Re: lsi/ncr scsi & 9.2

From: David W Studeman (eat_your_own_spam_at_hormel.com)
Date: 11/25/04 

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:11:43 -0800

lew@csus_abcdefg.edu wrote:

> On 2004-11-16, Rüdiger Wenzel <ruwenz@pr-ruwenz.hl.uunet.de> wrote:
>> lew@csus_abcdefg.edu wrote:
>>
>>> On 2004-11-16, Rüdiger Wenzel <ruwenz@pr-ruwenz.hl.uunet.de> wrote:
>>>> lew@csus_abcdefg.edu wrote:
>>> For trouble in 9.2 with the symbios/ncr chipset scsi controllers,
>> [snip]
>>>> Do you now use the sym53c8xx from SuSE 9.2 or still the old one from
>>>> SuSE 8.1?
>>>>
>>> I'm using the sym53c8xx from SuSE 9.2. When I did "alt-f2", I think,
>>> during the install, the msgs were saying parity errors several times on
>>> the scsi when the install was trying to load the sym53c8xx; so I decided
>>> to try disabling parity checking for the devices on the scsi controller
>>> using the controller's "f2 or f6 to access the utilities" when the
>>> computer boots up.
>>>
>>> Thought I've read somewhere that parity checking for memory is also a
>>> big pain in the ***.
>>
>> I don't get parity-error-massages, but lots of DEVICE- and BUS-resets.
>> And the Dawicontrol DC 2980 U2W setup utility has no option to disable
>> parity checking. BTW, what LSI-chip is on your Tekram? The DC 2980 U2W
>> has the 53c985. This may be crucial, but differences may as well be
>> related to BIOS and firmware. I think I've better contact Dawicontrols
>> support before wasting more time in monkey business :-((
>>
> I also got many bus resets before unsetting the parity checking.
>
> The Tekram DC-390F uses the *sym53c875* according to the linux scsi info
> in /proc. Will double check on reboot next time tho the manual says the
> 390F has the sym53c875 also.
>
> The utility is within the controller & also allows booting from scsi
> device even before an IDE harddrive (!) since the controllers are checked
> before the bootable harddrive (?); anyway the embedded utility is a very
> nice feature & I thought all scsi controllers have them now.

 Wouldn't you know it? I have the same types of problems described here. If
you really want to see bus resets plus other atypical behavior on the
53c8xx chips, load cdroms into all your rom drives and watch it boot up
THAT way. A lot of my problems having to do with burning may not be due to
the 2.6.8 kernel entirely after all. BTW, I use scside converters from
Acard and disable all my ide stuff. Up until now with Linux, my audio
extraction rate was always higher on the same drives as soon as I took them
off the ide bus and put the scside bridge on them. I got 16x audio
extraction on a six year old Pioneer slot load cd-rom as soon as I bridged
it to scsi. All good until you wind up with this particular driver on this
particular card. I would guess this is why my tape drive doesn't behave
well and gets i/o errors at random times trying to do a restore of certain
directories. I do have other cards I can use. Just remember to load the
right modules in your initrd BEFORE shutting down and installing. I have
done this nice little oversight on an occasion. Sigh........
 Sorry about my ramblings here, just got home from a root canal and am on
meds. Any of you fellow scsi enthusiasts know of any other driver problems
besides this particular Lsi series of chips? Thanks guys! 

-- 
Dave