blew@tc.fluke.COM (Bob Lewandowski) (08/16/89)
Hi!
I am having major problems putting an Everex STEP 386/20
system together using a Imprimis/CDC SCSI interface hard drive
and an Adaptec SCSI controller. The drive is a Wren V half-height,
Model 94221-190 (s/n 3007861) which is spec'ed to be 190 Mbytes
formatted (209 Mbytes unformatted). I am using an Adaptec 1542A
(date code ? 8923 ) controller. The bios chip on the Adaptec is
labeled 420-403-00A and the firmware encoder chip is 420-504-00C
E7BC. The problems occur during formatting, if the hard disk
is formatted in the Everex machine everything seems to proceed
OK, except that it formats out to about 177 Mbytes instead of 190.
DIR appears to be correct, but CHKDSK indicates more than 180 lost
clusters and the number of lost clusters increases if you re-run
CHKDSK. If CHKDSK is allowed to 'fixup' the disk it produces 177
Mbytes of trash files. Writes or reads to the disk don't work at
all. The system won't boot from the hard disk either.
If the drive and the controller are put in a 286 AT clone the drive
can be formatted correctly but only to 177 Mbytes again. It works OK
in the 286 and can be moved to the Everex 386 where it will boot the
system and seems to function normally. Attempting to re-format in the
Everex produces the same result as described above.
Another curious thing about the drive is that CoreTest indicates that
the average access time is about 22 mS and the track-to-track is about
8 mS. The 94221 is supposed to be 18 mS and 4 mS. This is the second
CDC drive in this fiasco, the first one would spin up but wouldn't
respond at all. Is this a problem with CoreTest and a SCSI drive or
is it the real performance ?
All the particpating manufacturers point to the others and say: "It's
their problem !" Right now it's my problem and its now into the third
month!
Anyone out there been through this ?? How about ANY suggestions ??
Is there perchance a SCSI controller the has good speed and actually
works in an Everex ? CDC was chosen for it's legendary reliability,
and a SCSI interface and the Adaptec controller were chosen in the
hope of achiving high performance ! Right about now I would almost
settle for ANY performance! Was SCSI (the wave of the future) the
wrong choice ? Is there hope for this mess or should I try to find
a buyer for the whole pile ?!? B-)
One last binder, the video card is a Video-7 VRAM. Am I in for more
surprises when and if I get the whole thing screwed together and try
to shadow bios and video ? How about disk caching utilities ??
Will they work in this system ?
Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted !! Many thanks in advance.
------Bob
--
Bob Lewandowski
Domain: blew@tc.fluke.COM
Voice: (206) 347-6100, Ext. 5368
UUCP: {microsof,sun}!fluke!blew
U S nail: John Fluke Mfg. Co. / P.O. Box C9090 / MS 273G / Everett WA 98206root@ttsi.UUCP (Super user) (08/24/89)
In article <10388@fluke.COM> blew@tc.fluke.COM (Bob Lewandowski) writes: >I am having major problems putting an Everex STEP 386/20 >system together using a Imprimis/CDC SCSI interface hard drive >and an Adaptec SCSI controller. The drive is a Wren V half-height, >Model 94221-190 (s/n 3007861) which is spec'ed to be 190 Mbytes When I first setup my Everex 386/20 and the Adaptec Controller, AHA1540A I had ton's of unexpected problems. The disk would format, but weird files would show up in the root directory, file data would be lost occaisionally and the system was basically un-useable. I worked the heck out of an old Ampex drive I had laying around until the problems were cleared up. Bob, If you have an older 386/20, from say, September 1988, you're going to have problems with the Adaptec controller. The problem stems from the bus timing between the controller and the 386 motherboard. Adaptec is trying to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the bus, and that means they are using first-party DMA. I spoke with Adaptec, Everex, Adaptec, Everex and so on for a month. Everex solved the problem by supplying me with new timing roms for the motherboard, which completely cleared up the problem. One caveat is that you must run the board at 20MHZ and not any slower, for some reason, the interface doesn't work at slower CPU speeds. Check with Everex for the support. >all. The system won't boot from the hard disk either. To boot, you'll need to setup the MB to no hard disks installed. >If the drive and the controller are put in a 286 AT clone the drive >can be formatted correctly but only to 177 Mbytes again. It works OK >in the 286 and can be moved to the Everex 386 where it will boot the >system and seems to function normally. Attempting to re-format in the >Everex produces the same result as described above. I don't know about this, my CDC Wren V HH SCSI formats to 177 MB. >Another curious thing about the drive is that CoreTest indicates that >the average access time is about 22 mS and the track-to-track is about >8 mS. The 94221 is supposed to be 18 mS and 4 mS. This is the second I can't answer this one. The CoreTest shows the same on my drive. I can say: I AM DAMN DISSAPOINTED WITH THE ADAPTEC SCSI CONTROLLER. I expected, and was sold, highest performance, best of everything when purchasing the controller. I had 2 months of nightmares and poor response from Adaptec's technical support. For that matter, I called today 6 times. Twice I was disconnected, once I was connected to another customer waiting for tech support, and three times the line was busy. Is it different for anyone else? Perhaps it's a busy month. You might be interested in the fact the controller I received AHA 1540 A has the capability of moving command and status ports around, but geeez, you need NEW ROMS, to change it. THIS MAKES THE AHA 1540 incompatible with systems that use the ROLAND MPU401, the industry standard MIDI interface. That's perfect, when Ensoniq and other keyboard manufacturers are building SCSI interfaces for their keyboards. You can't use the Adaptec with the Roland without the changing the SCSI command and status ports, which you can't ask for from Adaptec. *candle* off. >Anyone out there been through this ?? How about ANY suggestions ?? >Is there perchance a SCSI controller the has good speed and actually >works in an Everex ? CDC was chosen for it's legendary reliability, I have a WESTERN DIGITAL ESDI controller using an ESDI CDC drive that indicated 2x the performance of the Adaptec - CDC combination. That should be embarressing to Adaptec. As far as show ROM and disk caching, you should be able to use those with the SCSI controller setup. Although, you already know that the CDC has caching. -Good Luck, -alex