From owner-freebsd-questions Wed May 8 18:12:19 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id SAA18029 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 8 May 1996 18:12:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wdl1.wdl.loral.com (wdl1.wdl.loral.com [137.249.32.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA18016 for ; Wed, 8 May 1996 18:12:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from miles.sso.loral.com (miles.wdl.loral.com) by wdl1.wdl.loral.com (5.x/WDL-2.4-1.0) id AA19245; Wed, 8 May 1996 18:11:09 -0700 Received: by miles.sso.loral.com (4.1/SSO-SUN-2.04) id AA21485; Wed, 8 May 96 21:09:35 EDT Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 21:09:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Toren X-Sender: rpt@miles To: questions@freebsd.org Cc: techsup@buslogic.com Subject: Buslogic 445C & AMD DX/4-133 fails Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Oh SCSI masters... I have been using the BusLogic 445C controller with my DX-66 system for the past 2 years. I am now trying to upgrade my system with a new motherboard and processor. The bottom line is that all tries have ended in a situation where the 'post' completes, but the boot hangs where it should be accessing the disc. I have been through 3 motherboards and 2 processors and they all act the same way. ? has anyone used a BT445C at a speed above 66 MHZ? The different components have been a: 'Pine' motherboard (that turned out not to do bus mastering). 'HOT-419' 486 VL-Bus Green Main Board. 2 different AMD Am5x86 -P75 \n AMD-X5-133ADW processors. With each of the possible combinations, I did find that if I disabled the internal cache, occasionally it would boot (even the non-mastering) one. The HOT-419 let me adjust the VLB speed (>33, <33) insert a VLB write wait state, adjust the 'RDY# delay' and the 'ADS#" signal. All to no avail. The response from BusLogic was : >Dear Sir: There have been numerous reports of problems with L1 caching >with some of the 5x86 and AMD chips when using a busmastering controller, >which results in a non-boot situation unless the cache is disabled. That >sounds like what you're running into. The typical external VL bus speed >is 33 MHz, and the ISA bus speed should still be around 8 MHz. >Busmastering is required in the slot the card's using, so you might check >to be sure that it's enabled. (It's also possible that the L1 cache >enable turns off busmastering.) > >The adapter itself should be able to handle 40 MHz in a stable VL >motherboard, but we have had reports of some of the clone motherboards >becoming unstable at bus speeds over 33 MHz. > >Your bios and firmware are not current, but that should not prevent the >card from booting. > >Regards, >Jo Kellner >BusLogic Technical Support ? Does this sound reasonable ? What are the odds of two defective AMD processors? ? Should I just get a new SCSI controller? If so what brand and model? Needs to be bootable, handle 2+ drives, 2 GB drive size, Work with FreeBSD, DOS / Windoze, prossibly bus mastering for performance? ? Does the bus mastering add significant performance? ? Shud I set this mb up for the kids with an EIDE disc as a screeming 'Doom' machine? ==================================================== Rip Toren | The bad news is that C++ is not an object-oriented | rpt@miles.sso.loral.com | programming language. .... The good news is that | | C++ supports object-oriented programming. | | C++ Programming & Fundamental Concepts | | by Anderson & Heinze | ====================================================