2910C problems

[Simon Whiting]

G'day Doug and aic7xxx people,

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find an archive of the
list, so here goes:

I am now the proud owner of a 2910C, however things aint well.  My machine is:
    P100 / 23M / 2x510M IDE Drives
    Adaptec 2910 (rev3) BIOS 1.11
    Redhat 5.2 (Bastardised to handle 2.2 kernels)
    Kernel 2.2.9
    aic7xxx version 5.1.17/3.2.4 (compiled into the kernel, ie not a module)
    IRQ 10, SCSI Host 7, Parity OFF, on board term DISABLED (though I have tried
EVERY combination)
    the drives/tape unit I am playing with having been working fine on my other
system with a 2940 for months

Problems:

a). On boot if I put the 2910C with nothing connected, then the system hangs
while it is probing for SCSI devices (This may be normal, I just don't know).

b). With a terminator (SUN SCSI-2 TERM) on either chain, with no devices, the
system starts booting into linux of the IDEs, then "scsi0: aborting command due
to timeouts" start occuring when it hits the Adaptec driver section.

c). Connecting a drive/tape unit(int/ext) doesn't help, though the drives
sometimes while splash up it has found it.

d). "stpwlev" and "override_term" tweaks didn't seem to make a difference,
though not to sure if I was aggrevating the problem.

e). "dump_card" gave some interesting (not sure what it means, but intersting
non the less) :
    PCI_COMMAND    0x7
    DEVCONFIG          0x100
    Loading Serial EEPROM...done
    BIOS disabled, IO Port 0x6000, IRQ 10
    IO MEM   0xe1000000, MMAP MEM  0xc280200
    EEPROM is not PRESENT
    SE Low Byte term enabled
<=== I could change this with "override_term"
    1 host
    Downloading <SNIP> 406 instructions <SNIP>
    scsi: aborting command due to timeout
    scsi: <SNIP> <lots of stuff referencing 0's only (eg LUN, ...etc...)>

f). "dump_sequencer" gave some even MORE interesting stuff:
    (scsi0) BRKADRINT error (0x20)
            Scratch Ram/SCB Array Ram Parity Error
    (scsi0) SEQADDR=0x9
<=== this was sometimes "0xa" I think

What I have tried:
    Searhing News/Web servers exhaustively
    Reading the "README.aic7xxx" from the Linux kernel source
    Patching the Kernel
    Every @#$%^& combination of:
        2910C card settings (ie parity ON/OFF, ...etc...)
        every combination I could think of for the "stpwlev" and "override_term"

        every combination of drives/tape unit (ie changing SCSI ids & order, but
not the other jumpers on the
                units)
        different types of terminators (eg SUN SCSI-2, SUN SCSI-3, IBM SCSI-1,
misc SCSI-1 & SCSI-2)
        hitting my head against the wall; kicking the cat; watching the cricket

What am I doing wrong, or is the CARD stuffed (the "SCB Array Ram Parity Error"
sounds nasty).

All help/suggestions greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Simon Whiting.






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