Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!ames!decwrl!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!alm From: alm@netcom.com (Andrew Moore) Subject: Cheap ethernet cards (was Re: Cheap motherboards, SCSI and 386BSD: Caveat Emptor) Message-ID: <1992Oct26.211350.16688@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) References: <1992Oct22.062740.9025@netcom.com> Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1992 21:13:50 GMT Lines: 34 In article <1992Oct22.062740.9025@netcom.com> I (Andrew Moore) write: >I have spent the last three afternoons at my local computer store >trying to run 386BSD on several brands of cheap 386/40 motherboards >with an Adaptec 1542B SCSI controller. But as previously reported in >the case of some 50 MHz systems, there are caching problems which >result in corrupted files and file systems. Disabling cache seems to >eliminate corruption. In addition, caching does not seem to be a >problem with a SCSI controller under DOS. Nor does corruption seem to >occur if an IDE controller (and disk) is used instead of a SCSI when >running 386BSD. > >If a cheap motherboard is not accompanied by a testing report showing >compatibility with at least SCO and SCSI, then buyer beware! After a little more investigation, the problems described above have traced (in my case) to a WD 8013 clone (Danpex). I have yet to try a real SMC (WD) on board, so I cannot entirely rule out the motherboard as the source of the problem (though it is not a simple case of the Danpex grabbing the SCSI interrupts, or such - as might be the case with older motherboards). Since the Danpex 2016 is a 16-bit card, I have tried it will all WD patches from the patchkit installed (Thanks Terry!:) patch00020, patch00043, patch00047 and the appropriate options in config. The io buffer is set to 16K in the config, so I don't think the Danpex is walking over memory. Needless to say I have tried variations, including 8-bit configuration. Since others seem to be using SMC 16-bit cards without incident (some with SCSI controllers and RAM caching enabled, I presume?), the burden of the doubt seems to rest on Danpex. All comments are welcomed. Thanks. -Andrew Moore <alm@netcom.com>