[rescue] DEC Alpha PWS SCSI card compatability

[Jochen Kunz]

On 2003.02.14 00:56 Bill Martin wrote:

> I bought a DEC Alpha PWS 433au on ebay a month ago without its SCSI
> controller.  I am having trouble getting one to work.  Does it have to
> have a QLogic 1040B?  Does that card have to have DEC specific
> firmware? Can any other card work with the SRM console?
I don't know if the QLogic 1040B for Alpha has a different firmware.
AFAIK the Alpha SRM don't use any firmware on the card, the SRM drives
the card by itself. This is the reason why only a small set of SCSI
adapters is supported by SRM and the cards that are supported may be
different from SRM version to version and from machine to machine. So a
"PeeCee" QLogic 1040B and any generic NCR / Symbios / LSI 53C8xx card
should work. AFAIK every SRM for PCI Alphas supports the Symbios cards.
Maybe you should get one that is a bit older, like a 53C825 or 53C875
based card. Also note that some cards with Symbios chips have a messed
up PCI config space / PCI IDs so that they only work proper with the
drivers from the card vendor. Obviously such a card will not be
recognized by SRM. I saw that with my PC164 board. A cheap 53C875 based
card worked, an other "PeeCee and Mac compatible card" with 53C875 did
not.
--



tsch|_,
         Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/