Why do I need "aic7xxx=no_reset" ?

Fri Dec 31 09:21:26 PST 1999

Hi, 

I have a Adaptec 2940AU scsi card in my Pentium II PC, which is connected to the following drives: Quantum fireball SE4.3S disk, Plextor PX-32TS CD-ROM, and external Jaz2 disk. 

For several years I had been using RedHat Linux versions, when about a year ago I tried to upgrade to RedHat 5.2. I could not do it, because the installation software reported that there was no CD-ROM drive. Finally, I used Windows to copy the CDs to the Windows partition, and did a hard disk install. 
This year I have tried many newer kernels and aic7xxx versions, but the result is always the same: the Plextor is just not recognized at boot time, and is absent in the 'dmesg' output. 

There is really nothing wrong with the Plextor, when I fetch a Jaz cartridge with RedHat 5.1 the CD-ROM is fine, and it nver gave any trouble under Windows. 
There is no firmware upgrade for my Plextor, and there is no other jumper setting combination at the back that seems to make any sense (parity is enabled by a jumper). 

As a last attempt before asking this newsgroup for help, I started to try  boot command line options described in the README.aic7xxx of a recent kernel. The very last I tried was "aic7xxx=no_reset". And that gave me my Plextor back. This is really curious, as the documentation says: 
"If you have problems at bootup, please make sure you aren't using this option."

Below are two pieces of 'dmesg' of two subsequent aic7xxx versions with 'verbose' turned on. 
The first is from a 2.0.35 kernel with aic7xxx version 5.0.19. This is the last aic7xxx version that recognizes the Plextor without having to use the no_reset option. The second dmesg output is from the same kernel upgraded to aic7xxx version 5.1.0. It fails, as do all newer versions. 

The Quantum and Jaz disks work fine with all versions, but comparing the outputs leaves me with a question: why has the newer aic7xxx a wrong value for the driverbyte? (Recent aic7xxx versions no longer produce these byte contents.)
aic7xxx 5.0.19: Driverbyte=0x00(DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 
aic7xxx 5.1.0:   Driverbyte=0x28(invalid,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 

I would appreciate a proper explanation for the CD-ROM trouble, and of course would like that newer aic7xxx drivers work fine without having to use the 'no_reset' option. 
Does the Plextor just need more time after a bus reset?
Did older aic7xxx versions not reset the bus?

Yours sincerely,
Fons Laan.

< aic7xxx 5.0.19 >-----
(scsi0) <Adaptec AHA-2940A Ultra SCSI host adapter> found at PCI 12/0
(scsi0) Narrow Channel, SCSI ID=7, 3/255 SCBs
(scsi0) BIOS enabled, IO Port 0x6800, IRQ 15
(scsi0) IO Memory at 0xe9010000, MMAP Memory at 0x0
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 413 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.0.19/3.2.4
       <Adaptec AHA-2940A Ultra SCSI host adapter>
scsi : 1 host.
(scsi0:0:-1:-1) Scanning channel for devices.
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 0 lun 0. Return code 0x00000000
Driverbyte=0x00(DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 
scsi: performing INQUIRY
scsi: INQUIRY successful with code 0x0
  Vendor: QUANTUM   Model: FIREBALL SE4.3S   Rev: PJ0A
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 1 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 2 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 3 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 4 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 5 lun 0. Return code 0x00000000
Driverbyte=0x00(DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 
scsi: performing INQUIRY
scsi: INQUIRY successful with code 0x0
  Vendor: PLEXTOR   Model: CD-ROM PX-32TS    Rev: 1.02
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 6 lun 0. Return code 0x00000000
Driverbyte=0x00(DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 
scsi: performing INQUIRY
scsi: INQUIRY successful with code 0x0
  Vendor: iomega    Model: jaz 2GB           Rev: E.17
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi removable disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
scsi : detected 1 SCSI cdrom 2 SCSI disks total.
resize_dma_pool: needed dma sectors = 63
resize_dma_pool: dma free sectors   = 64
resize_dma_pool: dma sectors        = 64
resize_dma_pool: need isa buffers   = 0
(scsi0:0:0:0) Synchronous at 20.0MHz, offset 15.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8418816 [4110 MB] [4.1 GB]
(scsi0:0:6:0) Synchronous at 20.0MHz, offset 15.
SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 3915600 [1911 MB] [1.9 GB]
sdb: Write Protect is off
Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 >
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4

< aic7xxx 5.1.0 >-----
(scsi0) <Adaptec AHA-2940A Ultra SCSI host adapter> found at PCI 12/0
(scsi0) Narrow Channel, SCSI ID=7, 3/255 SCBs
(scsi0) Cables present (Int-50 YES, Ext-50 YES)
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 419 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.1.0/3.2.4
       <Adaptec AHA-2940A Ultra SCSI host adapter>
scsi : 1 host.
scsi0, channel0 : Current error 00:00: sense key Unit Attention
Additional sense indicates Power on, reset, or bus device reset occurred

scsi: scan_scsis_single id 0 lun 0. Return code 0x28000002
Driverbyte=0x28(invalid,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 
scsi: performing INQUIRY
scsi: INQUIRY successful with code 0x0
  Vendor: QUANTUM   Model: FIREBALL SE4.3S   Rev: PJ0A
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 1 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 2 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 3 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 4 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi: scan_scsis_single id 5 lun 0. Return code 0x26030000
Driverbyte=0x26(DRIVER_TIMEOUT,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x03(DID_TIME_OUT) 
scsi0, channel0 : extra data not valid Current error 00:00: sense key Unit Attention
Additional sense indicates Power on, reset, or bus device reset occurred

scsi: scan_scsis_single id 6 lun 0. Return code 0x28000002
Driverbyte=0x28(invalid,SUGGEST_ABORT) Hostbyte=0x00(DID_OK) 
scsi: performing INQUIRY
scsi: INQUIRY successful with code 0x0
  Vendor: iomega    Model: jaz 2GB           Rev: E.17
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi removable disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
scsi : detected 2 SCSI disks total.
resize_dma_pool: needed dma sectors = 42
resize_dma_pool: dma free sectors   = 48
resize_dma_pool: dma sectors        = 48
resize_dma_pool: need isa buffers   = 0
(scsi0:0:0:0) Synchronous at 20.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 15.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8418816 [4110 MB] [4.1 GB]
(scsi0:0:6:0) Synchronous at 20.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 15.
SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 3915600 [1911 MB] [1.9 GB]
sdb: Write Protect is off
Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 >
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/aic7xxx/attachments/19991231/e8b5d4ff/attachment.htm