nfs1675@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil (Michael Figg) (04/09/90)
I'm possibly looking for a new A2000 HD controller. I've got an autobooting
Kronos/2000 that doesn't boot. I haven't pulled the board yet to see if the
2000 itself is alright but it appears that the controller isn't letting the
machine even try to boot from dh0: or floppy. I get a dark screen and a few
accesses to the hard drive (ST277N-1) but no access light on HD comes on. Same
thing happens with floppy. I'll gladly welcome help on this but what I'm really
looking for right now is opions on other controllers such as:
1. A2091
2. GVP SCSI + 8 (or other GVP)
3. TrumpCard
4. Microbotics HardFrame
Any problems that any of these have with the ST277N-1?
Thanks, Mikelgulyas@ics.uci.edu (Laszlo Gulyas) (04/10/90)
I own a GVP SCSI + 8 controller for the 2000, but I have the ST296N drive It is a good controller,but at least for my drive it is not fast, but very dependable. It autoboots fine, and has room for 8 megs of SIMMs, be careful on the manual though, at one point it says to use 120ns or better, another place it wants 100ns or better, and yet another place 150ns or better. I chose 100ns chips. You must increment the memory in 2 meg increments - but that's not really a problem (unless you don't have the money for 2 megs). I must have an early version of the card as it is only #9 serial number wise. But it seems OK so far. The software is easy to use if you want their default set ups (you can change size of partitions, but to change buffer size you must exit out and run the program with the option ASKALL). GVP is great on tech support so they really can help you. So overall, - Great value. - Mediocre speed on the ST296 (about 140K useing Dperf2 and interleave 1) - Easy to setup and maintain. Laszlo Gulyas
nfs1675@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil ( Michael S Figg) (04/11/90)
In article <2035@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil>, nfs1675@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil (Michael Figg) writes: > I'm possibly looking for a new A2000 HD controller. I've got an autobooting > Kronos/2000 that doesn't boot. I haven't pulled the board yet to see if the > 2000 itself is alright but it appears that the controller isn't letting the > machine even try to boot from dh0: or floppy. I get a dark screen and a few > accesses to the hard drive (ST277N-1) but no access light on HD comes on. Same One major thing I forgot to mention here is that the times I've had problems with autobooting is after it appears that the system has locked up and always when I'm not using it. I'm wondering if the dark screen is the screen blanker (dmouse, old version). I've also noticed that the regular grey shades checks when booting are before any disk activity. When I have the autobooting problem the screen stays in this dark screen and then sounds like it does alittle disk activity but doesn't continue. This leads me to believe that the problem might not be the controller. Mike, -- "Could we be the bellwether | Michael Figg DSAC-FSD of major societal shifts?" | DLA Systems Automation Center - Columbus,Oh mfigg@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil CIS: 73777,360
rbabel@babylon.UUCP (Ralph Babel) (04/11/90)
In article <26220131.7262@paris.ics.uci.edu> lgulyas@ics.uci.edu (Laszlo Gulyas) writes: > I own a GVP SCSI + 8 controller for the 2000, but I have > the ST296N drive. > [...] > - Mediocre speed on the ST296 (about 140K useing Dperf2 > and interleave 1) That's a bit too low, I'd say. Sure, Seagates aren't the fastest drives in the world, but when I tested a Seagate on my GVP controller, I got twice as much (with an empty hard disk, of course). With a Quantum ProDrive you'll get almost 500K on a standard A2000. Maybe you should upgrade to the latest version of their software? > I must have an early version of the card as it is only #9 > serial number wise. But it seems OK so far. Don't forget that you have one of their latest board revision (SCSI plus 8 megs of RAM). There have been several boards before this one. > The software is easy to use if you want their default set > ups (you can change size of partitions, but to change > buffer size you must exit out and run the program with the > option ASKALL). I think you don't have to leave the automatic installation. It should be possible to type a '?' in response to one of the questions in their script. Don't know which one, but it's mentioned in the manual somewhere. > Laszlo Gulyas Ralph ...!{cbmvax|nccnet}!cbmehq!babylon!rbabel
visinfo@ethz.UUCP (VISINFO c/o Sascha Schnapka) (05/07/90)
In article <2633E370.20045@paris.ics.uci.edu> lgulyas@ics.uci.edu (Laszlo Gulyas) writes: >Here are my latest results with the GVP Impact SCSI + 8 and the ST296N >If I reformat using GVPFormat at 1:1 (their software) I get a max of 190K >with the DiskSpeed program. >If I reformat at 2:1 I get a transfer rate of 180K. >At 3:1 the rate goes down by a few K. > >I wonder if the autoboot ROMs are the problems? >What is the optimum buffer size, as I have 2megs of SIMMs on the board. >and memory is not a problem. I suppose that your drive is so slow because of the MaxTransfer bug in the GVP install software 'GVPprepHD'. They let you set the MaxTransfer to the maximal number of 8192. This means that the scsi.device can only handle 8192 per request. This limitation was caused by a mistake in the original AmigaDOS 1.3 manual. They have written that this entry means number of blocks. You can go around this problem by patching the RigidDisk block with the partition description (beginning with PART). If you have the C include files you can look at the structure definition in the file 'hardblocks.h'. You have to correct the checksum as well. (It is a sum up to zero). You should set the MaxTransfer entry to 131072. This should nearly double the transfer speed. If you have a 68020 or a 68030 the effect is even better. To try out the MaxTransfer you can also mount your partition with another name and make speed tests. /* -------------------------- SG (Simeon Graphics) ---------------------- */ /* Peter Simeon, UUCP: | // // */ /* visinfo@bernina.ethz.ch | // Long live the AMIGA! // */ /* BIX: hardwiz | \X/ \X/ */ /* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- */