[SunRescue] SCSI disks and old SPARCs

[Gregory Leblanc]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Powell [mailto:Chris_Powell at mitel.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 2:19 AM
> To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> Subject: [SunRescue] SCSI disks and old SPARCs
> 
> 
> 
> > On Sun, 16 Apr 2000 15:35:03 -0500, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > Never try to run an old-style Seagate Barracuda drive (one 
> of the fully
> > 1/2 height ones, 3.5" form factor) in a SPARCstation 
> 1/2-type chassis.  I
> > was using one to test a system, and let it run in the 
> chassis WITHOUT THE
> > COVER EVEN BEING ON.  When I went back to pick up the drive 
> out of the
> > system, it was so hot I got blisters, and not mild ones, either.
> 
> I guess I'm storing up trouble by running a Barracuda 2.1G in a loaded
> IPC (48Meg, dual-slot CG6) then?! I've also got a SS1+ with a 
> Micropolis
> 4221 (7200rpm).... Actually, I guess stuff may run hotter in 
> a SS1 with
> the lid off than on. With the lid on, there will be air flow from the
> PSU fan across the chassis to the holes on the left-hand side.
> 
> Talking of the SS1+, it's got a weird SCSI problem. The 
> monitor probe-scsi
> works fine for the internal disks and external CD-ROM, disk in Sun 411
> lunchboxes. However, when SunOS boots (it's running 4.1.4) I get all
> kinds of SCSI time outs and switching to low speed errors. The CD-ROM
> in the first 411 doesn't appear in the kernel boot messages, but the
> disk in the second 411 does. The CD-ROM doesn't respond to mounts, the
> disk does. If I unplug the two 411s, I only get the errors sometimes.
> It's not the disks, cables, terminators or 411 PSUs.

I dunno, sounds a lot like a cabling/termination problem from the symptoms
you describe...  :)  What's your total cable length?  What kind of
termination are you using?  How many internal disks?  Tried changing the
number or order of external chassis?  

> Anyone seen this before? I suspect the SS1+ motherboard is poorly,
> maybe the SCSI chip output driver is dodgy?

While the SCSI on these machines isn't fast, I haven't had any problems with
my SS2 or SS10 running with the SCSI bus saturated for fairly long ammounts
of time, so I doubt it's the hardware.  I don't know much about SunOS
4.1.4...
	Greg