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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.bri.connect.com.au!corolla.OntheNet.com.au!not-for-mail From: Tony Griffiths <tonyg@OntheNet.com.au> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: NCR SCSI Fatal errors! Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 19:07:31 +1000 Organization: On the Net (ISP on the Gold Coast, Australia) Lines: 43 Message-ID: <33855E53.6D5E@OntheNet.com.au> References: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970521173345.372A-100000@ipamzlx.physik.uni-mainz.de> Reply-To: tonyg@OntheNet.com.au NNTP-Posting-Host: swanee.nt.com.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (WinNT; I) To: "O. Hartmann" <ohartman@ipamzlx.physik.uni-mainz.de> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41490 O. Hartmann wrote: > > Dear Sirs. > > Using FreeBSD 2.2.2 produces a lot of errors when booting. > I switched these days from FreeBSD 2.1.7.1 to FreeBSD 2.2.2 > and my NCR 53C810 SCSI controler did its work well until the > switch. Sometimes when I must reboot the system this error > occurs like ncr0(0:0:0) FATAL ERROR and so on. I think its a > kernel problem and it should be possible to change some parameter > to solve this problem. We here have been using NCR 53C810 SCSI controllers for 18 months with FreeBSD 2.1.5 -> 2.1.7.1 -> 2.2.1 -> 2.2.2 and I have not had a single problem (with the controller) on any of the 3 machines that use this chip. Where I have had problems is with the SCSI cable(s) and termination. If you don't get this right then all sorts of strange things (random bus hangs for instance) can, and will, happen! > > An other problem occurs with my Wangtek ES5525 tape drive. When > I made the last backup under FreeBSD 2.1.7.1 all things seemed > to be clear, now I can not load the backup from tape. The drives > move shortly forward, then backward, then forward again - like dancing, > then, after a while, an error occurs like bad block at ... > What happened to my drive? I think this is maybe a kernelproblem, too. I think maybe a SCSI cabling/termination problem or a bad tape. A friend told me earlier in the week that he had a SCSI tape which just would not work reliably. That turned out to be incorrect cabling which was putting enough "noise" onto the SCSI bus to totally upset the tape drive. In this case it was a 1" (2.5cm) 'stub' cable between the drive and the SCSI cable. This is _TOTALLY_ illegal as it has transmission line reflection ramifications causing signals to 'ring' such that devices see multiple signal transitions when there should be only one. My guess is that you have something similar to this or have not terminated the cable at all, again causing signal reflections and ringing. Tony