marks@mgse.UUCP (Mark Seiffert) (06/28/89)
Help! i am having some problems with my system, and my softcare support from SCO is worthless. I have a clone 286 with a Wyse 995 multiport card. i am running SCO Xenix 286 re. 2.2.1. The Wyse drivers are 1.19. At one time i had the number to a Wyse Tech. in Texas. He sent me a revision B rom, and the 1.19 drivers, along with a 3 page list of other known bugs. I had Softcare level ii support, it just ran out the other day. Before it did run out, i called SCO with a list of problems. To say they were less than helpful would be a out-right lie. And they want me to pay them another $600+ for another year of support! (IMHO i could get better support from a jock strap than from them.) I am having two problems with the async. ports, they may be related, i don't know. The first problem is rather strange. Sometimes when someone calls my system, the modems will connect, and the system will lock up. the system has to be rebooted and fsck'd. Some times when you enable a port the system will lock up. I forgot to put this on my list of problems for SCO, so it was not discussed. The second problem is a little strange as well. Sometimes when someone calls in the modems connect, and sometimes when nothing is happening the system will panic with a timeout table overflow. Sometimes it is one panic message, sometimes two with a stack fault or overflow. This has started happening within the last month. sometimes it won't happen all week, sometimes it will do it twice within an hour of each other. The kernal has not been modified for sometime before it started. I have checked the manual page (messages.M), and it was not too helpful. From the man page (/usr/man/cat.M/messages.M.z) panic: Timeout table overflow The timeout table is full. Timeout requests are generated by device drivers, there should usually be room for one entry per system serial line plus ten more for other usages. Use configure(C) to raise the number of timeout table entries. I have eight serial lines, plus the extra ten they recommend means i should set NCALL to 18. I went in to configure and NCALL was already set to 70. I changed it to 80, and am still having the problem. Since the problem still persisted i sent in a problem report to SCO. The tech. talked to (barbh@sco) was not very helpful, basically she said "well ... uh .. gee ... something is wrong. find out what it is." She has no idea what, other than the kernal drivers, but she was able to suggest i try running configure and raising the timeout table limit. I feel she did not have any idea what she was talking about (on any of the problems), but she was not so concerned that she would check with someone. So far i have only lost log files that were open at the time of the panic, but it is only a matter of time before the panic occurs with lots of data cached ot during a write. One time it paniced it must have been during a read, the HDU access light was lit up after the panic. Any help the net can provide would be appreceated. At this time i have no intent to renew my softcare with SCO, while they were able to get me out of some jams before, since they ave become so big, thier service has gone down hill. This of course is my own opinion. Marks. "When you want to get a cow pregnent, you get a bull to service here, SCO services there customers well." -- Mark Seiffert, Metairie, LA. uucp: rex!mgse!marks bitnet: marks%mgse@REX.CS.TULANE.EDU internet: marks%mgse@rex.cs.tulane.edu
chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) (06/30/89)
In article <248@mgse.UUCP> marks@mgse.UUCP (Mark Seiffert) writes: >Help! i am having some problems with my system, and my softcare support from >SCO is worthless. [...] I have a clone 286 with a Wyse 995 multiport card. >i am running SCO Xenix 286 re. 2.2.1. The Wyse drivers are 1.19. Everything said here sounds like big time problems in the device drivers. If you had SoftCare, then you should have the Discover from a few months back which tells you how to adb the kernel and find where it was when the system panic'ed. Have you done this to see where it is? Is it in Wyse's drivers or elsewhere? I'm not sure why you flame SCO. I don't see how you can expect them to do anything about broken 3rd party drivers. -- Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337 "I wish you'd put that starvation box down and go to bed" - Albert Collins' Mom
fr@icdi10.UUCP (Fred Rump from home) (08/08/89)
In article <248@mgse.UUCP> marks@mgse.UUCP (Mark Seiffert) writes: >I have a clone 286 with a Wyse 995 multiport card. >i am running SCO Xenix 286 re. 2.2.1. The Wyse drivers are 1.19. >At one time i had the number to a Wyse Tech. in Texas. He sent me a >revision B rom, and the 1.19 drivers, along with a 3 page list of >other known bugs. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There was a long time ago when we tried using the Wyse 995. It was an exercise of futility. I even went so far as to say I would eat something or other if Wyse was on the net (they are with a Sun) but no help was forthcoming from them. But we did see the problem to be one of Wyse's making. They were selling the board even without drivers. As far as I know we still have a bunch of these boards and they STILL don't work with VP/ix on the system and we STILL can't do transparent printing of the terminals. But whatever, I can't blame SCO for other people's lack of of product support. The market usually takes care of that. >them another $600+ for another year of support! (IMHO i could get >better support from a jock strap than from them.) >I am having two problems with the async. ports, they may be related, i >don't know. Of course, they are related. Plug in somebody else's multi-user board and your problems will go away. As far as your public flaming goes... How much do you expect them to do for 600 bucks a year? I don't know if you've ever dealt with customer support but $50/mo ain't much, believe me. It's one or two calls and you're losing money. >"When you want to get a cow pregnent, you get a bull to service here, >SCO services there customers well." You may also wish use a dictionary sometime. If nothing else, use the Lyrix speller. -- This is my house. My castle will get started right after I finish with news. 26 Warren St. uucp: ...{bpa dsinc uunet}!cdin-1!icdi10!fr Beverly, NJ 08010 domain: fred@cdin-1.uu.net or icdi10!fr@cdin-1.uu.net 609-386-6846 "Freude... Alle Menschen werden Brueder..." - Schiller