qlogicfas.rst 3.4 KB

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  1. .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
  2. =================================
  3. Qlogic FASXXX Family Driver Notes
  4. =================================
  5. This driver supports the Qlogic FASXXX family of chips. This driver
  6. only works with the ISA, VLB, and PCMCIA versions of the Qlogic
  7. FastSCSI! cards as well as any other card based on the FASXX chip
  8. (including the Control Concepts SCSI/IDE/SIO/PIO/FDC cards).
  9. This driver does NOT support the PCI version. Support for these PCI
  10. Qlogic boards:
  11. * IQ-PCI
  12. * IQ-PCI-10
  13. * IQ-PCI-D
  14. is provided by the qla1280 driver.
  15. Nor does it support the PCI-Basic, which is supported by the
  16. 'am53c974' driver.
  17. PCMCIA Support
  18. ==============
  19. This currently only works if the card is enabled first from DOS. This
  20. means you will have to load your socket and card services, and
  21. QL41DOS.SYS and QL40ENBL.SYS. These are a minimum, but loading the
  22. rest of the modules won't interfere with the operation. The next
  23. thing to do is load the kernel without resetting the hardware, which
  24. can be a simple ctrl-alt-delete with a boot floppy, or by using
  25. loadlin with the kernel image accessible from DOS. If you are using
  26. the Linux PCMCIA driver, you will have to adjust it or otherwise stop
  27. it from configuring the card.
  28. I am working with the PCMCIA group to make it more flexible, but that
  29. may take a while.
  30. All Cards
  31. =========
  32. The top of the qlogic.c file has a number of defines that controls
  33. configuration. As shipped, it provides a balance between speed and
  34. function. If there are any problems, try setting SLOW_CABLE to 1, and
  35. then try changing USE_IRQ and TURBO_PDMA to zero. If you are familiar
  36. with SCSI, there are other settings which can tune the bus.
  37. It may be a good idea to enable RESET_AT_START, especially if the
  38. devices may not have been just powered up, or if you are restarting
  39. after a crash, since they may be busy trying to complete the last
  40. command or something. It comes up faster if this is set to zero, and
  41. if you have reliable hardware and connections it may be more useful to
  42. not reset things.
  43. Some Troubleshooting Tips
  44. =========================
  45. Make sure it works properly under DOS. You should also do an initial FDISK
  46. on a new drive if you want partitions.
  47. Don't enable all the speedups first. If anything is wrong, they will make
  48. any problem worse.
  49. Important
  50. =========
  51. The best way to test if your cables, termination, etc. are good is to
  52. copy a very big file (e.g. a doublespace container file, or a very
  53. large executable or archive). It should be at least 5 megabytes, but
  54. you can do multiple tests on smaller files. Then do a COMP to verify
  55. that the file copied properly. (Turn off all caching when doing these
  56. tests, otherwise you will test your RAM and not the files). Then do
  57. 10 COMPs, comparing the same file on the SCSI hard drive, i.e. "COMP
  58. realbig.doc realbig.doc". Then do it after the computer gets warm.
  59. I noticed my system which seems to work 100% would fail this test if
  60. the computer was left on for a few hours. It was worse with longer
  61. cables, and more devices on the SCSI bus. What seems to happen is
  62. that it gets a false ACK causing an extra byte to be inserted into the
  63. stream (and this is not detected). This can be caused by bad
  64. termination (the ACK can be reflected), or by noise when the chips
  65. work less well because of the heat, or when cables get too long for
  66. the speed.
  67. Remember, if it doesn't work under DOS, it probably won't work under
  68. Linux.