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From: rhh@ct.picker.com (Randall Hopper)
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Subject: Re: Promise EIDE 2300 Plus
To: hardware@FreeBSD.org
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 07:53:33 -0500 (EST)
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> From: nwestfal@indigo.csci.csusb.edu (Neal Westfall)
> Subject: Promise EIDE 2300 Plus
>                                                   can anyone 
> recommend a good VLB EIDE controller with I/O ports that does 
> work?

I've used both the Tyan 1342 VLB-EIDE and (for a day now) the Vitrex
M626VL.  I was unable to get the Tyan serial ports to work with Zmodem (strange
board interaction -- not IRQ/DMA conflict) under DOS so I switched to the 
Vitrex.  So far it's been running my 2 hard disks (WD 340M and Connor 540), 
IDE CD-ROM, and modem with no problems.  Haven't tested the other serial port 
or parallel yet.

Both boards (so far) appear to work equally well with FreeBSD 2.0.  Both 
boards have 2 16550 serial ports, 1 Std/ECP/EPP/ECP+EPP parallel port, 1 game 
port, and 2 IDE controllers.  The Tyan board supports up to 4 floppies but the 
Vitrex supports only 2.  Both support 2.88 Meg floppy drives.  As far as 
performance goes, I get 1.75 Meg/sec off the Tyan and 1.85 Meg/sec
off the Vitrex for my Connor.  VL optimizations available via a jumper on the 
Tyan; software settable on the Tyan (via driver that's pass-through or TSR).  
32-bit HD access in Windoze is available via that driver with TSR option.

(?)

That brings me to the question I have for this group.  If the card needs a
TSR driver in DOS to do 32-bit access (in Windoze), does that mean I would
need a similar driver to get this same access in FreeBSD or other operating 
system?  Also, the docs say that the DOS driver needs be run to tweak the 
boards registers for max VL-IDE performance (gets me up from 1.1 Meg/sec to 
1.85 Meg/sec).  Does FreeBSD support this for Vitrex cards, and if not, what 
is the policy on incorporating board-specific optimizations into the kernel 
drivers (I'd be willing to look into this).

						Thanks,

						Randall Hopper

_____________________________________________________________________________
     Randall Hopper               |   CT Visualization and Connectivity
     Senior Software Engineer     |   Picker International
     rhh@ct.picker.com            |   FAX: (216) 473-7098