mikej@lilink.UUCP (Michael R. Johnston) (09/11/89)
At the office here I am running a number of HP Vectra's with the HP VGA
card installed (w/VGA Mono monitors). It seems that under DOS these
cards function just fine. My problems begin when running applications
(or trying to run applications) under SCO Xenix. Here are the problems:
1) Under VP/ix I am unable to run PFS:First Publisher. If I use the program
on a Herc card it works just fine. When I run it under VP/ix I just
get garbage on the screen. I have several other applications that
fail to run under the VGA card but run fine ona Herc card.
2) When trying to run SCO Xsight I get the following message:
"Display is PS/2 Video Graphics Array 640x480 16 colors
Can not set display to graphics mode: No such device or address
Xinit: I/O error"
Xsight will run on this system with a Herc card.
3) When attempting to run SCO CGI I get a message similar to the one on
#2 above. CGI is unuseable.
The systems I have tried this on are an HP Vectra QS/16 and an HP Vectra
RS/20c. I've called SCO about this and they were not able to offer any
assistance with the problem. I'm about to call HP about it but I thought
I would pose the question to the net as well.
Has anyone else had this problem? Have you been able to fix it?
Thanks very much.
--
Michael R. Johnston
System Administrator rutgers!lilink!mikej
LILINK Public Access Xenix (516) 872-2137/2138/2349 1200/2400 Login: newian@hpopd.HP.COM (Ian Watson) (09/29/89)
I was drawn to this posting by the mention of HP VGA card w/ SCO, as I have the
same kit, and recalled a problem. From the content, it doesn't look like the
same problem, but I thought people with this combination might benefit from the
following, quoted from a field communique :
*** START QUOTE ***
"In testing the OS/2 and XENIX operating systems, and
the Windows/386 protected mode operating environment, the factory
has discovered a potential problem with the D1180A VGA card. Data
corruption occurs on the first flexible disk drive when the VGA
card is configured for 16-bit mode, installed in an HP Vectra PC with
an 80386 microprocessor, and has more than 1MB of system memory
located on the internal 32-bit memory bus. This problem may not be
detectable until the user tries to use data from the flexible disk
drive. The current solution is to use teh VGA card in 8-bit mode.
"In examining the cause of this problem we determined the specific
conditions under which this problem can occur. Please note that
due to the manner in which drivers are loaded onto a system,
customers may experience problems intermittently, or not at all.
"Problem Configuration
1. D1180A VGA card operating in 16-bit mode.
2. HP Vectra 80386 PC with 32-bit internal bus.
3. System memory greater than 1 MB on internal memory bus.
4. Protected mode non-MS-DOS operating systems such as OS/2, XENIX,
and UNIX, and protected mode operating environments like
Windows/386.
5. An application that is doing 8-bit DMA transfers at 1MB offsets to
the base address of 0A0000H to 0C8000H. (For example, 1A0000H to
1C8000H for the 2 MB of memory, 2A0000H to 2C8000H for the 3rd MB,
etc...)
Under these circumstances, the D1180A VGA card cannot distinguish
between the memory addresses accessed in the 1 MB offsets with its
base address (0A0000H to 0C8000H). The consequence is that the
destination of the 8-bit DMA transfers will have every other byte
garbled, since both the VGA and the DMA device (for example, the
floppy disk) have access to the memory bus. With OS/2 and
XENIX, in some cases these memory locations are used as a floppy
data buffer area, which causes data corruption to the floppy disk
through DMA writes to the I/O device.
There could be other, less obvious problems, depending on how the
operating system uses the memory locations in question at the 1 MB
offsets, and how the system has been configured (i.e. what and how
many drivers have been loaded).
The work-around we recommend: if a customer's configuration
matches the problem configuration above, they set their D1180A VGA
card to 8-bit mode. We are currently investigating a long-term
solution to this problem."
**** END QUOTE ***
Please note : 1) I retyped this from the original communique. Any typos
I cannot take resposibility for!
2) I am not involved with this area, except as a user of the
troublesome combination -- if you have any questions
you will do better to use the proper suppport channels
than by quizzing me.
3) I cannot accept responsibility for the content, either as
an individual, or as an HP employee. I post this only
in the hope it may help someone, and because I care about
HP's responsiveness to customers.
Ian Watson
Hewlett-Packard,
Pinewood, Wokingham, England.