BIG problem with 1542B and Quantum disks

[Rick Kelly]

In article <1991May9.002915.262 at wyvern.uucp> tmanos at wyvern.uucp (Tom Manos) writes:
>
>Hello netters,
>
>I need help in a big way.
>
>I've started having problems with my UNIX system since I installed an
>Adaptec AHA-1542B and two Quantum SCSI disks: a ProDrive 210S and a ProDrive
>105S, both internal.  I'm running with the following h/w & s/w:
>Zeos 386/20, 8MB RAM, no coprocessor, generic VGA card.
>Microport SysV/386 r3.2.2 with the Columbia Data Products driver set.
>
>I'm experiencing the following symptoms:
>
>When both drives are installed and mounted doing:
>find <drive1> -depth -print | cpio -pd > <drive2>
>will hang the system after a random but small number of copies.  The disks
>will seem to slow down for a few seconds, until they come to a complete halt
>from which there is no return save the reset button.  The second disk is
>totally unusable. As long as I'm only accessing one disk, everything works.
>
>When only the 210S is mounted, the system will run, but disk throughput
>seems slow, and when there is intense disk activity (like when news is being
>processed), keyboard response is agonizingly slow while waiting for the
>disk.  Sometimes it takes more than a minute for a response.  Also, even
>with only one drive mounted, I've noticed that when using the floppy
>(with cpio for instance), the floppy head will do wierd seeks, like it got
>a read error and is retrying, when there is SCSI disk activity.  I'm
>running the floppy off the 1542B. 
>
>The AHA-1542B is configured as follows:
>SCSI id 7
>Synchronous transfer enabled
>SCSI parity enabled
>DMA channel 5
>DMA request 5
>DMA acknowledge 5
>Interrupt channel 11
>DMA speed 5MB/s
>Adaptec bios enabled
>bios base addr DC00
>auto sense enabled
>
>The drives are configured as SCSI id 0 & 1, with parity enabled.  I've got
>terminators on the 1542B and the farthest drive from the card (the 105S).
>
>Can anyone tell me what my problem could be?  Microport can't.  Alliance
>Peripheral Systems (my retailer) can't.  I've got a 105MB doorstop right
>now that I need to make useful.
>
>Please help!
>Thanks!

Try pulling the Synchronous Transfer jumper and see if it makes a difference.
Your drives may not have the MODESELECT set for RESELECTION, which could cause
the trouble you are seeing.

I'm running two Quantum PRO-80s on an Adaptec 1540A with no problem.

Rick Kelly	rmk at rmkhome.UUCP	frog!rmkhome!rmk	rmk at frog.UUCP