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Hi folks,

In my book certain 486/EISA architectures with AHA154x and AHA174x are
to be declared deadened fakes, and a disgusting joke. This is shame
since SCSI is superior and far more mature technology than most recent
EDI, and EIDE. For decent servers SCSI should be a must! Now don't tell
me MS/Win* is perfectly happy with all these combinations, that simply
isn't so. On the other hand,  most of commercial Unix systems also never
had such a long lasting problem with these issues. I believe, we (iBSD)
platforms should be out of this mess by now.

Contrary to my opening statement here, I think that the problems are not
that severe, all that is missing are few guidelines about i*86
configurations which should reflect the requirements defined by SCSI
protocols, such as BIOS caching, Turbo Mode and HD access speed
recommendations.

SCSI protocols have many configurable options, which should also be
exposed in a short reference kind of table, so one can make an
intelligent choice of selection.

Plug-N-Play is a nobel concept but it just isn't what vendors let us
believe it is. This feature is mostly used to hide the configuration
detail, and is grossly abused by manufacturers to obfuscate their
inadequate adherence to standards. The Plug-N-Play should be an option
not the necessity. Of course, that would require that manufacturers
provide the protocol and interface documentation, without which, due to
numerous possibilities one does not have a prayer to get it right via
trial and error approach.

When I bought my Fireball disk in a hurry, after my original disk was
fried in 1996, I made a mistake not to insist on getting the
documentation for it. I was told there was no need for it, that it
didn't come with the disk at all, which sounded to me fishy, even then
anyway. I was lucky or unlucky, that SCO loved the disk. -- By the way I
tried to migrate my SCO box to NetBSD, however NetBSD 1.1 then gave me
hell just as this time apparently bug free 1.3 (remember 16 MB RAM
limitations, EDI yes / SCSI no or v.v. // I forgot, etc.).

I am paying dearly now for my "grocery" HW shopping. On top of that I
have an ancient EISA config which takes over seven minutes to wait for
it to load and configure, not like some more modern versions that are
part of CMOS config and are reasonably faster.

My lack of knowledge in this area forces me to try out all suspicious
features and flags, which is by the shire number of options utterly
prohibitive, due to over 20 minutes of total time for each try.

What I need is some help with the following:

   1. How should I configure my CMOS?

        I have the following potentially relevant options:

            a)  Shadow Video (C000) :  [Enable/Disable]      ...
Unlikely related, but who knows?
            b)  Turbo Switch : [Enable/Disable]                     ...
I'll test with physical Turbo switch ON and OFF
            c)  Slow HD Access Setting:   [Very Fast, Fast, Slow, Very
Slow]

   2. In STANDARD MODE (AHA154x):

           a)  Enable Parity Checking    [Y/N]
           b)  Initial Synch Negotiation  [Y/N]
           c)  Enable Disconnection      [Y/N]    ( asynchronous mode )

   3. SCSI Bus Reset @ Power Off  [Y/N]    .... I think this is a
mandatory YES

   4. System Board (Caching):
           a) 128k SysBIOS
[Cacheable/Non-Cacheable]
           b)  Base Memory Cacheable         [Y/N]
           c)  Extended Memory Cacheable  [Y/N]

   5. In ENHANCED MODE

           a)  Error if not found            [Y/N]    ............. ( I
always kept this in YES )
           b)  BIOS support option      [HD/FR/NO] .... ( I always keep
this in HD // fixed disk )
           c)  Send Start Command      [Y/N]    ............ ( I think
this is a constant NO )
           d)  Enable Parity Checking   [Y/N]    ............ ( I do not
wish to try NO here, but tell me about it ?! )
           e)  Initial Sync Negotiation    [Y/N]
           f)   Enable Disconnection      [Y/N]    ............ (
asynchronous mode )
           g)  Max Synch Xfer rate       [10MB/s ...]  .... ( I hope
someone will not ask me to try these out )

   6.  What do you think about my using PFDISK to set the Type to 165
(A5h). In my opinion this is a bug         related to the problem I am
having. Without setting this, the installation hangs with "time out"
immediately after answering (a:) to {{ a: Install NetBSD to hard disk
}}.  Tonight, I was not setting this (A5h) because I had hopped that
finding the proper geometry and using "Standard Mode" rather than
Enhanced, will work. It didn't, and I just do not wish to spend the
third night in a row, before I can eliminate some of the irrelevant
parameters from the list above.

  7.  The common sense tells me I should have disconnected my TAPE and
CD-ROM
       from the SCSI bus, and if I get a reasonable guidelines from the
net I will do that.


I think the relationships between the options 1, 2 and 4 above, or 1, 4
and 5 are the key to the problem. Perhaps somebody out there knows what
these are.

Please do not ask me again for the error messages I was getting. I have
thoroughly documented those in my posting on Saturday dated (13 Jun 1998
06:19:17 -0400) which starts with the following still very relevant
words:

              {{ I guess some folks just were not around long enough...
}}

Regards, Igor
;^(*

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