CS PPC SCSI advice??

[zipper]

If I remember correctly "Termination Power" is not that big of a thing. You need it somewhere on the bus and (again, if memory serves me right) the CSPPC does that for you.

No it doesn't.

[HammerD]

Yes - one drive must be forced into it as automatic doesn't work. 28-31 MB/s.

Wow that's great speed....wish I could get that...first I have to get it properly setup, but even then, I think my drive isn't fast enough for that.

[zipper]

Ultra2 and U160/320 drives do it easily.

[mousehouse]

No it doesn't.

Ah yes, you are right of course. The CSPPC does not have TERMPOWER or Termination capabilities...

TERMPOWER is power supplied by a device on the cable to be used by the terminators. The terminators are at the ends of the cable to avoid signal reflection.

see: http://www.scsita.org/aboutscsi/SCSI_Termination_Tutorial.html

Thus,

The drive must supply TERMPOWER to the SCSI cable, and both ends of the cable must be properly terminated.

[Boot_WB]

I think I am having some termination problems on my Cyberstorm PPC scsi.  

Here's what I have:

A short SCSI cable with a terminator on the end (how do I tell if it's Active?!?), one connector in the middle, then one at the other end.

So I have:

End of cable Terminator --> CS PPC <-- ACARD 7720UW SCSI-to-IDE and then my IDE drive.

This is your problem. I have yet to find any UW scsi device which has built-in active termination - they are all passive in my experience.

For the CSPPC UW-SCSI with one device you need a minimum of four connectors on your 68-way SCSI cable:

1 - Active terminator
2 - CSPPC SCSI header
3 - Device
4 - Active terminator

The ACard UW SCSI-IDE adapter (AEC 7720UW) is a 16-bit device - this is what your cyberstorm is communicating with (The IDE device attached is irrelevant as far as the cyberstorm is concerned).

The only jumpers on the ACard are Terminator Enable and Terminator Power.  Both are enabled.

The ACard manual does not specify if the built-in-termination is active or passive, and the lack of components on the board (compared to an active terminator) suggests passive. This is the most likely cause of your problems.

I would strongly recommend that you get yourself two active terminators. I've used ones similar to these with no problems (although they looked slightly different) - the key is that it is 68-pins wide, and supports SE (single ended) modes, as the CSPPC operates SE only, not L/HVD (low/high voltage differential). Consequently all attached devices must support SE modes.

Once these are attached to each end of the chain, disable any termination on other devices (eg the ACard adapter).
Activating termination Power on multiple devices will not do any harm, but you shouldn't need to activate it on more than one device in the chain.

-I *HAVE* to set the bus-width to 8-bits.  If I set to 16-bits I get a parity error message from the cybppc.device (under os 3.9).
-The drive works fine in OS 3.9, set to 8-bit synchronous.
-I *have* had a lockup under OS 3.9 from which I think was a SCSI lockup.

All of which are probably due to poor termination.

-The drive is NOT detected under OS 4.0 after the OS4 kernel loads and the machine reboots.  The OS4 cybppc.device scans the SCSI bus but does not detect any devices.

Perhaps the OS4 driver is more picky - I have no insight here.

Regards



Rich

PS - I've set up SCSI chains several times on CSPPC, and currently have (in storage) a CSmk3 with SCSI chain (set up as described above) and ACard 7720UW adapter working perfectly.

PPS - You can mix 8-bit and 16-bit devices on the same bus, but both ends of the chain must still be actively terminated on all 16-bits. This is done by essentially extending the lower 8-bits into another chain (but you must actively terminate them also). Eg:

1 - Active terminator
2 - CSPPC SCSI header
3 - Device
4 - Upper 8-bits Active terminator (leaving lower 8-bits unterminated)
(8-bit chain continues)
5 - 8-bit device
6 - Lower 8-bits Active terminator

This is a more complex thing to try AFTER you have a simple (ie all 16-bit) chain up, running and stable. It's not a configuration I would recommend for early troubleshooting!

[HammerD]

This is your problem. I have yet to find any UW scsi device which has built-in active termination - they are all passive in my experience.

For the CSPPC UW-SCSI with one device you need a minimum of four connectors on your 68-way SCSI cable:

1 - Active terminator
2 - CSPPC SCSI header
3 - Device
4 - Active terminator

Ok thanks for your detailed reply.   Regarding my other system (not the one with ACard) I have a what I believe is an active terminator on the end of the cable (it says LVD/320) which I believe all are "Active", in the middle is the CS PPC, and the other end a Seagate 9.1GB UW Drive model  ST39173W.   That drive has jumpers:

Enable SCSI Terminator (enable or disable)
Term. Power from Drive (enable or disable)
Term. Power to SCSI Bus (enable or disable)
Drive Furnishes power both to its own terminators and to the SCSI Bus (if both enabled)
Term. Power from SCSI Bus (enable/disable)

My assumption here is that "Term Power" means "Active".

Also my assumption would be you should enable  SCSI Terminator, Term Power From Drive and Term Power to SCSI Bus.  

Do you think that is correct? The CS PPC manual says nothing about these jumpers they only talk about "Active" Termination.  But I assume applying power means "Active".

[x56h34]

Ok thanks for your detailed reply.   Regarding my other system (not the one with ACard) I have a what I believe is an active terminator on the end of the cable (it says LVD/320) which I believe all are "Active", in the middle is the CS PPC, and the other end a Seagate 9.1GB UW Drive model  ST39173W.   That drive has jumpers:

Enable SCSI Terminator (enable or disable)
Term. Power from Drive (enable or disable)
Term. Power to SCSI Bus (enable or disable)
Drive Furnishes power both to its own terminators and to the SCSI Bus (if both enabled)
Term. Power from SCSI Bus (enable/disable)

My assumption here is that "Term Power" means "Active".

Also my assumption would be you should enable  SCSI Terminator, Term Power From Drive and Term Power to SCSI Bus.  

Do you think that is correct? The CS PPC manual says nothing about these jumpers they only talk about "Active" Termination.  But I assume applying power means "Active".

HammerD,

Your bus is set to 8-bit.

Your terminators (both ends) are terminating upper 8 bytes only. This is what they are designed to do and this is why you ran into, with this issue.

You need terminators that terminate lower 8 bytes. Your existing terminators will not terminate anything but upper 8 bytes (by design).

Your chain must look something like this:

active term (low 8 b) --- CSPPC --- Hard Drive + acard with term power enabled and termination disabled --- active term (low 8 b).

You might need to aquire a longer cable for your particular setup / hardware, due to the acard thingy being at one end of the chain.

You also might need to clarify with the manufacturer if the UW acard can successfully fallback to SCSI-II levels.

[HammerD]

HammerD,

Your bus is set to 8-bit.

Your terminators (both ends) are terminating upper 8 bytes only. This is what they are designed to do and this is why you ran into, with this issue.

You need terminators that terminate lower 8 bytes. Your existing terminators will not terminate anything but upper 8 bytes (by design).

Your chain must look something like this:

active term (low 8 b) --- CSPPC --- Hard Drive + acard with term power enabled and termination disabled --- active term (low 8 b).

You might need to aquire a longer cable for your particular setup / hardware, due to the acard thingy being at one end of the chain.

You also might need to clarify with the manufacturer if the UW acard can successfully fallback to SCSI-II levels.

Ideally I want to use 16-bit synchronous with the ACARD and nothing else on the chain.

I thought that having an active terminator -- CS PPC -- ACARD with term power and term enabled was enough.

[zipper]

This is your problem. I have yet to find any UW scsi device which has built-in active termination - they are all passive in my experience.

Like I wrote Seagate had some models with active term - I have one on my chains end and it works fine. The other end is with an active terminator.

[HammerD]

Like I wrote Seagate had some models with active term - I have one on my chains end and it works fine. The other end is with an active terminator.

How do you know it's active terminated?  

The jumpers never say "active" at least on my seagates.  It's always

Terminator (enable/disable)
Termination Power from Drive (enable disable)
Termination Power to Drive etc etc....

What model of seagate do you have?

[drbrain]

I have an Acard 7720UW on my CSPPC and it's working fine with 16-bit synchron transfers. And I use the Acards built-in terminator at one end.

Active Term -- CSPPC -- Acard 7720UW (with termpower and terminator enabled)

I get ~24-25MB/s read from an IDE SSD. (Get the same speed on my PC sp it seems ~25MB/s is max for the drive)

[HammerD]

I found this on Seagate's site.  Indicates that the Seagate drives after 1994 have active termination via the TE jumper:

SCSI Termination
Options
11-11-2007 02:21 PM

With today's high speed hard drives combined with long cable runs, only use high quality 'twisted pair' cable and external active (cable end) terminators. Active termination boosts data integrity and reliability. With active termination, a 110-ohm resistor on each signal line connects to a voltage regulator. The regulator ensures signal quality over the entire length of the SCSI bus. This reduces under and overshoot signals typically found on passive resistor termination schemes
Passive termination draws its electrical power from the SCSI host adapter. A 220/330-ohm resistor is used to provide the necessary impedance to prevent the data signal from 'reflecting' back. Fluctuations in termination power (or failing cables) can show up as error symptoms in the drive, yet do not originate there. In general we recommend you enable SCSI Termination Power if available.
Seagate, Maxtor (and Quantum) SCSI disk drives have either onboard active termination (jumpers). Older drives (circa 1994) enable active termination by two removable (10-pin) termination resistors. Some use passive termination with three removable (8-pin) terminating resistor packs. Seagate does not supply terminating resistor packs for older drives.
SCSI Single Ended Hard drives using active onboard termination have a jumper setting labeled 'TE' to control the termination setting.
All Quantum Single-Ended SCSI drives ship defaulted to provide SCSI Termination Enable.
SCSI LVD (low voltage differential) drives do not supply SCSI Termination Enable. Refer to the drive configuration guides for proper setting of this feature.
Notes:
Some Seagate and Quantum SCSI disk drives are available in both Single-Ended and LVD versions. Specifically, the Atlas III and Viking II drives offer both types of termination. Atlas III Narrow (50 pin) drives are Single-Ended, while the Wide (68 pin) and SCA (80 pin) versions are LVD models. Viking II Wide drives are available in both SE and LVD models. The part number for an SE drive will contain ‘W’, and the LVD will contain a ‘L’ (e.g. PX09L011 would be LVD). All Viking II SCA drives are LVD models. All fifty pin Quantum SCSI drives are all SCSI Single-Ended.
LVD cables and SCSI bus terminators can be purchased from Granite Digital, CS Electronics, TMC , or a local retailer.
Use due diligence when installing or adding SCSI devices. Unlike most electronic devices, SCSI may operate if improperly terminated, but performance and reliability will be seriously at risk.



I guess in the case of my A4000T with SCSI hard drive I would have:

ACTIVE Terminator --> CS PPC <-- Seagate ST39173W.  

On the Seagate hard drive I would have TE (terminator enable) jumpered and also Terminator Power From Drive.

I'm not sure about Parity - do I need that enabled?  There is a jumper on the drive for "Enable Parity check of SCSI Bus".  The Default is "enabled".


For my  A4000 desktop system with the ACARD:

ACTIVE Terminator --> CS PPC <-- ACARD with Terminator Enabled and Terminator power Enabled, then my IDE drive attached.

I'm still not 100% sure if I need an extra active terminator after the ACARD....some people don't seem to have them.

[Boot_WB]

HammerD,

Your bus is set to 8-bit.

Your terminators (both ends) are terminating upper 8 bytes only. This is what they are designed to do and this is why you ran into, with this issue.

Sorry, but this is completely incorrect. An UW active terminator terminates all 16 lines independently - look at the pcb if you do not believe this to be the case.

You need terminators that terminate lower 8 bytes.

This is true for the bus in 8-bit mode only. However, HammerD has a AEC 7720UW 68-pin SCSI > 40-pin ATA adapter. This is a 16-bit device which is communicating with the SCSI host (albeit the host is currently forcing it to operate in 8-bit mode). Ideally it wants to be working in 16-bit (ie wide) mode, hence he needs 16-bit activer termination at each end.

Your chain must look something like this:

active term (low 8 b) --- CSPPC --- Hard Drive + acard with term power enabled and termination disabled --- active term (low 8 b).

This will work, but only in 8-bit mode. A 16-bit terminator at each end will work just as well, and will also allow 16-bit operation.
However, this is a overcomplicating the issue I fear.

You might need to aquire a longer cable for your particular setup / hardware, due to the acard thingy being at one end of the chain.

You also might need to clarify with the manufacturer if the UW acard can successfully fallback to SCSI-II levels.

Interesting question. Testing under OS3.9 would seem to indicate "Yes", but it could be causing some problems I suppose.
Another source of issues could be a 'dodgy cable' (spacing beteween connectors too far/too close), but I still strongly suspect termination to be the issue.

[Boot_WB]

I found this on Seagate's site.  Indicates that the Seagate drives after 1994 have active termination via the TE jumper:

There's some good information in there, given that you have a ST39173W, which would indicate that this is equipped with activer termination. If so, great.

Re your LVD/320 terminator, LVD is a totally different SCSI mode which is incompatible with SE (single ended). The termination specifications are different (see wikipedia page on SCSI). The Cyberstorm PPC is SE - not LVD. The terminators I have bought in the past have specifically supported both LVD and SE buses. Your LVD/320 terminator may not support SE buses - I cannot say. However, if you have two of the Seagate drives with active termination you could perhaps try one of these at each end of the chain.

I guess in the case of my A4000T with SCSI hard drive I would have:

ACTIVE Terminator --> CS PPC <-- Seagate ST39173W.  

On the Seagate hard drive I would have TE (terminator enable) jumpered and also Terminator Power From Drive.

Looks good, assuming that the LVD/320 terminator also supports SE buses (see above).

I'm not sure about Parity - do I need that enabled?  There is a jumper on the drive for "Enable Parity check of SCSI Bus".  The Default is "enabled".

You can try with/without on this one - it will do no harm.

If there is a 'Force SE' jumper, you may as well activate it (CSPPC SCSI is a SE bus)

For my  A4000 desktop system with the ACARD:

ACTIVE Terminator --> CS PPC <-- ACARD with Terminator Enabled and Terminator power Enabled, then my IDE drive attached.

I'm still not 100% sure if I need an extra active terminator after the ACARD....some people don't seem to have them.

The ACard bridges may - or may not - have active termination. I do not remember if I have  tried the termination on them.
However, I've tried with various hard drives and CD/DVD drives with built-in termination over the years, and nothing has ever worked as well as proper dedicated terminators for me. also, nothing comes close in terms of reliability (and simplicity of troubleshooting if things DO go wrong) as having the correct setup in the first place.
Also, SCSI buses which are not terminated can still work - albeit less reliably, with more data corruption, more chance of bus lockups, etc, etc, etc. It's so particular to each setup: cable length (wrt bus frequency and phase of reflected pulses), spacing between devices, etc.  

The CyberstormPPC scsi bus is a tricky beast even when set up correctly.

[HammerD]

There's some good information in there, given that you have a ST39173W, which would indicate that this is equipped with activer termination. If so, great.

Re your LVD/320 terminator, LVD is a totally different SCSI mode which is incompatible with SE (single ended). The termination specifications are different (see wikipedia page on SCSI). The Cyberstorm PPC is SE - not LVD. The terminators I have bought in the past have specifically supported both LVD and SE buses. Your LVD/320 terminator may not support SE buses - I cannot say. However, if you have two of the Seagate drives with active termination you could perhaps try one of these at each end of the chain.


Looks good, assuming that the LVD/320 terminator also supports SE buses (see above).


You can try with/without on this one - it will do no harm.

If there is a 'Force SE' jumper, you may as well activate it (CSPPC SCSI is a SE bus)



The ACard bridges may - or may not - have active termination. I do not remember if I have  tried the termination on them.
However, I've tried with various hard drives and CD/DVD drives with built-in termination over the years, and nothing has ever worked as well as proper dedicated terminators for me. also, nothing comes close in terms of reliability (and simplicity of troubleshooting if things DO go wrong) as having the correct setup in the first place.
Also, SCSI buses which are not terminated can still work - albeit less reliably, with more data corruption, more chance of bus lockups, etc, etc, etc. It's so particular to each setup: cable length (wrt bus frequency and phase of reflected pulses), spacing between devices, etc.  

The CyberstormPPC scsi bus is a tricky beast even when set up correctly.

No doubt. Thanks for your advice.  I've already found out that the OS4 cybppc.device is less forgiving than the phase-5 cybppc.device used under OS 3.x.  I've had my system working fine (or what I thought was fine) under OS 3.9 only to find out the OS4 cybppc.device doesn't find anything.

I'll do some more verification on the ACARD AEC-7720UW - I've emailed their tech support to ask about active termination.   I will also double check my terminators and cables to make sure they are SE or LVD/SE.  I have 3 cables but I think only two of them actually have any labeling on the terminators, the other one I think there isn't anything to tell me if it's LVD or SE, but i would assume SE if not specifically labeled LVD.

[amigadave]

Resurrecting this old thread to ask for help with my Cyberstorm SCSI controller and 68pin hard drives.  I have 3 or 4 - 68pin, 18gb to 73gb hard drives and one 68pin SCSI CDROM drive that I have tried to get working on my Cyberstorm's SCSI controller and just recently tried again and got the CDROM working with AsimCDFS, but still no hard drives shown using any of the SCSI chain tools provided by Phase5, or by any version of HDToolBox.  Now that I have the CDROM working, I have more hope that I will figure out what the problem is that is preventing any of the hard drives from showing up on the SCSI chain.

Can I assume that the SCSI chain is properly terminated now that the CDROM is working and eliminate it as the possible reason for the hard drives not being seen?

Any help would be appreciated to get at least one hard drive working on the Cyberstorm's SCSI controller, even though I am currently booting my A4000 from a USB stick connected to the Deneb.