card.
But I also had some problems with boots hanging, recently.
(It always works if I press the RESET button on my box,
though. It may be a problem with the NCR driver setting
controller registers to values that the warm boot code in
the cards BIOS does not expect ...)

Their Web-Server (www.tekram.com) doesn't seem to offer
any SCSI BIOS upgrades. (My card got release 1.60).

> Tried lowering the SCSI bus speed, disabling things that could cause
> problems, etc.  See the same thing when we try it with a different type of
> Seagate.  Yes, the bus is properly terminated and we have tried multiple
> cables.

When does it hang:

1) After showing the brand/model of the drive ?
2) After finding all devices on the SCSI bus ?
3) After loading the FreeBSD kernel ?

I just wondered whether you have a WIDE drive connected
to the Tekram. This could cause problems, since an 8bit 
cable is used to connect a WIDE capable SCSI chip (the 
53c875) and a WIDE capable drive, then ...

(Although the 390U offers only an 8bit SCSI bus, it does
in fact use a WIDE SCSI chip. The 390F is identical, but
comes with a WIDE and an 8bit internal connectors and a 
WIDE external connector ...)

> No, the question isn't really freebsd specific but there has been some
> discussion of the Tekram here a while back...

Yes, I added support for the Tekram Ultra-SCSI cards to 
the NCR driver. (More to come soon ... :)

And I still think they are the best SCSI cards, especially
taking their price into account.

I'd like to get this sorted out as soon as possible, to 
have a chance to get this fxixed for 2.2R ...

Regards, STefan



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