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From: gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu (Gene Stark)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: 32megs on a VLB board
Date: 13 Oct 94 09:41:37
Organization: Gene Stark's home system
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <GENE.94Oct13094137@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu>
References: <37fcjs$ajj@case.cyberspace.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.cs.sunysb.edu.
In-reply-to: valko@cyberspace.com's message of 11 Oct 1994 18:02:52 -0700

In article <37fcjs$ajj@case.cyberspace.com> valko@cyberspace.com (Jack Valko) writes:

   I apologize if this is in a FAQ, but I can't seem to get a straight answer 
   on whether or not I can use 32MB with a VLB SCSI Card with FreeBSD 1.1.5.  
   If I can, which cards work?  If that list is too long, can someone tell 
   me which cards don't work?

Here is what I recall, probably someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
The available VLB SCSI cards I know about are (hopefully I got the #'s right):

	Adaptec 2742
	Buslogic 445S
	Ultrastore 34F

Forget the Adaptec 2742, because Adaptec will supply programming information
only under nondisclosure, so FreeBSD doesn't support it.  The Buslogic 445S
has had problems with various revisions.  The last report I heard is that
it is at least safe to use it with >16MB as long as you enable bounce
buffers, so that you don't attempt to use it to DMA into memory above 16MB.
The current revs of the board might in fact work completely correctly,
but I'm not certain of that.  It seems to me that I have heard that some
people are using the Ultrastore, but I have vague recollections of reading
reports about flakiness.

That's the straightest answer I can give right now.  The situation is
not particularly pretty.  The situation is better for EISA cards, I think.

							- Gene Stark