The ever-helpful christos@zoulas.com (Christos Zoulas) responds to my post:

>> I had a stable
>> Pentium 166 running NetBSD 1.4.1, with a SCSI adaptor and a bunch of
>> disks.  I decided to upgrade to a Pentium III 866, [...]
>> I tried to boot a 1.4.1 floppy, a set of 1.5.2 floppies, and my 1.4.1
>> system on disk (and even a couple of Slackware Linux floppies!).
[SCSI timeouts]
>> My question is this: is an old SCSI adaptor (aic7880) supposed to work
>> with a fancy fast new motherboard, or might it be too slow for the
>> motherboard?  I *thought* that PCI was PCI, but I'm starting to wonder.

> This is a bug in the adaptek driver it seems and there is a PR for it.

I can't seem to find it under "adaptek" (no matches) or under SCSI
(looking for string "time" in results).  I don't suppose you know the
number?

> I've seen that before. It is strange because the driver works with
> some motherboards reliably, but with others it fails.

A bug which has persisted from 1.4.1 to 1.5.2 *and* appears in
Slackware Linux as well?  All of those boot disks has problems and
reported timeouts.  That's why I have been suspecting a hardware
incompatibility or misconfiguration.

I take it that theoretically, my old SCSI board is supposed to work on
the new motherboard?

(It's back on the old system now, none the worse for the wear, but I'm
*really* hoping to figure out a way to use it on the new system!)


Anne.
-- 
Ms. Anne Bennett, Senior Analyst, IITS, Concordia University, Montreal H3G 1M8
anne@alcor.concordia.ca                                        +1 514 848-7606