Adaptec 2940 UW Pro on Linux

[Steffen Moser]

Hello,

Reiner Suikat wrote:

> I'm wondering if anyone on this list might be able to help me. I'm trying to
> get an Adaptec 2940 UW Pro, Bios V2.11, to run on a RedHat 6.1 Linux system.

I have the same problem here: Adaptec 2940UW Pro, Adaptec-BIOS: 2.11.0,
SuSE Linux 6.1, Kernel 2.2.13 (i.e. "aic7xxx-5.1.20"). The system simply
stops after the message "downloading sequencer code (413 instructions)",
even the "Magic SysRQ feature" does not work, so I have to press the
"reset" button.

Only one internal SCSI device (Yamaha CRW-8424S) is connected to the
Adaptec controller. I don´t think that there is a hardware problem,
because:

 a) it is running fine under WinNT4 and Win95

 b) I haven´t found any obvious hardware problem (termination, SCSI id),
yet. 

> Here are the symptoms:
> Linux identifies the adapter as an 2944 Ultra (it DEFINITELY is an 2940 UW
> Pro)

The same here...

> If there is a device connected to the external (wide) bus, then everything
> works fine, the system boots and appears to run at normal speed.

Although this sounds quite interesting, I don´t have any external SCSI
devices, so I cannot do this test.

> If there is no external device connected (which is my normal situation),
> then the system will hang after the message
> downloading sequencer codes (413 instructions) ...

The same here. Some days ago I applied the "5.1.20"-patch, which is
available at

  http://people.redhat.com/dledford/aic7xxx.html

to kernel-2.2.13.

Because kernel-2.2.13 already comes with "aic7xxx-5.1.20", the patch was
applied backwards, so now I have kernel-2.2.13 + aic7xxx-5.1.19. ;-) I
compiled this patched kernel, and now the system works fine!

That means, I can use my connected internal SCSI-Device "Yamaha
CRW-8424S" without any problems, without having an external device
connected to the Adaptec controller. The controller is also identified
as an "AHA-2944 Ultra", but this seems not to be problematic. 

It looks like that the version "aic7xxx-5.1.19" does not have this
problem with the "Adaptec 2940UW Pro" controller. So as long as there is
no neat solution for the problem, I will continue using version "5.1.19"
of "aic7xxx". 

At the moment I am compiling the new linux kernel (2.2.14). I expect
that the problem will occur (2.2.14 comes with "aic7xxx-5.1.21") again,
so I think I have to patch also kernel-2.2.14 to use the old (5.1.19)
"aic7xxx" driver. 

BTW: There aren´t any problems when booting from a SuSE 6.1 boot disk
(kernel 2.2.10) and from a Corel Linux boot disk (kernel 2.2.12)... 

> (Termination is set to automatic, the controller runs fine with NT4.0)

It sounds very interesting that the problem does not occur if there is
an external device present. So perhaps there are problems with the
automatic termination? As soon as I have time, I will also test
different Adaptec-BIOS settings...

Bye,
Steffen


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