*BSD News Article 53277


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!news.us.world.net!ns2.mainstreet.net!bug.rahul.net!a2i!sierra.net!martis-d225
From: jiho@sierra.net (Jim Howard)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: won't work w/ NCR PCI SCSI
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 95 23:31:16 GMT
Organization: Sierra-Net
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <461ec4$a7s_001@martis-d225.sierra.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.94.238.225
To: all
X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:7622

Neither NetBSD nor FreeBSD will work with the following hardware:

   ASUS PCI/I-486SP3G motherboard
   on-board NCR 53C810 PCI SCSI chip with:
      ID 0:  Micropolis MC4110 Fast SCSI-2 hard drive
      ID 1:  TEAC CD-50 SCSI-2 CD-ROM drive

In the following, all permutations of cache and chipset options have been 
tried:

NetBSD 1.0 installs and runs, but it uses asynchronous mode for the hard drive 
(transfer rates around 500 KB/sec), and it can't make sense of the CD-ROM 
drive and can't mount it.

The NetBSD 1.0A kernel, built on 1.0 with the NCR_IOMAPPED option, seems 
confused about the CD-ROM drive as well, then blows up and freezes before init 
starts.

FreeBSD 1.0 installs and runs very fast (hard drive transfer rates around 3.3 
MB/sec), but hangs or panics frequently, on either an ncr0 or virtual memory 
error.

I was unable to build a patched 2.0 kernel or a newer kernel release on 2.0, 
due to various changes and inter-dependecies.  It might be possible, but I 
gave up.

FreeBSD pre-release 2.1 (the second SNAP -- I forget the designation) blows up 
during installation and can't get to first base.

Linux and DOS (and Windows 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode) all work fine, but with 
lower hard drive transfer rates than FreeBSD 2.0 (around 2 MB/sec for Linux, a 
little higher for DOS, who knows or cares what for Windows 3.1).

--Jim Howard (jiho@sunset.net)