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Date:      Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:07:11 -0400
From:      Gary Chrysler <tcg@ime.net>
To:        David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>
Cc:        rich@oester.com, hackers@FreeBSD.org, questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: adaptec 154X support
Message-ID:  <31E7BB9F.6CAB@ime.net>
References:  <XFMail.960712213059.dkelly@hiwaay.net>

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David Kelly wrote:
> 
> On 18:32:45 "G.R.Gircys" wrote:
> 
> >have a fine ole dx2/66 board with adaptec 1542B (older style with
> >jumpers) - worked flawlessly with bsdi for 2 years - now moving to
> >freebsd and find that during 2.1 install (usually while copying floppy
> >resident files) system either hangs or panics (virt screen 2 messages
> >about scsi bus locked).
> >
> >so i try a newer card - 1542 C/CF series - works great.
> >
> >does freebsd support the older adaptec 154X A/B? in my caseseems the
> >answer is no.
> 
> Have you fiddled with bus timing on the Adaptec cards?
> 
> Along the same lines I have a 486DX33 that has worked fairly well with
> SCSI for several years. Until the first of the year. It started trashing
> files that were not being written to. Tried BIOS settings. Tried the
> Adaptec 1542CF settings. Tried another 1542CF, disk drives, UltraStor
> 14F, even finally got desparate and tried MS-DOS. More or less the same
> with everything, while everyting worked on other systems.
> 
> Decided the MB was broken. Pulled the SCSI card and its current uptime
> is about 75 days now. I hate PC's. Wish it would break good and proper
> so I could put it out of my misery. That box really nees a P166 in it,
> but then I might feel like the 640x480 256k VGA card would need to be
> replaced...  :-)
> 

I don't know if this has anything to do with your alls troubles
but maybe it'll be good info for somebody.

I have several Adaptec 1542CF's, For each and every one of them I
have had troubles with external drives. Never used one with
internal drives, So don't know about that.
The solution, Call Adaptec techsup they'll send ya a special
external cable and the troubles dissapear!
For FREE at that!

I don't pretend to understand the internals of SCSI cabling, So I
have no idea whats special about the cable, Just that it has solved
my problem each time!

I *belive* it has something to do with a tolarance range of
something in the SCSI cable spec, It's -xx to +xx and the 1542 falls
out of this range.. ?? Not really sure though.
They did explain it to me ~4 years ago.
I'm sure if those fried brain cells got tickled enough I would
remember.
When I bought my last 1542CF (less then a year ago) I did call and
recieved yet another free cable.

I wouldn't mind knowing/remembering.
I'll posts whatever is written on the cables if anyone wants it.
I more then likly have the paper work from them as well.

My experances with this problem have _NOT_ been in FreeBSD, But
other OS's/NOS's. MS-Dog and Netware to be exact!

I do have a 1542CF in my FreeBSD 2.1r box running a 3501B SCSI CD
and it works flawlessly. No SCSI HD's though.. (Yet)

-Enjoy
Gary
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