SUMMARY: Sparcstation IPC SCSI

From: Daniel Edward Lovinger (dl2n+@andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 30 1991 - 13:37:14 CDT


        From my original post :

Daniel Edward Lovinger <dl2n+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> We are experiencing a very strange problem on a set of
> Sparcstation IPCs we acquired about three weeks ago.
>
> Configuration
> Sparcstation IPC (Sun 4/40), Rom rev. 1.6
> Two esp SCSI adapters at esp0 and esp1
> Two CDC Wren 7 drives (94601-12G) on esp0, sd0 and sd1
>
> For our purposes, we need to run SunOS 4.0.3c on these
> machines, but during the network boot to download, as the kernel looks
> down the SCSI ....
>
> esp0: Old stat=0x93<RES,XZERO,CD,IO>, New stat=0x13<XZERO,CD,IO>
> esp0: Old stat=0x91<RES,XZERO,IO>, New stat=0x11<XZERO,IO>
>
> appear in seemingly random order, about 6 resets per drive. The only
> thing that changes is that it is stripping the RES flag off of
> (whatever). This happens on every disk access. The disk seems to work,
> but we haven't done any extensive testing of that (yet).

...

> The confusing part is that we have two other IPCs similarly
> configured, running 4.0.3 with no problems. The only change is in the
> part number on the IPC unit, ending in -04 rather than -05 (the newer
> units have the esp0 problem).

        It turns out that if you have Sparcstation IPCs (or SLCs -
4/20?) with CPU board numbers

          501-1680-03 and greater 0MB Sun-4/20 CPU Board
          501-1748-03 and greater 0MB Sun-4/20 CPU Board

          501-1689-08 and greater 8MB Sun-4/40 CPU Board
          501-1835-02 and greater 8MB Sun-4/40 CPU Board

you will need to apply a wee patch to your kernel and
/sys/sun4c/OBJ/esp.o for future builds. For both, the incantation

        adb -w [vmunix or esp.o]
        esp_phasemanage+7c?W 1000000 <-- adb command
        ^D (control-D to finish)

will fix the problem. A magic number tweak. The Sun folk I talked to
indicated that the salient difference is a new SCSI chip that was
installed on these CPU boards (with different timing characteristics,
- but they didn't get specific). This only affects SunOS 4.0.3c, and
the patch (actually, the README file) is SunOS 4.0.3c SCSI patch kit,
P/N 795-1657-01 (patch id 100204-01).

        For what it is worth, the modified kernels seem to be perking
along alright on the older IPCs with the older model SCSI chip.
*shrug*

        Anyone interested in getting a copy of the README, please drop
a line and I'll mail it out. I don't think the interest level
justifies posting an 8k file :-).

    Dan Lovinger Computing & Comunications Carnegie Mellon U.
  Internet: dl2n+@andrew.cmu.edu Bitnet: dl2n+%andrew.cmu.edu@carnegie
 "... and in the stillness, they heard the cry of the golden banana ..."
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