Andy R <quadreverb@yahoo.com> suggests:

> Do you know the model of the adapter?

It's an AHA-2940U, identified by the kernel as aic7880.

> I think they use that same
> chipset in many cards. I'm not much help here, but
> I've never had a problem with an adaptec card that a
> bios update didn't fix.

Update the BIOS of the SCSI card or the mainboard?

> If you can find the model of the card, I'd go to
> adaptec.com and look for updates. Seems like the card
> is the main culprit.

Well, the SCSI card itself is quite fine on the Pentium I.  But I
shall check out Adaptec's web site; thanks for the suggestion.

christos@zoulas.com (Christos Zoulas) suggests:

>> I don't suppose you know the [pr] number?
> 
> 13659, 14529 [search for aic]...

Ah, yes, 14529 seems similar, though they report "timed out while idle",
while I get "timed out in Message-out phase".  Dave Tyson's report
that his Adaptec 2944 board worked with a Pentium I but not a Pentium
II is similar to my experience, though his hypothesis (that the problem
is that 1.5.x drives the card harder then 1.4.x) does not correspond to
my observation (fails with either 1.4.1 or 1.5.2 on the new system).

>>> 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 would try it with FreeBSD's driver since it is the best in this case...

OK, I'll try to figure out how to do that.  I suppose I could get one
of their boot disks and see if that works properly, and if so, I can
go from there...  Yes, that would be a good first step.

>> 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!)
> 
> The motherboard it fails on is a piece of crap [el-cheapo SiS with Celeron],
> so I would tend to agree...

You've lost me here, unless you're referring to some other test case.

The sample msgbuf I gave *was* for the new system.  I can't speak
for the quality of the motherboard, knowing little about such things;
its manual claims a "GFX PRO" chipset; Linux identifies it as "AL115X3
chipset revision 194".  As for the CPU, it really is an Intel Pentium
III; I bought it in a shrinkwrapped box (hologram on the manual and all)
and installed it myself.

So I guess where I'm at is:

  (1) This SCSI board *should* work on my Pentium III system.
  (2) At least one person has had a similar problem which was solved
      by using a different motherboard.  Not entirely clear whether
      that was a case of flaky motherboard or the motherboard tickled
      a bug in the O/S.
  (3) The fact that my system occasionally hangs in hardware boot
      while identifying the devices suggests a hardware problem.
  (4) It is possible that a BIOS upgrade (of the SCSI card?) would
      help.  I will check the web site to see what is suggested.
  (5) However, there is also a known problem in NetBSD which resembles
      the one I report.  One person has seen Linux handle his
      problematic configuration correctly (whereas Linux 2.4.5 reports
      timeouts for me).  FreeBSD is thought to have the best driver
      for this SCSI board.  I will try to boot with FreeBSD and see if
      the problem goes away.

I'll report back when I have news; in the meantime, I'll still monitor
here in case people here have more to say.  Many thanks to all of you
who answered my questions.


On a related note, my motherboard was given to me by a friend who
replaced it because he wanted to add high-end sound and graphics, so the
"integrated" motherboard was not good for him.  I'm fairly sure that
the onboard video etc will be fine for me.  I have no basis to judge
which motherboards are good and which aren't (at work, we use mostly
Compaq Alphas, so that kind of issue doesn't come up!  If only I could
afford such hardware for home!).  In the annoying event that I end up
having to replace this motherboard, is there a document somewhere that
could guide my choice?  I really *am* at a loss with Intel hardware,
as you can probably tell.  :-/


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