From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Aug 15 09:17:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA04382 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:17:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA04374; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:17:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id JAA22999; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:11:59 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199708151611.JAA22999@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: NCR 810 fatal errors during install. (desperate plea) To: nadav@barcode.co.il (Nadav Eiron) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:11:59 -0700 (MST) Cc: se@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Nadav Eiron" at Aug 15, 97 12:48:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > However, the Handbook section on hardware seems to suggest there's a > problem with the arbiter in the Neptune chipset. My BIOS setup (it's a > phoenix BIOS) has an option called "PCI Arbiter". It's currently set to > System Default, and has a big red warning on it saying it is dangerous to > change if you don't know what you're doing, but it may be what we need. > Do you have any idea what I should set it to? The options it has are > System Default, Pure Rotating, and one for each master (i.e., CPU, > Built-In SCSI, ISA Bus, PCI Slot 2 and PCI Slot 3). The bus arbitration on Netptune and similar chipsets could only arbitrate between two bus master PCI devices, and would become confused if you had more. This is well documented. > Any advice on what to try here, if at all it would help, or should I just > do trial and error? My advice is "change nothing until you talk to someone who will be able to tell you the consequences of the change, preferrably the board manufacturer". Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.