Tekram DC-390U3W Problems..Help!

[scsi stud]

Good Evening,

I recently purchased a Tekram DC-390U3W SCSI Adapter. I already have 2 Ultra-Wide HD's that have been working perfectly with my Diamond Fireport 40 SCSI Adapter, as well as two SCSI CD-drives, both Plextor. I unplug the Fireport 40, and plus the 50-pin CD-devices into the 50-pin port in the Tekram, and the two 68-pin HD's into the non-LVD plug in the Tekram. I don't have a 64-bit PCI slot, so I removed the jumper that enables it, and booted the computer up.

It detected all my devices, but for some reason, on HBA 1 (what is HBA?!). When it tried to boot, it simply gave a message "Press a key to reboot". Basically, it found the Hard drives and everything, but nothing would boot. I went to my Motherboard BIOS, chose SCSI as first boot device, and still nothing. I then went into the Tekram BIOS, and I noticed that there are 2 'devices' listed? I've read that this is normal as the card is 2 channels (support for 15 devices), but all my devices were on the 2nd 'adapter' listing. So.. I went to the boot options, and chose the 2nd adapter as Boot device 0. I saved the changes, reboot the PC, and I still got the same problem, "Press a key to reboot".

Can anyone please let me know how to fix this? Thanks in advance.

 

[crt1530]

scsi stud????
ahahahahahaha

This is almost as good as when "DocSmarts" doused his computer with water.

Why are you plugging your 68 pin devices into the same controller as your 50 pin CD drives? Put your hard drives on the other channel (the one closer to the back of the computer) and set the drive you want to boot from as device 0 on channel 0.

 

[scsi stud]

The controller has a 50-pin port as well as 2 68-pin ports, one UltraWide, one LVD/SE. I have my CD drives in the 50 pin port, and the two UltraWide hard drives in the 68-pin UltraWide port.

But if I move my devices on the LVD port, won't it make things slower if in the future I add a Ultra3 SCSI LVD Hard Drive? (I have a Quantum Atlas 10k2 36GB sitting here, not installed yet).

 

[scsi stud]

*bump*

(Sorry.. but I really need some help.. )

 

[RSMemphis]

What are the SCSI IDs of the 4 drives? This is important - if your HD has a low ID and you boot off of the drive with the highest ID, it won't work and vice versa. Before, this was not an issue since your CD-ROM was on a different SCSI controller - one that did not boot.

Try re-arranging your SCSI IDs!

 

[scsi stud]

This is the setup:

ID #0: 9.1 GB Quantum UW-SCSI drive (on the 68-pin port, not the 68-pin LVD one)
ID #1: 4.5 GB Seagate Cheetah UW-SCSI drive (same as above)
ID #3: Plextor UltraPlex CD-ROM (on the 50-pin port)
ID #4: Plextor 12/4 CD-R drive (on the 50-pin port)

I didn't understand your last statement about how my CD-drives were on a different controller.. I only have one controller in my PC. Maybe I'm just confused about that..

On my Tekram, is Channel 0 the 68-pin LVD port, and Channel 1 the 68-pin UltraWide and 50-pin ports?

 

[RSMemphis]

You used to have them on the Fireport, no?
Maybe I don't get it.

ID 0 sounds good for the HD, is this the boot device?
Check to see what the SCSI bios says regarding boot device scan order (hi to low or low to hi).

Odd.

 

[scsi stud]

Yeah, I had all 4 devices on the Fireport (before I purchased the Tekram) and everything was working just fine.

I'm guessing that ID 0 is the boot device, how can I tell? I mean, for some reason, it lists my devices as HBA 1.. is that the 2nd channel? And if so, how do I get my devices to show up on channel 0?

 

[RSMemphis]

SCSI Bus Scan Order (in the SCSI adapter properties) should be low to high (0..7)

I think this is probably the default position though.

Sorry, I think with the current info, I cannot help you.

 

[mandrake88]

hey stud, put that plug back, i have the same card, all i did was replaced the old adaptec card and power on the
pc. i do not quite remember whta that was for but i remembered two of them are jumpered. when i get home i
will check the manual. i will never buy high priced adaptec again unless they bring their price down.
tekram 390u3w rocks!!!!!!!

 

[scsi stud]

Okay, I have been troubleshooting further, and have progressed. Here is my current situation:

Everything works okay, *when* I don't have the two CD-drives plugged into the Tekram's 50-pin Ultra SCSI port. The two UW-SCSI hard drives I have work fine, the new LVD 36 GB drive I have also works just fine, but whenever I plug one or both of the CD-drives, it shows that "Press A Key to Reboot" message after it goes through the SCSI Device check when you first boot up the computer.

I'm thinking I'm not terminating the drives properly, but I don't do anything, replace the Tekram with my old Fireport 40, and everything works fine. Does the Tekram require that I terminate those CD-drives in a different way?

Any help is greatly appreciated, and thanks for the replies so far.

 

[XMan]

Hmm.

Do you have anything plugged into the external 50-pin connector? Cause I think you can only use 2 of the 3 connectors at the same time.

 

[scsi stud]

I have a 36 GB LVD hard drive in the LVD plug, 2 UW-scsi drives in the 68-pin UW plug, and 2 CD-drives into the 50-pin ultraSCSI plug, all internal. I don't have any external devices plugged in at all.

The weird thing is that they are all detected in the SCSI BIOS, even the CD-drives! It's just that when it tries to boot, it just gives the message "Press A Key to Reboot". And that's all. And when I unplug the 50-pin cable from the adapter (therefore disabling the CD-drives), everything works fine. The same thing happens if I unplug the LVD one, keep the UW-scsi ones plugged in as well as the CD-drives, I get the same 'reboot' message.

 

[XMan]

I have a 36 GB LVD hard drive in the LVD plug, 2 UW-scsi drives in the 68-pin UW plug, and 2 CD-drives into the 50-pin ultraSCSI plug, all internal. I don't have any external devices plugged in at all.

I believe that's your problem. You can only have two connectors in use IIRC.

 

[scsi stud]

Well, after I started thinking some more, I tried unplugging the two UltraWide drives from the adapter, and only plugged in the LVD drive and the two CD-drives (that go into the 50-pin), and it still didn't work.

 

[RSMemphis]

No, this controller allows the use of all four connectors, two different SCSI chains.

This is very weird - sorry, I can't help you.

 

[scsi stud]

Damn..

Know where I could get help regarding this? I seriously hope someone else here can help me.. I'm stuck, and am tired of trying to get all my devices working.

 

[mandrake88]

you need an active termination at the end of the 50 pin cable, the termination jumper in the
cdrom is not sufficient. a termination block cost about $10.
my scsi setup:
lvd: 1 ibm 18GB, 7200 rpm
1 seagate 36 GB, 10k rpm
50 pin connector:
plextor 40x cd rom with block termination at the end of the cable.

good luck..

 

[scsi stud]

Okay, thanks for the info. So, where I get the termination block from? Will for example, Best Buy, sell them?

Also, once I get the block and put it on at the end of the cable, do I remove the termination jumper from my CD-drive that currently has termination enabled?

 

[scsi stud]

Update:

Got everything working now. The solution to my problem was to update the BIOS of the SCSI card. Apparently, certain motherboards (I have an Abit KT7) get quirky when using a Tekram U3W along with CD-rom drives. The BIOS fixed it. Also, make sure that, if your CD-drives are UltraSCSI, you go into the SCSI bios and set their Speed to 20MB/s, instead of the default 80. I didn't know I had to do that, and my CD-ROM wouldnt work at all.

Thanks for the help, folks.