🚀 go-pugleaf

toy@crd.ge.com (Raymond L. Toy) writes:


>I borrowed an Adaptec 1542B to use in my machine for a while to see
>how things would go.  Sadly, they don't go very well.  

>I made a backup and then reformatted the disk using as suggested in
>the manual.  Restored from backup, and everything was just fine.
>Everything would work just as it used to.  Except when I pound on the
>disk reading and writing files.  Then, BOOM---internal processing error.

>It seems that under heavy disk activity, the whole system is flakey.
>It causes some program to halt with access violations.  When the disk
>activity stops, and I rerun the exact same program, everything goes
>just fine.  Other times the whole thing stops with an internal
>processing error.  Usually trap e at the same location.

>Some specifics:

>	AHA1542B, default settings, except 5MB/sec DMA.  Termination
>		resistors removed.
>	Mylex 386 motherboard
>	Conner internal harddrive, SCSI ID 0, terminated.
>	Archive tape drive, SCSI ID 4, external, terminated.

>	Beta aha154x.add from Adaptec BBS.  12/92 version

>The SP aha154x.add was really flakey.  The beta version was MUCH
>better---at least I can get some stuff done if I'm careful to
>single-task everything :-(.

>Does anyone have any suggestions and/or comments?  Since the 1542 is
>such a popular controller, I have to believe it MUST work better than
>this.  I'm doing something stupid I hope.

>Thanks for your help!

>Ray

>-- 
>Ray -----> toy@soho.crd.ge.com
>Toy -----> GE CR&D, KW-C407, 0x6270

I have never had good success with getting the Adaptec to work. I have
precisely the same symptoms as you describe, and with a similer
environment -- only I have *two* IDE drives on my IDE controller, in
addition to the SCSI drive. And I have a Wangtek tape drive. I have
just about given up on getting the SCSI drive to work under OS/2 for
now; I'm hoping that the 2.1 beta will behave better.

Oh -- I do know this is not a hardware problem. The system works fine
under DOS and Dell Unix.

Sridhar
-- 
M. A. Sridhar                  | 
Department of Computer Science | sridhar@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu (Internet)
University of South Carolina   | (803) 777-2427 (Ma Bell)      
Columbia, SC 29208             | (803) 777-3767 (Fax)
--
M. A. Sridhar                  | 
Department of Computer Science | sridhar@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu (Internet)
University of South Carolina   | (803) 777-2427 (Ma Bell)      
Columbia, SC 29208             | (803) 777-3767 (Fax)