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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!werple.apana.org.au!otis.apana.org.au!serval.net.wsu.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!oracle.pnl.gov!osi-east2.es.net!cronkite.nersc.gov!dancer.ca.sandia.gov!overload.lbl.gov!lll-winken.llnl.gov!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!hookup!news.mathworks.com!news.ultranet.com!newsie.dmc.com!spdcc!merk!rmkhome!rmk From: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) Subject: Re: FreeBSD and Adaptec 1542CF SCSI Organization: The Man With Ten Cats References: <3b2u2e$27u@scoob.xap.com> <Roy-2711942134250001@adept.cts.com> Message-ID: <9412012201.35@rmkhome.com> Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 03:01:40 GMT Lines: 42 Roy Lovejoy (Roy@AdeptSolutions.com) wrote: : In article <3b2u2e$27u@scoob.xap.com>, nb@xap.com (Nathan Bradshaw) wrote: : > My roommate installed 2.0 RELEASE yesterday on his new Pentium 90 VLB/PCI : > 16Mb with an ISA Adaptec 1542cf and a Conner 1.2Gb disk. Overnight it : > bombed out with an error much like: : > sd0: aha0: aha154x debug: timeout (again) retrying: (frozen?) : > ...repeated again and again forever. It boots fine and if left alone will : > have this condition again after a couple hours. : Nathan: : This isn't really regarding FreeBSD, although I have a Dell 486 running : NeXT Step, but IT has an Adaptec 1542c card. I get the same message(s) if : the SCSI chain is too long. I think that the spec's say something like 6-9 : feet, but the adaptec card likes < 4. That's really not too much, : considering most SCSI <-> SCSI cables are 3 feet. : My advice is to get those 18" cables and keep your SCSI connections AS : SHORT AS POSSIBLE. : That has *ALWAYS* solved the AHA timeouts for me. I have 2 systems here. One is a NetBSD system and the other is Coherent. The Coherent box is a 486DX33 with 16 megs of memory and an Adaptec 1542cf with about 9 feet of SCSI cable. It is a news, mail, and development box that grinds away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with nary a timeout from the Adaptec. I have the Coherent driver sources, and the SCSI driver doesn't seem to do any special dance with a 1542cf. Maybe it's a termination problem or some SCSI peripheral is wedging the SCSI bus. I have used the 154xA and 154xB controllers with 15 foot, flat, unshielded SCSI cables without the problems above. -- Rick Kelly rmk@rmkhome.com rmk@bedford.progress.com rmk@tencats.tiac.net