From ns.itep.ru!CERN.ch!EU.net!gatech!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!news.cyberstore.ca!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!unixg.ubc.ca!duffy Sun Aug 20 21:04:11 1995 Path: ns.itep.ru!CERN.ch!EU.net!gatech!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!news.cyberstore.ca!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!unixg.ubc.ca!duffy From: duffy@theory.chem.ubc.ca (Pat Duffy) Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.os.os2.setup.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Subject: SUMMARY: PCI SCSI controllers for OS/2 Date: 16 Aug 1995 05:36:10 GMT Organization: The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 407 Message-ID: <40s04a$f2j@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> Xref: ns.itep.ru comp.os.os2.misc:130250 comp.os.os2.setup.misc:1696 comp.os.os2.setup.storage:1166 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc:34565 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:40478 Document: PCI SCSI controllers for OS/2 list Maintainer: Patrick Duffy, duffy@theory.chem.ubc.ca Last Revision Date: August 15, 1995 Archived at: ftp.netcom.com, in directory /pub/ab/abe/ Web pages: http://warp.eecs.berkeley.edu/os2/workbench/work.htm This is the PCI SCSI controllers for OS/2 list. I've placed a '*' beside the cards which I would recommend for anyone assembling an OS/2 system. If you see '**' beside a particular card, this is an indication that I would choose it myself when picking a PCI SCSI card for my own system. The PCI vendor name and ID have been added in brackets below each card's description. The first number is HEX and the second is decimal. As usual, please feel free to correct any continuing misconceptions I might have, or to insist that I should recommend a component I don't, or to add a new card/bit of information to what's here already. Your contributions and/or corrections are always welcome and certainly appreciated. General comments: Make sure that for any SCSI device (if you have an Intel board) you have at least the seventh or eighth revision of the Intel PCI BIOS on your motherboard (rev. 13 is out for the 90/100 MHz boards, and fixes some problems with rev. 8 and SCSI support, and so is preferred). Earlier AMI BIOS revisions would not work properly with SCSI and (apparently) protected mode. In addition, it turns out that some SCSI cards will only work with some motherboards. If you're not sure what card to pick, cross-check this list with the PCI motherboard list. Note also that the Intel PCI Saturn chipset (rev. 1) had problems with cache integrity, and rev. 2 had problems with PCI to CPU burst mode, so that you're probably really better running these motherboards without SCSI controllers, or at the very least with all caches off. See the PCI chipsets list for further details on known problems with (Intel) PCI chipsets. One other motherboard-related issue apparently is that not all PCI slots on all motherboards allow busmastering. As all the cards in this list _are_ busmastering, ensure that the slot in which you put your SCSI card will accommodate a busmaster. Certain controllers (the Adaptecs most prominently) behave very erratically when put in a non-busmastering slot. Many motherboard manufacturers simplify the choice of SCSI controller further by including an NCR SCSI chip (for which there are OS/2 drivers) in their boards, so there is the potential that if you buy one of the cards listed below you could be buying a redundant SCSI interface. Check first. Make sure too that you get the latest drivers for the NCR chip (available from ftp.symbios.com); these now allow DMA transfers above 16 MB where earlier drivers did not. Note too that PCI SCSI controllers do not include floppy controllers on-board, as most PCI motherboards have these built in already, and fixed-address devices like floppy drives are not a good thing to put on a PCI bus. Also note: OS/2 2.1/2.11 does not recognize PCI as anything different from a (very fast) ISA bus. It therefore is unaware of PCI's ability to share interrupts, and so if you put two of any one controller in any slot you're likely to have problems. This has been fixed in Warp, which is now apparently PCI 2.0-compliant. One more thing: If you have a motherboard with the NCR BIOS built in and you get an NCR card, make sure you get a card without the NCR bios on it, to save yourself some potential trouble that some card BIOSes seem to have coexisting with motherboard BIOSes (which cannot be disabled). I'm told that the newest rev. of the Intel BIOS (1.00.13.AX1) will also fix this problem. Useful Numbers: --------------- Adaptec: (800) 959-7274 (tech. support) ftp.adaptec.com (ftp site) http://www.adaptec.com (web site) ftp.adaptec.com (ftp site) Advansys: (408) 383-9400 (sales) (800) 525-7440 (tech. support) (408) 383-9753 (FAXback) (408) 383-9612 (FAX) (408) 383-9540 (BBS - N81) ftp.advansys.com (FTP site) http://www.advansys.com (WWW site) BusLogic: (408) 970-1414 (tech. support) DPT: (800) 322-4DPT (sales) (407) 830-5522 (tech. support) (407) 831-6432 (BBS) Intel: (800) 628-8686 (tech. support) -- for the NCR controller NCR: stu.nuffer@ftcollinsco.attgis.com (OS/2 tech. support) ftp.symbios.com (NCR SCSI drivers) QLogic: (800) 867-7274 Washburn (AMI): (800) 836-9026 / (716) 248-3627 (General inquiries) (800) 836-8028 (faxback and information about specials) (716) 383-6086 (tech. support) (716) 381-7549 (FAX) Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ Adaptec 2940* This is Adaptec's non-RAID SCSI controller for the PCI bus. The basic 2940 uses fast SCSI (SCSI-2, 10 MB/S), and the 2940W uses fast/wide SCSI (SCSI-2, 20 MB/S). There latest driver for the card (available from the Adaptec FTP site) now supports the extra driver switch /PCIHW, which tells the driver to bypass the PCI BIOS and query the PCI hardware directly for configuration information. This switch should now enable the adapter to work on most systems. The controller is definitely known to work with the Intel Premiere and Premiere II boards as well as most (if not all) of the Asus boards. The cards will not coexist with the Quantum Empire 1080S drive when communication speed between the drive and controller is set to 10 MB/sec (they won't recognize it during the BIOS scan, which makes it difficult to boot...). If you're not sure whether the 2940 will work in your setup, you can call the Adaptec FaxBack service (408-957-7150) and request document 21105, which gives a list of PCI systems tested with the card. (It may be necessary to disable the green functions in the motherboard's BIOS to get the card to work properly.) There have been reported problems with getting the 2940W to consistently recognize either a Fujitsu or a Seagate 1 GB HD. As the 2940 and 2940W are essentially similar controllers, this problem may be endemic to both. (Adaptec: 9004/36868) Under 2.1/2.11: This card will work with the driver found on ftp-os2.cdrom.com. Under Warp: Driver support is built in, though not as robust as it could be (from reports I've seen on the .net). The latest driver (mentioned above) should fix this. Note: Many of the problems people have reported with the card may be due to things beyond Adaptec's control: Some problems may be caused by BIOS bugs. The reason for this is that the drivers included with OS/2 Warp make use of BIOS calls to configure the PCI BUS. These calls fail in older BIOSes which do not support this feature properly. The latest drivers have as an option writing directly to the PCI hardware instead. This option should be used (by adding the /PCIHW switch to the basedev line for the adapter) if the driver fails (either that, or update the BIOS, if possible). Of course, if you can't update the BIOS and your motherboard does not support a driver which writes to the PCI hardware directly (some don't), you're stuck. Adaptec 3940 This is Adaptec's two-channel SCSI controller for the PCI bus. Like the 2940, it comes in a fast-only model (3940, 7 devices on each channel for a total of 14 devices, 7 of which may be external) and a fast/wide model (3940W, 15 devices on each channel fora total of 30 devices, 15 of which may be external). To put more than one channel on a card, Adaptec employs two AIC7870 processors (one for each channel) linked by a PCI-PCI bridge. In order for these cards to work, therefore, your system _MUST_ support PCI-PCI bridges, and not all do. Check with Adaptec and/or your system motehrboard manufacturer before proceeding. That said, I'll say that I've had no reports of success with the card (likely because it's so new), but given that the 2940 now seems to co-exist peacefully with most motherboards it should work well. (Adaptec: 9004/36868) Adaptec 3985 This is Adaptec's RAID controller, and performs some RAID functions automatically with more than one drive attached. In a manner similar to the 3940, the 3985 uses multiple (three in this case) AIC7870 chips linked by PCI-PCI bridges to support up to 21 devices on the adapter. It also has a dedicated RAID coprocessor to handle all RAID 5 parity calculations. It comes with software (Netware-based, I think) to monitor the array status and performance from the server console or any windows-based client on the network. The adapter supports hot swapping of drives and hot spare drives. All connections to the card are standard 50-pin, and no wide model exists. I've had no reports of success with the card. (Adaptec: 9004/36868) Advansys ABP9XX Advansys is a relative newcomer to the SCSI controller market, but they make what appear to be a very nice line of SCSI controllers. All adapters run on the same driver (drivers are available for OS/2, NT, DOS, SCO, Interactive, Win/95, and Netware). All adapters are capable of starting a local I/O request 10 microseconds after the SCSI bus is detected as being free. They should, therefore, be ideal for RAID applications (especially the higher-end controllers). The controllers also auto-terminate, so that you need not worry about termination problems if you have a removable external device attached. I've had no reports of success with these adapters and OS/2, though I suspect that since the driver exists, they should work. (Advanced System Products: 10CD/4301) The controllers themselves are: 1. ABP950 -- 2 channel SCSI adapter with 500 I/O requests stored locally on the adapter. 50-pin high-density external connector. 2. ABP940 -- 1 channel SCSI adapter with 250 I/O requests stored locally on the adapter. 50-pin high-density external connector. 3. ABP930 -- 1 channel SCSI adapter with 20 I/O requests stored locally and a 50-pin high-density external connector. 4. ABP920 -- 1 channel SCSI adapter with 20 I/O requests stored locally and a 25-pin low-density external connector. AMD AMD makes a SCSI controller chip which is apparently used by Zeos and Compaq in their computers. OS/2 drivers are apparently shipped with the boards which use it, and it is reported to work well, though I've had no direct reports about it yet. (Advanced Micro Devices: 1022/4130) AMI MegaRAID Here's a controller for the truly power-hungry. This is a fast/wide controller with three separate SCSI channels, each of which supports up to 15 peripherals (so you can attach up to 45 SCSI devices to _one_ card). It uses an Intel i960 RISC processor to control all this, and will take up to 128 (!) MB of cache (in 72-pin SIMMs) on the controller itself. It is PCI 2.0-compliant and supports all the regular SCSI features, as well as RAID. Three NCR53C720 processors (one for each channel) are used. The card has 50 and 68-pin internal connectors and a 120-pin external connector. It is fault-tolerant. I've no reports of success with this card as yet, but driver support is there, apparently. (American Megatrends: 101E/4126) BusLogic BT946C This is BusLogic's PCI SCSI controller. The same SCSI controller chip is apparently used in their VL card, and so the drivers for that card will work with the PCI card as well. There are apparently five revisions of the PCI card out, the first two of which (released before Nov. '94) were not PCI 2.0-compliant. The newer revsions (C, D, and E) _are_ PCI 2.0-compliant, but people have been having problems getting revision C running properly on motherboards with Opti chipsets (apparently the PCI controller is not being programmed properly). To get the older cards (A and B) running, you have to either set the card to match the IRQ pin in your PCI slot (usually A, B, or C), or move the card to slot A (where the card is set initially). Failure to do so will result in hangs under Warp (but apparently not 2.1/2.11). To tell what version of the BsuLogic Card you have, either look at the revision number in the model (it's indicated there), or have a look at the firmware and BIOS levels on startup. The firmware version should be 4.22 for rev. B, and 4.23 for rev. C. Bios version 4.86 is for rev. B, and 4.90 is for rev. C. (Buslogic: 104B/4171) Deal of the week: $180 from ASA Computers 2354 Calle Del Mundo Santa Clara, CA 95054 (408) 496-6853, X201 (phone) (408) 988-0359 (fax) Billy@ASAComputers.com (Billy Bath, sales) DPT PM2024* This card sounds like a less extravagent version of the PM3224 below. The card apparently uses a Motorola 68000 chip for SCSI operations and, like the PM3224 below, will do caching and RAID, but apparently you must purchase the cache module and RAM separately for the card in order to do it. The card is reported now to work well with Warp (drivers in the Warp box), with the caveat that the card is full-length, and that there is no plastic guide for the 50-pin connector on it. (Distributed Processing Technology: 1044/4164) DPT PM2124* This is a similar card to the 2024 above. The primary difference between this card and the 2024 is that the 2124 uses a 20 MHz Motorola 68020 for SCSI operations, in contrast to the 16 MHz 68000 used by the 2024 above. The card has been reported to work very well with Warp and Warp Connect (with 8 MB of cache installed). (Distributed Processing Technology: 1044/4164) DPT SmartRAID Now _this_ sounds like a card for PM3224** high-performance fanatics. Driver support is included with the card. The card is caching (RAM must be purchased separately) and, once RAM is added, will do RAID automatically out of the box (once additional drives are added). Quite obviously, these cards are _not_ cheap... They are reported, however, to work very nicely under Warp. (Distributed Processing Technology: 1044/4164) Future Domain TMC-3260SVP This card _will_ work with the 60 MHz Intel Pentium motherboard, with one reported exception, and one note. The exception: It hangs during BIOS initialization during the device scan if a SCSI tape device (the reported one was a Wangtec 5525ES) is connected. Replacing this tape drive with a Conner 2GB DAT drive solved the problem (switching the older tape drive to SCSI-2 mode did not). The note: FD sets things up differently than most other SCSI adapters, in that the hard disk with the HIGHEST ID is set to drive C:, and is the boot drive. (Future Domain: 1036/4150) Deal of the week: $105 from ComputAbility (800) 554-9950/(414) 357-7814 NCR ** NCR makes boards and chips for OEMs (but does not sell the boards themselves). Boards using this chip are available from Acculogic, Asus, and others (note that Intel is no longer selling this board). One of these boards is used in OS/2-certified systems of which I know. As all of the NCR chips support busmastering, are PCI 2.0 compliant, and are available in your choice of fast/wide SCSI combinations (the Acculogic is made special note of here for its wide array of possible connectors), they are both fantastic bargains and highly recommended at typically about 25% of the price of the Adaptecs. One thing to check for when picking your SCSI card is whether or not your motherboard has the NCR BIOS built into the system BIOS. The Intel Premiere and Premiere II motherboards mentioned in the PCI motherboard list certainly do, as do many others. If you don't have the supporting BIOS built into your motherboard, cards are available with BIOSes on them (the card by NexStor for example) which have BIOS support built in. (NCR: 101A/4122) In any case, the chips themselves are as follows: NCR53c810 - FAST SCSI-2, no BIOS NCR53c815 - FAST SCSI-2, BIOS NCR53c820 - FAST WIDE SCSI-2, no BIOS NCR53c825 - FAST WIDE SCSI-2, BIOS Setup tips: It may be necessary on the Intel motherboards (during install only -- I haven't had this problem when running OS/2 the rest of the time) is to set IRQ9 to 'used' in the flash BIOS, so that the card will be assigned IRQ 10 (which isn't this weird cascaded thing like 9 is anyway). Other cards (like the one by Asus) have the IRQ for the card set to 10 ('A') by default. If you're installing 2.10 (not 2.11), you may have to rem out the dpt20xx.add in your disk 1 config.sys in order to get the install to proceed if you have this card. It may also be necessary to set the "2nd SCSI" jumper on some adapters to get them to work (even when there are no other SCSI adapters in the system, oddly enough). Potential problems: There appears to be a problem with one of either the NCR OS/2 driver, the 53c810, or the Quantum Prodrive 540S, as in order to get this combination to work together synchronous negotiation must be disabled between drive and card. The problem does not seem to appear under DOS, however. The Quantum Empire 1080S works well, however. Some NCR cards come configured for edge-triggered interrupts as default, which causes problems for OS2CAM.ADD. Level-triggered interrupts must be used (despite what the manual may claims) to make the card work properly (or at all) under OS/2. The latest OS2CAM.ADD was supposed to solve these problems but apparently did not, and has been reported to be suspected (in one person's system) to cause corruption of the system files (the system in question was the Asus SP3G board using the built-in NCR chip). The 4/28/94 OS2CAM.ADD is reported to work well in that system, however. Deal of the week: $199 for a (brand-unspecified) 53c825-based fast/wide SCSI controller (with 50 and 68-pin internal connectors and a 50-pin external connector), from JDR Micro NCR 8250, $110, from Insight, (206) 820-8100 QLogic IQ PCI** Qlogic makes what are apparently very good fast and fast/wide SCSI cards which have drivers for OS/2 (1.12 are the latest and are reported to work well under Warp). They feature a 12 MIPS processor (as opposed to the 1 MIPS one which forms part of the NCR fast/wide processors, for whatever that gets you) and are fully SCSI-2 compliant. The IQ PCI supports two SCSI channels and 1000 queued I/O operations, and the IQ PCI/10 (fast only) supports one channel and 400 queued I/O operations. These cards will work with the Intel 60 MHz motherboard, and one (the fast/wide one) is in fact being used with a #9 GXE64 in a 60 MHz system with no problems (under 2.11 or Warp). The IQ PCI is now at revision 2. One caveat: The IQ PCI series of cards uses extended BIOS translation for 1GB+ drives. There's no way to disable this, so if you're switching from a controller where you had extended translation disabled, you'll have to reformat your drive. (QLogic: 1077/4215) Setup tips: If you are using the controller with an Asus P54/P55 motherboard, get the newest BIOS chip from QLogic to fix a problem caused by the motherboard, which does a PCI bus reset after the controller scans the SCSI bus, causing problems for the controller. (It will be obvious if you have the problem -- your system will not boot.) The ISP1020 firmware level should be 1.27 or greater. Deal of the week: $209 from Hard Drive Super Source, (800) 252-9777 (510) 494-8501 QLogic PCI Basic* This card differs from the previous two QLogic cards in that it's cheaper ($135 MSRP), and that it uses a different chip (the "400" series). I've had a few reports of success with this card under Warp. (QLogic: 1077/4215) There's what I know. Please E-Mail suggestions/corrections and I'll post again. -- Patrick Duffy, duffy@theory.chem.ubc.ca -- I am Homer of Borg. Resistance is fu-- mmmmm... donuts...