A4000 and A4091

[marmotta]

Hallo, I have a small issue with the scsi...

I have two fast disks, ibm DCAS34330 and Seagate Barracuda (all 4gb) but I not able to have speed over 5mb/sec. Sysinfo show me 4,5mb/sec, scsispeed 5mb/sec at max.

I have active termination, short cable, jumper is at synchronous and I have Buster 11.

My config is: A3640 v3.1, 16mb, kick 3.1, wb3.1, net a2065, merlin 4mb. No ide devices.

Maybe the merlin use to much zorroIII bandwith?

Another problem: at normal use I not have problems, but if I go in the boot menu and exit.... I have the kick screen! I need to manual reset to start hdd load. Same problem with wb3.9 kickstart replacement: it load the kick replacement and reboot to kick screen... I need to reset to loading the workbench. Why?

[marmotta]

Do you have the latest rev 7.0 roms for the 4091?
Are you using active termination?


the ibm drive is a bit slow at only 5400 rpm,looking at the data sheet its rated 40Mbps external transfer rate,and guess what...this is about 5MB/s this drive is doing what it is supposed to.

The seagate barracuda(is this the one that sounds like a jet plane???) you dont give a model so i cant look it up, if its the 7200rpm version it should do a bit better i would think.

Things to check/try:

What filesystem are you using? FFS is slow, use SFS or PFS-AIO
Try the seagate alone if possible.
use active terminators.
try upgrading the roms if possible.

There could be contention with the merlin-those cards were known to be problematic,some even with the upgrades, you might take it out and try the tests.
Sometimes booting with a clean workbench 3x floppy and running the speed tests will give a clear true idea of speed.

Good luck and let us know what you find.

Thanks for the reply

Yes the barracuda is the jet! Is st15150n.

The A4091 is the DKB version, is the latest version? How I see the rom version?

File system is FFS, with FFS the speed does not go beyond 5mb/sec?

[marmotta]

The code in the chip is M5F / 391592-02

On cli "version scsi.device" show me 40.12

My internal terminator is the original commodore active terminator, external terminator is the IBM Hdd... in the manual of this hdd is write: "terminator is certificated fast scsi2 compliant..." is active or passive???

[marmotta]

Ok, I ordered ad external active termination and the latest rom 40.13

But I have another question, I have checked the internal voltage of pin 26 (term power) and is ok 4,70v. But from external cable I have 0v.... I need to supply the terminator from external drive?

Is correct? The A4091 supply the internal power term but not external?

[marmotta]

hello

Check if cpu use cache
Check if this A4000 really got an a4000's 3.1 kickstart (I mean not a 3.1 rom from another machine)


Alain Thellier

Cache is enabled and the kickstart is 40.68, it's ok?

[marmotta]

that is useable on the internal, but it appears you need to supply term power for external. Many drives can be set to do this. without power, termination will not work. Good luck.

Yes! I have connected the syquest on external port and now I have the term power at pin 26

I only wait the active terminator and new rom

[marmotta]

>kickstart is 40.68, it's ok

I dont know exactly : But I had a long time ago an Amiga 4040+DKB4091+SCSI drives and i had lots of problems too ...
Years later I discovered (when using this rom in WinUAE) that the kickstart rom wasnt an Amiga 4040 one

Alain Thellier

How I check this?

[marmotta]

Dump the rom
then check it inside WinUAE

I used transrom and kickinfo, the rom is correct, is for A4000

With kick info I see scsidisk is version 40.12.... if I change the rom on A4091 it replace in ram the kickstart scsi.device with new version???

The command "version scsi.device" show me the kickstart version or A4091 rom version? :confused:

[marmotta]

The A4091 ROM won't replace anything in kickstart, rather it should should show up renamed as "2nd.scsi.device" (any IDE drives would continue to be managed by the scsi.device located in the Kickstart ROM).

Due to reliability issues with Z3 DMA, the transfer rate you're reporting is normal for the 4091. DMA to motherboard RAM (using a 3640 for example) is generally about 1 MB/s higher than DMA to accelerator RAM (and a bit faster still if the motherboard RAM is set to 60ns). Filesystem operations test roughly equivalent to accelerators I have here with onboard SCSI, so in practice, the 4091 "feels" very responsive using PFS3, and CPU use is negligible. (Sidenote: the Fastlane Z3 can be programmed to have a higher transfer rate than the 4091, but at the expense of CPU time). I use a 4091 with a CF AztecMonster in my 4000D, and really love the card.

Dave Haynie wrote lots of interesting info about the 4091 (various websites, and check the usenet archive).

I not have any device in the ide port and the A4091 use scsi.device, if I connect one device to ide my A4091 change device to 2nd.scsi.device. In my config 2nd.scsi.device not exist.

How I set the ram at 60ns? I only need to have 60ns simm?

[marmotta]

Thanks, but I verified and I not have all 60ns simm but a mixed 70/60ns simm...

But two questions remain: with standard ram is impossible to go faster than 5mb/sec with scsi?

And... if I run the command "version scsi.device" it show the version of A4091 or Kickstart rom? If is kickstart rom, how I find A4091 rom version?

[marmotta]

Arrived active terminator and new eprom!

But if I run: "version scsi.device" have the same result... 40.12! Why?

[marmotta]

you are doing version on the amiga 4000 scsi.device in 3.1 rom?

I think so... but how I check a4091 rom? I not have 2nd.scsi.device but only scsi.device!

My system boot with kickstart scsi.device instead of a4091 scsi.device in the eprom? :crazy:

[marmotta]

Ok, I have used scout and it show 40.13! ...version show 40.12... Is a bug?

[marmotta]

It's been a while, but I recall performance for reads was 4-5 MB/s (the same setup on my TekMagic 2060 was about 9 MB/s, measured with RSCP). Filesystem benchmarks were the same as accelerators I've tested with onboard SCSI, so in practice (booting, opening windows, etc) it feels really zippy. It also works flawless copying to and from drives on my DENEB (funny, considering it crashes when copying between two drives on the DENEB, but that's another story...).

You have the A4091, true? You can confirm my boot-up steps?

If I power-on my Amiga it load wb from scsi without a problem, if I reset... no problem. If I go to boot menu (left+right mouse button) and continue the boot process (with or without startup-sequence) my Amiga go to the kickstart screen! I need to reset for load a wb. Is a normal?

[marmotta]

You may of seen this:
http://www.hough.ca/personal/4091.html#a3640
An interesting note here about how rev 3.1 A3640 needs u209 to be -03(aka like on rev3.2) or there are DMA problems supposedly.I never noticed this way back when i had a 4091.
not sure if this would impact speed.
At the end of the day a quality accelerator with scsi onboard is always best

My U209 is -02

But in this link say the 02 is correct: http://vintagecomputercafe.com/amiga/A4091%20ROM.txt