1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3 ================================= 4 Qlogic FASXXX Family Driver Notes 5 ================================= 6 7 This driver supports the Qlogic FASXXX family of chips. This driver 8 only works with the ISA, VLB, and PCMCIA versions of the Qlogic 9 FastSCSI! cards as well as any other card based on the FASXX chip 10 (including the Control Concepts SCSI/IDE/SIO/PIO/FDC cards). 11 12 This driver does NOT support the PCI version. Support for these PCI 13 Qlogic boards: 14 15 * IQ-PCI 16 * IQ-PCI-10 17 * IQ-PCI-D 18 19 is provided by the qla1280 driver. 20 21 Nor does it support the PCI-Basic, which is supported by the 22 'am53c974' driver. 23 24 PCMCIA Support 25 ============== 26 27 This currently only works if the card is enabled first from DOS. This 28 means you will have to load your socket and card services, and 29 QL41DOS.SYS and QL40ENBL.SYS. These are a minimum, but loading the 30 rest of the modules won't interfere with the operation. The next 31 thing to do is load the kernel without resetting the hardware, which 32 can be a simple ctrl-alt-delete with a boot floppy, or by using 33 loadlin with the kernel image accessible from DOS. If you are using 34 the Linux PCMCIA driver, you will have to adjust it or otherwise stop 35 it from configuring the card. 36 37 I am working with the PCMCIA group to make it more flexible, but that 38 may take a while. 39 40 All Cards 41 ========= 42 43 The top of the qlogic.c file has a number of defines that controls 44 configuration. As shipped, it provides a balance between speed and 45 function. If there are any problems, try setting SLOW_CABLE to 1, and 46 then try changing USE_IRQ and TURBO_PDMA to zero. If you are familiar 47 with SCSI, there are other settings which can tune the bus. 48 49 It may be a good idea to enable RESET_AT_START, especially if the 50 devices may not have been just powered up, or if you are restarting 51 after a crash, since they may be busy trying to complete the last 52 command or something. It comes up faster if this is set to zero, and 53 if you have reliable hardware and connections it may be more useful to 54 not reset things. 55 56 Some Troubleshooting Tips 57 ========================= 58 59 Make sure it works properly under DOS. You should also do an initial FDISK 60 on a new drive if you want partitions. 61 62 Don't enable all the speedups first. If anything is wrong, they will make 63 any problem worse. 64 65 Important 66 ========= 67 68 The best way to test if your cables, termination, etc. are good is to 69 copy a very big file (e.g. a doublespace container file, or a very 70 large executable or archive). It should be at least 5 megabytes, but 71 you can do multiple tests on smaller files. Then do a COMP to verify 72 that the file copied properly. (Turn off all caching when doing these 73 tests, otherwise you will test your RAM and not the files). Then do 74 10 COMPs, comparing the same file on the SCSI hard drive, i.e. "COMP 75 realbig.doc realbig.doc". Then do it after the computer gets warm. 76 77 I noticed my system which seems to work 100% would fail this test if 78 the computer was left on for a few hours. It was worse with longer 79 cables, and more devices on the SCSI bus. What seems to happen is 80 that it gets a false ACK causing an extra byte to be inserted into the 81 stream (and this is not detected). This can be caused by bad 82 termination (the ACK can be reflected), or by noise when the chips 83 work less well because of the heat, or when cables get too long for 84 the speed. 85 86 Remember, if it doesn't work under DOS, it probably won't work under 87 Linux.
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