[9fans] reliable scsi controllers?

[9fans] reliable scsi controllers?

[Mike Haertel]

Is anyone out there getting reliable results with a Tekram DC-390F?
This is (I think) a Symbios 53c875 based controller.

I have been experiencing odd hangs on a variety of machines--shortly
after the system boots, after kfs has started serving requests,
before the window system launches, the system locks up, with the
drive activity light solidly on.

It appears the faster the computer, the more likely this is to
happen.  It struck intermittently on my old slow computers; however
I recently tried to install a standalone Plan 9 terminal on a
PIII-800, and was not able to boot off the hard disk at all.
I finally downgraded to an old 53c810 controller and was able
to boot.

So:

1.  has anyone else seen this?
2.  is it Tekram-specific, or does it happen with any 53c875?

Re: [9fans] reliable scsi controllers?

[phaet0n]

In response to news:<200110070747.f977lmT93193@ducky.net>

Hey Mike,

I'm having no problems with my Tekram DC-390U2W,
however I believe that it's based on the 53c895
chipset. I'm running on a PII-333, so I can't
be sure if your problems are related to processor
speed. What I am sure about is that quite a while
back I flashed the firmware on my card. This
might help you, or might make your problem worse!
You should check out:
http://www.tekram.com/updates.asp?Product=DC-390_Series
Good luck!

ph
--

Re: [9fans] reliable scsi controllers?

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Mike Haertel wrote:
> I have been experiencing odd hangs on a variety of machines--shortly
> after the system boots, after kfs has started serving requests,
> before the window system launches, the system locks up, with the
> drive activity light solidly on.

Sounds like a cabling/termination problem to me.

Re: [9fans] reliable scsi controllers?

[okamoto]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 348 bytes --]

>It appears the faster the computer, the more likely this is to
>happen.  

Once upon a time, I reported similar problem for DC-390F between
P120 and Pen200(actually AMD).   I was wrong.   After that, I changed
one older (Wide scsi though) HDD, and the problem has gone.   This is
not for kfs, but for real file server of course.

Kenji


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From: jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] reliable scsi controllers?
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 12:12:47 -0400
Message-ID: <20011007161250.122F61998A@mail.cse.psu.edu>

On Sun Oct  7 03:48:21 EDT 2001, mike@ducky.net wrote:
> Is anyone out there getting reliable results with a Tekram DC-390F?
> This is (I think) a Symbios 53c875 based controller.

I've used a genuine Symbios 53C875 card in various machines without
trouble, some of them were faster than the one you're having trouble
with.

--jim

Re: [9fans] reliable scsi controllers?

[jmk]

On Sun Oct  7 03:48:21 EDT 2001, mike@ducky.net wrote:
> Is anyone out there getting reliable results with a Tekram DC-390F?
> This is (I think) a Symbios 53c875 based controller.

I've used a genuine Symbios 53C875 card in various machines without
trouble, some of them were faster than the one you're having trouble
with.

--jim