sntjos01@uctvax.uct.ac.za (03/24/91)
I've got a curious problem with quite a history. Our novell file server is an
AST-premium 286 running advanced Netware 286 v2.12. Installed in the file
server are two hard drives (one 70Mb and one 40Mb). There are three network
cards in the file server: Lan A = MicomInterlan np600, Lan B = G/Ethernet AT
by GateWay Communications, and Lan C = Novell Ethernet NE-1000. Lans A and B
serve our building, and Lan C links us to a campus wide network. From day 1 of
installing this system (appoximately 2-2.5 years ago) I have never been able to
run the AST file server with a clock speed above 8MHz (the AST can be set to 6,
8, or 10MHz). The file server has the standard AST-FASTRam memory card with
2Mb of RAM (640K conventional and 1408K Extended). Whenever I tried to run the
file server at 10MHz, I would get spurious DIR errors and the file server would
crash. As mentioned earlier, this wasn't too much of a problem, we simply kept
it going at 8MHz.
As in most cases, disk space has become limited and I decided to chuck the two
current hard drives and install a 600Mb SCSI drive. Because of the increase in
disk space I realized that I needed more RAM to cache everything. To complete
the job, I purchased the following: 1) Adaptec 1542B SCSI controller 2) Seagate
Wren ST4702 SCSI drive, and 3) BocaRam AT plus memory card populated with 6Mb
of RAM. The first task was to install the extra memory, which went off without
a hitch. I brought the file server up with the extra memory and all worked
well. In order to limit the amount of down time on our file server, I
formatted the SCSI drive on another machine -- no problems. I then removed the
existing drives and controller card and installed the Adaptec card and the SCSI
drive. I booted the machine off of DOS and went about running NETGEN to
install the file server software on the new drive. When NETGEN attempted to
analyze the system it crashed with an ABEND ram parity error. I found out that
the Adaptec card DMA was too fast for the AST file server running at 8MHz.
Realizing that I can't run the file server at 10MHz, I decided to look at the
RAM. Upon further examination, I realized that the FASTRam card was set to
have 0 wait states enabled. I decided to enable the wait states on the FASTRam
card, and reinstall the old controller card and hard drives. The file server
came up with no problems and I ran the system for 1 week without any DIR errors
occuring.
Thinking that I now had the problem licked and that I could run the file server
at 10MHz, I decided to install the Adaptec card and the SCSI drive. Not
wanting to take any further chances, I repeated the low level format on the
drive using the AST file server -- no problems. I even ran the Adaptec DMA
test and everything passed. I then ran NETGEN and it didn't crash when
analyzing the system. I initialized the drive and created 4 volumes -- so far
so good. I flagged NETGEN to install the operating system and the PUBLIC
files, which it did without a problem. When I tried to bring up the file
server I got an initial message "Error hole in file." I then tried to bring
the file server up from floppy (OSEXE-1 and OSEXE-2) and received data mirror
mismatch errors when trying to mount the volumes. I continued with the volume
mounts and eventually I was able to bring the file server up from the floppy
disks. The console commands all worked fine. When I tried to login from a
workstation however, I got an "insufficient memory" error message, which seemed
to be coming from the file server.
I recently saw a message on this list saying that "if you use anything but the
default values for the amount of directory entries, you will get this (Error
hole in file) error message." In the past I have always found that the default
number of directory entries is always too low, and would not like to leave
their values at default. I know of other file servers (non-AST) that have the
same adaptec card and SCSI drive installed, and are able to run with an
increased number of directory entries. I have not tried to install the system
with the default number of directory entries, as it seems futile in that I will
have to increase these values sometime in the future.
Is anyone out there using an AST premium/286 as a file server, and have they
successfully installed a SCSI disk drive. Any suggestions on how I may
overcome this problem would be greatly appreciated.
Please respond directly to me, as sometimes this list only reaches me after a
long lapse of time.
Thanks,
Joe Santangelo
Department of Microbiology
University of Cape Town
Rondebosch
7700
Phone: 27 21 650-2465
FAX: 27 21 685-5931
Internet: SNTJOS01@Uctvax.uct.ac.za
OR: SNTJOS01.UCTVAX@f4.n494.z5.fidonet.org