Scsi causing extremely long boot times on my 8K7A

[Audiofight]

Here's the system:

Epox 8K7A
Thunderchicken 1.2 266 fsb
128 MB PC-2100
GF2 GTS 64 (Running at 200/375)
Adaptec 2940UW
3Com 10/100
SBLive
Maxtor 7200 rpm/ATA-100 hdd

AGP - GF2
PCI 1 - empty
PCI 2 - 3Com nic
PCI 3 - empty
PCI 4 - Adaptec
PCI 5 - empty
PCI 6 - SBLive!

All my cd-rom, burner, and zip drives are scsi. My hdd is obviously ide.

The system will post so fast that my monitor can't warm up fast enough to see it. Then, it posts my scsi drives and sits there for literally about two minutes, I gave a rough timing by sitting and counting. After that, it boots into Win2k fast enough for my liking, less than a minute between both screens and log-in.

Why does it hang up on the scsi post? Does the PCI slot it is in have a problem possibly? Do I need to manually bump voltages to help things out some?

 

[Boonesmi]

if your hard drive is ide, then you might want to disable the scsi bios (that will increase the boot time)

for an adaptec 2940 card just hit control-A when its IDing your drives, and disable scsi bios in the setup section

also make sure the scsi line is terminated correctly (only terminated at the end of the chain)

 

[Audiofight]

I will try that when I get home to make sure it didn't somehow get turned onto that. It posts the drives and says "BIOS not installed" and then hangs there for a while.

I have had this scsi controller for a while now and never had a problem with it. I love the thing, no cpu utilization when burning cd-to-blank

I have the cable terminated on the last drive on the chain, which is the highest number as well. I have the controller's bios set to "LOW OFF/ HIGH ON" for termination so that the high number is the terminated number.

Thanks for the help

 

[Boonesmi]

yeah it seems your card is trying to load the bios, but since it doesnt have a boot drive it wont load it.

it still shouldnt hang like that, but a good chance if you disable the bios it will fix your problem

 

[Waffen]

SCSI always takes a long time to boot up. I have had many SCSI raid setups and they always take forever to boot. They always seem to take forever to run the SCSI drivers but when it boots up it is defenatly worth it.

 

[Zach]

<< I have the controller's bios set to "LOW OFF/ HIGH ON" for termination so that the high number is the terminated number. >>



Actually, I thought that low/high termination referred to how much of the us was terminated? Like if you had a 50pin connecter externally (or the internal), and a 68pin inside.. you'd choose just high. No external (or internal 50) and both are on. No?

Besides which, SCSI ID's have nothing to do with termination. It's literally a termination at a point in the cable, in the old days it was a bunch of resisitors.

Termination will cause your problems...

 

[Zach]

<< SCSI always takes a long time to boot up. I have had many SCSI raid setups and they always take forever to boot. They always seem to take forever to run the SCSI drivers but when it boots up it is defenatly worth it. >>



The drivers don't have anything to do with it, it's the BIOS scan. Disabling SCSI BIOS, and the actual scan if possible, will decrease boot time. Some cards also have a boot delay to allow old hard drives to spin up.

 

[Pederv]

It's your scsi - sound card. In the 8K7A, PCI 3 & PCI 5 share IRQ's, and PCI 4 and PCI 6 share IRQ's. SBLives don't like to share, though in some cases they will. PCI 3 & PCI 5 also share with the USB.

 

[Peter]

Get the termination right. "Low" refers to the 50-pin narrow SCSI bus and "High" to the Wide extension.

So if you have just a 50-pin cable internally, you must terminate the far end of the cable and enable Low AND High termination on the controller. If you use a Wide cable and a Narrow one, then you must terminate the far ends of both cables, and the Wide extension ("High") on the controller.
If you use all three connectors, then you're violating the SCSI specification.

regards, Peter

 

[SilverThief]

WHat somebody else said.....SCSI always takes a long time to boot.

 

[rommel]

scsi and even ide raid controllers do always add to the boot time no matter how you configure them...they pause to give you time to enter their setup and scan their bus like the intitial boot screen does for the onboard ide controller....not sure how much time you can really shave off this.

one thing....why dont you put a scsi hard drive in that system.....lol

 

[Zach]

<< WHat somebody else said.....SCSI always takes a long time to boot. >>



Come on guys? Up to two minutes? You think that's normal?I have two computers at home with SCSI stuff in them, they take at most 15 or 20 seconds (because of looking for bootable CDROM's), one's just 5. I run servers with SCSI disks, they go past the SCSI BIOS in around 4 seconds.

 

[Peter]

Regarding boot time with SCSI ...

Just like with IDE, BIOS needs to reset the channel(s) and delay for a second so that the drives come back online. Just like with IDE, having BIOS scan for a drive position where you _know_ there is nothing adds a delay. SCSI adapters have lots of drive positions, 7 to 30, so this quickly adds up. Finally, some SCSI adapters have a "verbose/terse" display option.

Example:

LSI 21002 dual-channel SCSI.

Verbose vs. Terse: 2 seconds off.
Empty drive positions turned off: half a second off per position

So, wait 30 seconds with the SCSI BIOS set to its defaults, or configure it neatly and get over it in two.

Dunno with Adaptecs, haven't gone near them for quite a while now since their firmware and driver quality hasn't really been amusing lately.

regards, Peter

 

[Audiofight]

I think he may be on to something (Peterv) with the sound card. I am about fed up with the SBLive anyway. It gave me more than its fair share of problems with my Iwill KK266 board. I pulled the scsi card out of the system totally and the system still hangs for about two minutes between the post and the first Win2k load screen.

The scsi is terminated on Auto and I tried to set every option that the Adaptec card has to offer, but it didn't help any. I am going to pull the SBLive out in a bit and see if it is causing my hang up. If so, good bye to that blasted card. It never truly impressed me.