Dear Kurt
Thanks for the reply
> On Thu, Jun 22, 2000 at 02:24:02PM +0200, Thomas Niesel wrote:
> > Dear all.
> > I wonder if you could help me with my controler ?
> > The hardware in details:
> > Tekram DC800B, ISA-cache-mirroring-controler with onboard-floppy-port, up to
> > 16MB Cache-memory (4x4MB from the good old time).
> > Chipset: NCR55CF94-2 and an 80286-20Mhz-cpu (no joke !)
> > Others: io0x330, irq11, dma5, bios from PC shadowed to 0xdc000 and the bios
> > from the controler also shadowed on 0xdc000 as the recomendaiton of the
> > manual, set max.DO$ capacity to 1GB. (the disks are 2GB each !)
>
> Nice piece of legacy hardware. Does it only do mirroring (RAID1) or also
> more funny things like RAID5?
Only raid0.
There was no space left on the board ;)
> > ------------from the manual-------------------------
> > MAX DOS disk Capacity: 1G/1.5G/2G/3G/4.5G.
> > 1G is the default option and compatible with AHA 1540/1542 series, that
> > means you can directly port the drive with AHA 1540/1542 series format to
> > this ADAPTER.
>
> If you move SCSI harddisks from one host adapter to another one, there
> is normally just one thing that can go wrong: Your SCSI Bios might be to
> stupid to accept the geometry of the partition table. Adaptec's BIOSes are
> known to do that ...
>
> > For operating systems other than DOS and NetWare, you must
> > choose the 1G option. Also, to activate options other than 1G, i.e.,
> > 1.5G/2G/3G/4.5G, you have to enable the DOS 5 Support Enable/Disable in the
> > Adapter Firmware Options first.
>
> As far as I can see, this only affects operating systems (like DOS) that
> access the drive via INT13h from the BIOS.
With DO$5 support and the real drive size (2G), I had problems to get lilo in
place.
After reboot it shows LI or sometimes LIL
>
> > The following is the parameter translation
> > infor-mation corresponding to each option (512B/sector):
> > 1G = 64 heads and 32 sectors, maximum 1GB
> > 1.5G = 64 heads and 48 sectors, maximum 1.5GB
> > 2G = 128 heads and 32 sectors, maximum 2GB
> > 3G = 128 heads and 48 sectors, maximum 3GB
> > 4.5G = 192 heads and 48 sectors, maximum 4.5GB
> > -------------cut--------------------------------
> > Runs on f.e. potato-frozen as an aha1542, autodetect but only with
> > 500-700kb/s (cp 300MB-file from cd to disk, between the disks and stoped the
> > time).
>
> It really surprises me that the aha1542 adapter can drive such a beast. So
> the hardware emulates the aha154x's chipset? Or did they actually put some
> aha154x chipset on the ISA side of the controller?
I dont know, cant look inside the chips :)
Ive forgotten the 3rd one :
TEKRAM TRM800B
> 600kB/s is very slow, and I believe the (original) aha154x can do more than
> 3MB/s.
>
> > The controler(10MB), the disks(20MB) and the cdrom(12x) can do much
> > faster.
>
> I guess you should be able to transfer up to 10MB/s on the SCSI bus, and
> much more from the card's cache. However, ISA DMA does only allow a few MB
> per second.
>
> > I also tried the real size with DO$5 support, same result.
> > So I did all the things from the manual: Avoid irq9 cause of sharing
> > with irq2, leave it on io0x330 for autodetect, leave it on dam5, disable DO$5
> > support. I tryed also different parameters as the listed ones above. Finaly I
> > installed DO$6.22 and the driver therefor, and there it showed the power.
> > (copy same 300MB-file) gives me a throuput above 3MB/s! An old bench-prog
> > sayed: write 3,8 / read 8,8MB/s.
>
> The 8 MB/s surprises me, as that's more than ISA DMA can do, as far as I
> know. Maybe you can PIO the data over the ISA bus with that speed, wasting
> your CPU cycles though.
>
> > Not bad for the old 386' PC. There is no
> > information in linux-docs about this controler. I think the aha1542-module is
> > the right on, but I think there must be a different way to talk to the
> > controler wich claims to be fully adaptec1540/42 compatible. (io and
> > commands)
>
> Maybe you can talk to the aha154x author about this?
> Maybe he has (or maybe Tekram has) docu about your controller, so you can
> work out how to make it as fast as possible.
In the sources are so many poeple listed.
Who is the right one ?
BTW there are also files for NCR53C9x !
What about these ?
> > Here is what I think:
> > 1st. maybe the translation for the geometry
> > of the disks is different from the disk through the controler ?
>
> Don't think so.
>
> > 2nd. the formated block-size on the disk is not the right one ?
>
> Don't think so.
>
> > 3rd. the controler is too intelligent and gets confused
> > by the way the driver talks to him ?
>
> Sounds like the most probably reason for your trouble.
>
> > What do you think ?
> > Is it helpfull to debug from DO$ on io330 and send the result ?
>
> Not to me ... Maybe to the aha154x authors?
> Look into the sources ...
>
> BTW; the settings concerning DOG5 support should not affect Linux, as it
> does not use the int13h interface.
Thanks
--
Thomas
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