1
2 This driver supports the Qlogic FASXXX family of chips. This driver
3 only works with the ISA, VLB, and PCMCIA versions of the Qlogic
4 FastSCSI! cards as well as any other card based on the FASXX chip
5 (including the Control Concepts SCSI/IDE/SIO/PIO/FDC cards).
6
7 This driver does NOT support the PCI version. Support for these PCI
8 Qlogic boards:
9
10 * IQ-PCI
11 * IQ-PCI-10
12 * IQ-PCI-D
13
14 is provided by the qla1280 driver.
15
16 Nor does it support the PCI-Basic, which is supported by the
17 'am53c974' driver.
18
19 PCMCIA SUPPORT
20
21 This currently only works if the card is enabled first from DOS. This
22 means you will have to load your socket and card services, and
23 QL41DOS.SYS and QL40ENBL.SYS. These are a minimum, but loading the
24 rest of the modules won't interfere with the operation. The next
25 thing to do is load the kernel without resetting the hardware, which
26 can be a simple ctrl-alt-delete with a boot floppy, or by using
27 loadlin with the kernel image accessible from DOS. If you are using
28 the Linux PCMCIA driver, you will have to adjust it or otherwise stop
29 it from configuring the card.
30
31 I am working with the PCMCIA group to make it more flexible, but that
32 may take a while.
33
34 ALL CARDS
35
36 The top of the qlogic.c file has a number of defines that controls
37 configuration. As shipped, it provides a balance between speed and
38 function. If there are any problems, try setting SLOW_CABLE to 1, and
39 then try changing USE_IRQ and TURBO_PDMA to zero. If you are familiar
40 with SCSI, there are other settings which can tune the bus.
41
42 It may be a good idea to enable RESET_AT_START, especially if the
43 devices may not have been just powered up, or if you are restarting
44 after a crash, since they may be busy trying to complete the last
45 command or something. It comes up faster if this is set to zero, and
46 if you have reliable hardware and connections it may be more useful to
47 not reset things.
48
49 SOME TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS
50
51 Make sure it works properly under DOS. You should also do an initial FDISK
52 on a new drive if you want partitions.
53
54 Don't enable all the speedups first. If anything is wrong, they will make
55 any problem worse.
56
57 IMPORTANT
58
59 The best way to test if your cables, termination, etc. are good is to
60 copy a very big file (e.g. a doublespace container file, or a very
61 large executable or archive). It should be at least 5 megabytes, but
62 you can do multiple tests on smaller files. Then do a COMP to verify
63 that the file copied properly. (Turn off all caching when doing these
64 tests, otherwise you will test your RAM and not the files). Then do
65 10 COMPs, comparing the same file on the SCSI hard drive, i.e. "COMP
66 realbig.doc realbig.doc". Then do it after the computer gets warm.
67
68 I noticed my system which seems to work 100% would fail this test if
69 the computer was left on for a few hours. It was worse with longer
70 cables, and more devices on the SCSI bus. What seems to happen is
71 that it gets a false ACK causing an extra byte to be inserted into the
72 stream (and this is not detected). This can be caused by bad
73 termination (the ACK can be reflected), or by noise when the chips
74 work less well because of the heat, or when cables get too long for
75 the speed.
76
77 Remember, if it doesn't work under DOS, it probably won't work under
78 Linux.
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