AHA-2940 Ultra/Ultra Wide

[Taras M. Dowhaluk]

G'day all,

I'm a sysadmin rather than a developer, so excuse me if this 
isn't the correct list.

I've found various discussions on this topic, including talk
of patches and upgrades to bios, etc, but still can't find the
definitive answer.

I have 2 machines, m1 is my personal workstation, and m2
runs a web server for a customer, and both run 2.2.2-RELEASE.

m1 has an AHA-2940U (bios 1.23),
          64Mb RAM,
          2 * IBM DORS 32160,
          other bits and pieces,
          1 external Jaz.
m1 works exceptionally well.

m2 has an AHA-2940UW (bios v1.25),
          128Mb RAM,
          2 * Quantum Fireball ST6.4S (scsi #1 is broken at the 
moment),
          1 internal Jaz.
m2 doesn't work at all well. It usually hangs after issuing
the messages similar to those below to the console. However on this 
occassion it was during a boot. It may run for 1 hour, it may run for 
1 day, but usually no more.

Mind you, m2 was working OK before I put the Jaz drive on.
So it could be the termination. Its the last on the chain and
I'm using the terminator that Iomega shipped. I can 'soak' the
jaz drive by writing/reading large tar files to/from it, and
it doesn't break. Walk away and some random time later its frozen.

Can someone help me out on this, is it the 2940 bios,
the aic7xxx driver, SCSI termination, or something
completely different ? I'm quite happy to provide whatever 
information anyone requires.


Here is a fragment from /var/log/messages for m2:
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: ahc0 <Adaptec 2940 Ultra SCSI host 
adapter> rev 0 int a irq 11 on pci0:10
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: ahc0: aic7880 Wide Channel, SCSI Id=7, 
16 SCBs
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: ahc0 waiting for scsi devices to settle
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: (ahc0:2:0): "QUANTUM FIREBALL ST6.4S 
0F04" type 0 fixed SCSI 2
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: sd0(ahc0:2:0): Direct-Access 6180MB 
(12657717 512 byte sectors)
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:0): "iomega jaz 1GB J^77" type 0 
removable SCSI 2
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: sd1(ahc0:6:0): Direct-Access 
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: sd1(ahc0:6:0): ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:24,0 
Invalid field in CDB
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: sd1 could not mode sense (4). Using 
ficticious geometry
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: ahc0: board is not responding
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: cmd fail
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: 
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: sd1(ahc0:6:0): SCB 0x0 - timed out while 
idle, LASTPHASE == 0x1, SCSISIGI == 0x0
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: SEQADDR = 0x7 SCSISEQ = 0x12 SSTAT0 = 
0x5 SSTAT1 = 0xa
Sep 11 12:04:18 www /kernel: 
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: sd1(ahc0:6:0): Queueing an Abort SCB
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: 0MB (1 512 byte sectors)
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:1): Abort Message Sent
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:1): SCB 0 - Abort Completed.
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:1): no longer in timeout
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: ahc0: board is not responding
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:1): SCB 0x0 - timed out while 
idle, LASTPHASE == 0x1, SCSISIGI == 0x0
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: SEQADDR = 0x9 SCSISEQ = 0x12 SSTAT0 = 
0x5 SSTAT1 = 0x2
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:1): SCB 0: Immediate reset.  
Flags = 0x1
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: (ahc0:6:1): no longer in timeout
Sep 11 12:04:19 www /kernel: ahc0: Issued Channel A Bus Reset. 2 SCBs 
aborted



regards, taras

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taras M. Dowhaluk
Director - Technical Operations
VisionDB Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia
email:      tarasd at visiondb.com.au
www:        http://www.visiondb.com.au
www:        http://www.biz.com.au
voice:      +61 2 99226615
facsimilie: +61 2 99568452
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~