🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ASARY.95Dec3003706@elaine41.Stanford.EDU> asary@elaine41.Stanford.EDU (Al Sary) writes:

  Does anyone know if an NCR53c810 based PCI SCSI card will work in a
  SuperMicro P54VL-PCI motherboard?  Or do I need a card with a bios?
  If so, will I be able to boot from the SCSI drive, or only from IDE?

  Incidentally, is anyone using this motherboard with linux?  I haven't
  installed linux yet, but want to pretty soon.  Any comments, helpful hints
  would be greatly appreciated.

I used a SuperMicro P54VL-PCI for nearly a year and it did indeed provide
the NCR SDMS BIOS.  I can't comment on how well it would work with the
present NCR 53c810 driver; I could not get the ASUS SC-200 NCR 53c810 board
to work in the P54VL-PCI back then, but a lot has changed.

However, be warned that despite what the documentation may say, it is
impossible to mix bus mastering PCI and VLB cards in this motherboard, or
even PCI and ISA cards.  You'll find the system hanging unexpectedly or
failing to boot at all.  Even a VLB video card mixed with a PCI bus
mastering card was problematic in one configuration.  My STB Pegasus VL
would work fine with a BusLogic 445S (VLB) or 946C (PCI), but not with the
ASUS NCR 53c810 board.

Also, if you do use a PCI SCSI card, expect peak SCSI performance to be
less than half what a Triton board is capable of.

		Leonard