Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 16:53:36 -0000 (GMT) From: "Karl O. Pinc" <kop@meme.com> To: aic7xxx@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Doug Ledford <dledford@dialnet.net>, Jeremy <SmithJ@mps.bellhowell.com>, Brendan Miller <brmiller@wco.com>, Andy Kennedy <st0658@student-mail.jsu.edu> Subject: Re: pre15 woes w. both 68pin & 50pin Message-ID: <XFMail.981007181721.kop@meme.com> In-Reply-To: <19981006113626.04892@xenon.kudzu.gammalink.com>
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I'm going to take Doug's advice; try to rid myself of the different errors one at a time and then only hook up a limited set of devices. Here's the plan, if you think it's stupid, tell me: At one point I had a fit and low-level formatted a single drive, drive 0, while I was having trouble with the bus. Used the utility that's part of the bios. Drive 0 is now the one that's getting me parity errors. And apparently other errors. (I thought that 80:01 errors was /dev/sdb, the zip, but I took it off the bus and I still get these errors. It must be /dev/sda.) I'm going to unhook the narrow ribbon cable, set hi-ON low-ON termination in the bios, and re-format the drive. The idea being that with just the wide cable connected, the bus works. (Will this re-check all the blocks that arn't marked bad from the factory, or could I have lost some good blocks due to bus problems that I won't get back?) Then I'll re-make the filesystems on all the drives and re-install the OS. With luck, that will take care of my data errors. (If not, then what? My drive 0 is bad?) Then I'll try adding in the internal narrow ribbon cable to the CDR, and see if I get any errors. Next, I'll try to convert to external, and hook up the DAT drive. If that works I'll give up on the scanner and the zip drive and get another controller for them. This is going to take some time and I can't get to it right away. It may take a week. I'll post w. success or any unusual developments. Doug Ledford <dledford@dialnet.net> wrote: >OK...a few suggestions. Yes, you probably are trying to slide too much >stuff onto one bus. Personally, I like the 2910C cards for something cheap >to separate things up and that also works fine with external stuff. Second, >the errors you note indicate that there may already be bad data written to >the disks as a result of all of this. A SCSI bus will catch single bit >parity errors and pass 2 bit errors without any notice of problem. From >what I see, you may be susceptible to the dual bit error problem. There is >simply too much going wrong on your bus to trust that all errors will get >caught by parity. *oof* It's enough so that when I get the scsi error that says something like "resetting second half", my "cp" command reports an I/O error and hangs in a way that can't be broken with ^C. >I would see about getting a custom made internal wide >cable for the drives that only leaves about 3 to 4 inches between each wide >drive, terminate the last wide drive of course, hook the other end to the >controller and terminate the controller. Then, don't hook any narrow >devices to that controller. With just the wide devices and no narrow cable, the bus seems to work fine, Data-In parity errors excepted. >I would use something like the 2910C for all >narrow devices be they internal or external (this assumes none of the >internal stuff is Ultra, if it is, then you would need something like a >2940AU instead). The narrows are all either scsi-II or cheezy (zip & scanner.) I was hoping to hook the CDR and the tape drive to the "good" bus too, and then maybe get another card for the scanner and the zip. I don't want either the tape drive or the CDR on a cheap card with the low-end devices; the tape drive needs data to stream and the CDR needs constant data to burn CDs. I'm afraid the other devices will nab the bus and rain on my parade. (Maybe this fear is baseless. I have psychic scars from a CD drive that didn't support scsi disconnect.) It would be really dissappointing to have to have _3_ scsi controllers. It would make me wish I'd bought some IDE devices. On 06-Oct-98 Brendan Miller wrote: >> 4 Seagate ST-15230W hard drives (68 pin) >> (and, in the following physical order) >> Yahama 4260t series CDRW (50 pin), internal >> Python Dat tape drive (scsi II), external >> HP scanner detected as a C2520A (w. 1 centronics & 1 ugly 25pin D connector) >> Epson zip drive, external (Iomega licensed knock off w. 25pin D >> connectors & internal termination on) >> > >Have you tried removing the "cheezy" 25pin SCSI devices from the chain? >Also, how long is that chain? I had problems when I had wide and narrow >devices on a BusLogic 958 card 'cause my SCSI chain was something like >15 feet long. The chain is fairly long..., with everything connected. I figured I had 16 feet to play with, but with the long centronics to 25pinD cable that came with the scanner -- needed to match connectors, it's pushing this length limit. (The two internal ribbon cables go most of the way up and back down a full tower case. There's probably 6 or 7 feet right there.) Howsomeever, even with only one device on the 50 pin, the internal CDR, and the 4 wide drives, there are still some errors. But exactly what's occured is all blurred together now. Given data errors (?) I'm starting over. Daniel Eischen <eischen@vigrid.com> wrote: >You also got to ask how the heck all this stuff is connected. You've >got internal wide devices, internal narrow devices, and external >narrow devices. I *hope* all three connectors of the controller >are *not* being used! 4 disks on an internal wide cable w. termination built-in on the end of the cable. The internal narrow ribbon goes from the motherboard to the CDR to an external connector/converter to the tape drive to the scanner to the zip drive, which is terminated internally. Jeremy <SmithJ@mps.bellhowell.com> wrote: >You mention a SCSI-II external tape drive. I'll assume that it uses a 50-pin >connector of some sort. If that's the case and you end the bus with a 25-pin >Zip drive doesn't that leave your bus with a possible 25-pins that are >essentially just hanging off the bus w/o termination? I tried to arrange a >bus in a similar manner once and I continually got bus resets. Removing the >Zip and connecting it to an AHA-1515 did the trick. I always assumed that there was some magic in the boxes with 1 50 pin and 1 25 pin connector that handled this problem. Thanks a lot for all the help. Karl <kop@meme.com> Can't wait for firewire. (I wonder how the vendors will mess it up.) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-aic7xxx" in the body of the message
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