[KLUG Hardware] Re: Adaptec 2940UW card-end termination

[Mike Williams]

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> Half as much memory as it says From: Bruce Smith <bruce@armintl.com>
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>>> In that case, I think you're looking the wrong way.  Don't worry about the
>>> drive, how is the 2940UW's termination set???
>>    
>>
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>AUTO, I think.  (I reset the controller to defaults)
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>  
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>>> On the 2940UW, you can only use only 2 of the 3 connectors (Int68, Ext68, Int50)
>>> *AND* you must set the correct termination to match in the <Cntl-A> firmware
>>> setup.  There should be two sets of options.  The help will tell you which to
>>> use based on what connectors you are using.
>>> 
>>> Since you mentioned you _were_ able to get a 68-pin drive to work, I'm going to
>>> assume you do _not_ have the correct termination on the card itself correct.  Go
>>> into the <Cntl-A> firmware setup and check.  I bet that's your problem.
>>    
>>
>
>This is really weird.  Adam told me privately that he had the same
>problem trying to install Redhat 8.0 on a box with an Adaptec SCSI
>controller and it failed the same way.  He said he switched to a
>different brand controller and it worked.
>
>I just plunked in a Buslogic SCSI controller, and it's working now.
>
>Did Redhat change something in the Adaptec driver?  Could it screw up
>AUTO termination as set by the controller?
>  
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There are several different paths of Adaptec driver, and I've never been 
able to figure out which one works better with which versions of Adaptec 
card.  Poking around in the KLUG archives should produce some previous 
discussion on it.

Regarding termination, I know on my system, which has occasionally had 
an ancient Adaptec 2940 card in it, there are a few sentences at boot up 
with dire warnings about Auto termination.  I don't remember the fine 
print, but it seems like the driver detects that you have termination 
set to auto and advises you to set it manually to On or Off.  If it 
matters, I think the driver I saw this on was a SuSE 7.1 installation 
running an early 2.4 kernel.

>And why did it run Redhat 7.3 before, and a fresh Redhat 7.3 install
>fail?  And why did "badblocks -w" fail when run from hpa's SuperRescue
>CD which is based on Redhat 7.2?  WEIRD!!!
>
>I'll check the Adaptec termination on the card after "badblocks -w" is
>done running on the Buslogic.
>