1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3================================= 4Qlogic FASXXX Family Driver Notes 5================================= 6 7This driver supports the Qlogic FASXXX family of chips. This driver 8only works with the ISA, VLB, and PCMCIA versions of the Qlogic 9FastSCSI! cards as well as any other card based on the FASXX chip 10(including the Control Concepts SCSI/IDE/SIO/PIO/FDC cards). 11 12This driver does NOT support the PCI version. Support for these PCI 13Qlogic boards: 14 15 * IQ-PCI 16 * IQ-PCI-10 17 * IQ-PCI-D 18 19is provided by the qla1280 driver. 20 21Nor does it support the PCI-Basic, which is supported by the 22'am53c974' driver. 23 24PCMCIA Support 25============== 26 27This currently only works if the card is enabled first from DOS. This 28means you will have to load your socket and card services, and 29QL41DOS.SYS and QL40ENBL.SYS. These are a minimum, but loading the 30rest of the modules won't interfere with the operation. The next 31thing to do is load the kernel without resetting the hardware, which 32can be a simple ctrl-alt-delete with a boot floppy, or by using 33loadlin with the kernel image accessible from DOS. If you are using 34the Linux PCMCIA driver, you will have to adjust it or otherwise stop 35it from configuring the card. 36 37I am working with the PCMCIA group to make it more flexible, but that 38may take a while. 39 40All Cards 41========= 42 43The top of the qlogic.c file has a number of defines that controls 44configuration. As shipped, it provides a balance between speed and 45function. If there are any problems, try setting SLOW_CABLE to 1, and 46then try changing USE_IRQ and TURBO_PDMA to zero. If you are familiar 47with SCSI, there are other settings which can tune the bus. 48 49It may be a good idea to enable RESET_AT_START, especially if the 50devices may not have been just powered up, or if you are restarting 51after a crash, since they may be busy trying to complete the last 52command or something. It comes up faster if this is set to zero, and 53if you have reliable hardware and connections it may be more useful to 54not reset things. 55 56Some Troubleshooting Tips 57========================= 58 59Make sure it works properly under DOS. You should also do an initial FDISK 60on a new drive if you want partitions. 61 62Don't enable all the speedups first. If anything is wrong, they will make 63any problem worse. 64 65Important 66========= 67 68The best way to test if your cables, termination, etc. are good is to 69copy a very big file (e.g. a doublespace container file, or a very 70large executable or archive). It should be at least 5 megabytes, but 71you can do multiple tests on smaller files. Then do a COMP to verify 72that the file copied properly. (Turn off all caching when doing these 73tests, otherwise you will test your RAM and not the files). Then do 7410 COMPs, comparing the same file on the SCSI hard drive, i.e. "COMP 75realbig.doc realbig.doc". Then do it after the computer gets warm. 76 77I noticed my system which seems to work 100% would fail this test if 78the computer was left on for a few hours. It was worse with longer 79cables, and more devices on the SCSI bus. What seems to happen is 80that it gets a false ACK causing an extra byte to be inserted into the 81stream (and this is not detected). This can be caused by bad 82termination (the ACK can be reflected), or by noise when the chips 83work less well because of the heat, or when cables get too long for 84the speed. 85 86Remember, if it doesn't work under DOS, it probably won't work under 87Linux. 88