Justin et al,

On Mon, Apr 09, 2001 at 03:54:42PM -0600, Justin T. Gibbs wrote: # >It's a 4.2-R system. Here's the relevant part of the verbose boot # >(without the new DDYS-T18350N because this makes the system hard to # >use). The 68pin cable is about 60cm with 4 connectors every 20cm. The # >active terminator was way expensive (DM50 = US$25). The 50pin cable is # >150cm long, with 8 connectors spaced 1--------2-3-4-5-6-7-8, aic7880 # >being at position 1, the terminated IBM DCAS at position 8 and other # >unterminated SCSI2 devices at 5 and 7. # # The narrow cable is quite long. You might try distributing the # devices more evenly along the cable. This gives better transmission # line qualities. One other thing that might be affecting you is the # firmware version on the DDYS drive. S80D is really bad. The latest # is S96H.

S96H is exactly what I've got...

Anyway, I found the culprit: it's the removable mobile rack. The disk is connected to the removable chassis with a short (4inches) flat ribbon. This makes sort of a T shaped bus, I think, and in my case the T-ness seems to be not negligible. As soon as I connect the drive directly to the 68pin cable, everything works fine. Even though the packaging of the removable rack says "LVD", its cabling and/or connector seating is obviously crap. This impression is confirmed by trying the disk with a second removable rack (same model) -- same symptoms. BTW, it's a "A4 Tech H.D.D. Mobile Rack". Stay away from that.

Is anyone using removable racks with LVD drives? What brand/model?

PS: the DDYS's 10min interval of FPA/SMART or whatever it does is funny. Screeek; thrrrrrt. I can tune my watch using that. :-)

Regards,

Jens

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majo...@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message