Attention P3V4X owners with SCSI devices!

SonicFlux

Senior member
Mar 9, 2000
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If you're running an ultra2wide or u160 scsi card on an Asus p3v4x mobo, can you please list your brand of scsi card, scsi devices, and mobo bios revision number?


I bought a tekram dc-390u3w card, and it's causing my system to hang during boot-up. Actually, the mobo never has a chance to start the boot sequence. When the computer is turned on, after the RAM count the scsi BIOS detects all devices then displays "SCSI boot ROM successfully loaded!" Then the system hangs. I tried the card in my spare box with an AbitBH6, and everything worked fine. So this problem has to be a compatability issue with the tekram card and the p3v4x.

I disabled the SCSI BIOS option in the p3v4x bios, but that didn't solve anything.

Any ideas?
 

Scaramouche

Senior member
Oct 19, 1999
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Tekram DC-390U3W, Quantum and Seagate U160 drives, Plextor Ultraplex 32, Imation 8x20 CD-R, P3V4X version 1.02, bios 1.05. No IDE drives, boot from SCSI enabled...works fine here. Check ID assignments and termination.
 

SonicFlux

Senior member
Mar 9, 2000
238
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Thanks scaramouche. At least I have some hope now.

Here is my PCI slot config:
1: sblive
2: (empty)
3: DC-390u3w
4: (empty)
5: NIC
6: (empty)

At one point, I pulled all pci cards but the dc-390u3w. I tried slot3 and slot2, but it locked up all the same.

Here are my scsi ID assignments:

--CHANNEL A--
ID 0: seagate 18gig u160 (end of lvd cable terminated with lvd terminator)
--CHANNEL B--
ID 2: TEAC 6x24x cdr
ID 4: Pioneer 6x dvd (set to terminate)

I tried booting with all variations of my devices installed (i.e. only hard drive, only cdr, no devices at all...) but no luck.

scaramouche, what is your pci slot config and scsi ID config? (i'm also running mobo bios ver 1005 and scsi bios 4.16.00)
 

Scaramouche

Senior member
Oct 19, 1999
482
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PCI slot config:

1: Empty (shares with AGP)
2: Tekram U3W
3: NIC
4: Empty
5: MX300 soundcard

Hard drives on Channel A, CD-Roms and Channel B.

Your ID assigments and termination look good. I'm running Tekram BIOS 4.17. Check the device properties menu for Channel B. I've set the MT/Sec to 0 and Data Width to 8 and Queue to OFF. Could also be an IRQ conflict as Drakkhen is suggesting...so swap the cards around.
 

SonicFlux

Senior member
Mar 9, 2000
238
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oops, I meant I was using 4.17.00.

I also noticed that by removing J5 jumper on the card, the scsi bios posts 2 different IRQs (one for each channel). Are both of your channels using the same IRQ?

 

wlee

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
585
0
71
First of all, get rid of the SB Live. I started to have all kinds of SCSI errors after installing that thing. The system would hang for several seconds, then there would be a ton of timeout errors in the log. This was with a Diamond/Symbios card.
 

birddog

Golden Member
Apr 25, 2000
1,511
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this may sound like a stupid question, but what is your boor order in your BIOS? Do you have it set to look for a SCSI boot device before your harddrive? If so, change you boot order to A, C, SCSI
 

Scaramouche

Senior member
Oct 19, 1999
482
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Actually, it should be A,SCSI,C...or SCSI,A,C. C before SCSI will make it look for an IDE drive first.
 

Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
9,640
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The "SCSI BIOS" option in system BIOS doesn't change anything for SCSI adapters that bring their own BIOS. What it does is enable an embedded SCSI BIOS for those PCI SCSI adapters that don't have their own BIOS, and happen to be built from LSI Symbios (aka NCR) SCSI chips. So this is useless for you.

Tekram seems to use the original LSI SCSI SDMS 4.17.00 on that adapter, something that we use in our shipping product as well. Never did anything weird to me, not even at home where I have a similar dual-channel thingie.

If it hangs after displaying "SCSI boot ROM successfully loaded" then the SCSI BIOS is done already, and it hangs possibly while trying to access the SCSI HDD.

Check your cabling and termination, esp. with the Pioneer drive - some of those have the meaning of the "TERM" jumper reversed from what you might expect, jumper REMOVED for termination ENABLED.

Regards, Peter
 

SonicFlux

Senior member
Mar 9, 2000
238
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birddog, I tried all combinations of the boot order. But this did not solve my problem because the system is hanging BEFORE the mobo has a chance to start the boot sequence.

And I know it's not a termination problem because all scsi devices run flawlessly when i use my old DC390U/F card. It's just that my brand new u160 hard drive is only running at 40Mb/s :(

And don't forget, everything works fine when I plug the dc390u3w into my spare machine with an Abit BH6 board.

Even when I boot up with the new dc390u3u card and unplug all scsi devices from it, it still hangs after it displays "SCSI boot ROM, no devices detected."

Scaramouche, you mentioned you have an Asus P3V4X ver. 1.02 board. I'm not positive, but I think I have an older version mobo.

I have exhausted every last bit of troubleshooting I can imagine. And I thank you all for your help. But I can only think of resolving this problem by moving up my plans to upgrade my mobo and cpu...

How does an AbitKT7-raid and TBird750 sound?
 

AaronP

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2000
4,359
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One of the areas where I've had no problems with my P3V4X!

P3V4X Bios 1005
Tekram DC390U2W SCSI Controller
IBM Ultrastar 18LZX HD
Plextor 40X CD-Rom
Plextor 12/4/32 CDR

Everything has worked prefectly with this stuff. Now, my TNT2 and P3V4X is a whole other situation!
 

thermite88

Golden Member
Oct 15, 1999
1,555
0
0
Sonicflux, I have no problem running Asus P3V4X using all SCSI. I have two SCSI cards installed on PCI slot 2 and slot 5:

Windows 2000 Professional
Pentium III 700E @ 940, 1.65V, Alpha FCPAL-35t
P3V4X (BIOS 1006 Beta 1), 135 FSB @ 1/1 CPU/memory bus
256MB Infineon, PC133, 2-2-2, 7.5 ns
Adaptec 26160 SCSI adapter (BIOS 257.2),
WD Enterprice 10K 18.3MB LVD/Ultar160
Plextor 412 CDR
Plextor 32x caddy CD drive
HP1533A DDS2 4mm tape
Iomega Insider SCSI zip drive.
Tekram DC-315U SCSI Ultra2 card, (no BIOS, for external SCSI only)
Microtek 600V scanner
Toshiba 3401 external CDROM drive
Others:
Matrox G400
Linksys Etherfast 10/100 WOL LAN card
Eqsonics AudioPCI
3Com Robotics V.90 hardware modem (ISA).
 

SammieC

Platinum Member
Apr 24, 2000
2,474
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Sonic, I am running that exact combination and it is a nightmare right now. From what I believe someone mentioned the return rate on kt7 raids is almost 9% right now. I have a lot of periphs and this probably contributes to alot of my problem.

You probably should wait on the Kt7 raid until its has a little more quality assurance..