OS/2 Shareware BBS: 36 Tips/36-Tips.zip/pcii0696.zip/PCISCSI.TXT

Text File | 1996-06-08 | 33KB | 653 lines

      Document:  PCI SCSI controllers for OS/2 list
    Maintainer:  Patrick Duffy, [e-mail]
    Revision Dates:  11/2/95, 11/26/95, 12/3/95, 5/18/96, 5/26/96,
              6/2/96
       Archived at:  ftp.netcom.com, in directory /pub/ab/abe/
             CompuServe (GO BENCHMARK)
     Web pages:  http://warp.eecs.berkeley.edu/os2/workbench/work.htm
             http://www.os2forum.or.at/english/info/os2hardwareinfo/
             (note that the first URL may not have up-to-date
             versions of the lists)

This document is intended for use by individuals and corporations in a
non-commercial manner.    It may be distributed freely within those
limitations.  Commercial use of this document in any manner requires
prior written permission of the author.

This is the PCI SCSI controllers for OS/2 list. I've placed a '*' beside
the cards which I would recommend for anyone assembling an OS/2 system.
If you see '**' beside a particular card, this is an indication that I
would choose it myself when picking a PCI SCSI card for my own system.
The PCI vendor name and ID have been added in brackets below each card's
description.  The first number is HEX and the second is decimal. Dates
in brackets indicate the last revision date for the related entry.

As usual, please feel free to correct any continuing misconceptions I
might have, or to insist that I should recommend a component I don't, or
to add a new card/bit of information to what's here already.  Your
contributions and/or corrections are always welcome and certainly
appreciated.

General comments: (12/3/95)

Make sure that for any SCSI device (if you have an Intel Premiere board)
you have at least the seventh or eighth revision of the Intel PCI BIOS
on your motherboard (rev. 14 is out for the 90/100 MHz boards, and is
preferred). Earlier AMI BIOS revisions would not work properly with SCSI
and (apparently) protected mode.  In addition, it turns out that some
SCSI cards will only work with some motherboards. If you're not sure
what card to pick, cross-check this list with the PCI motherboard list.
Note also that the Intel PCI Saturn chipset (rev. 1) had problems with
cache integrity, and rev. 2 had problems with PCI to CPU burst mode, so
that you're probably really better running these motherboards without
SCSI controllers, or at the very least with all caches off.  See the PCI
chipsets list for further details on known problems with (Intel) PCI
chipsets.

One other motherboard-related issue apparently is that not all PCI slots
on all motherboards allow busmastering.  As all the cards in this list
_are_ busmastering, ensure that the slot in which you put your SCSI card
will accommodate a busmaster.  Certain controllers (the Adaptecs most
prominently) behave very erratically when put in a non-busmastering
slot.

Many motherboard manufacturers simplify the choice of SCSI controller
further by including an NCR SCSI chip (for which there are OS/2 drivers)
in their boards, so there is the potential that if you buy one of the
cards listed below you could be buying a redundant SCSI interface. Check
first.    Make sure too that you are running version 3.02 or later of the
drivers for the NCR chip (available from ftp.symbios.com); earlier
versions did not allow DMA transfers above 16 MB.  Note too that PCI
SCSI controllers do not include floppy controllers on-board, as most PCI
motherboards have these built in already, and fixed-address devices like
floppy drives are not a good thing to put on a PCI bus.

Also note:  OS/2 2.1/2.11 treats PCI as a (very fast) ISA bus.    It
therefore is unaware of PCI's ability to share interrupts, and so if you
put two of any one controller in any slot you're likely to have
problems.  This has been fixed in Warp, which is now apparently PCI
2.0-compliant.

One more thing:  If you have a motherboard with the NCR BIOS built in
and you get an NCR card, make sure you get a card without the NCR bios
on it, to save yourself some potential trouble that some card BIOSes
seem to have coexisting with motherboard BIOSes (which cannot be
disabled).  I'm told that the newest rev. of the Intel BIOS
(1.00.14.AX1) will also fix this problem for those of you with Intel
Premiere boards.

If, after all this, you're having problems getting your OS/2 SCSI setup
to work, a very useful resource on the .net is the document "SCSI - A
Game With Many Rules and no Rulebook?", compiled by Gary Field
([e-mail]).    The document may be found at
ftp://ftp.wang.com/pub/garyf/scsi/.  You might also check out the SCSI
FAQ:

Where to get the latest copy of the SCSI FAQ:
  The comp.periphs.scsi FAQ is posted to Usenet during the first week
  of each month. In addition, a recent version can be obtained
  via anonymous ftp from:
  ftp.wang.com:
      garyf/scsi/scsi-faq.part*
  OR
  rtfm.mit.edu:
      pub/usenet-by-group/comp.periphs.scsi/comp.periphs.scsi_FAQ_part_*
  OR
  via World Wide Web (WWW):
  http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/scsi-faq/
  OR
  (in HTML format)
  http://www.paranoia.com/~filipg/HTML/LINK/F_SCSI.html

                 NEW THIS WEEK
                 -------------

I've added the Tyan Yorktown controller to this list, and added the Tyan
contact information to the useful numbers section below.  I've also
added the WD 7197 controller, also reported to work well with Warp.

Apparently the DPT controllers require the latest driver (not the one
that comes with Warp) to avoid traps with OS2ASPI.DMD.  That can be
obtained from the DPT web site.  I've had another report of success with
the BusLogic Flashpoint controller, and a report of qualified success
with the WD 7296 controller.  The NCR controllers apparently do not
support drives with more than 64 heads and 1024 cylinders.  In addition,
the 2940 controller may not work with the Asus PVI-486SP3.

I've also learned that the PCI slots in 2.0-compliant boards are
edge-triggered.  This is in direct contradiction to information which
I've had before...

I've also added new (and expanded) contact information for Intel.

Useful Numbers: (6/2/96)
---------------
Adaptec:     [phone] (tech. support)
         ftp.adaptec.com (ftp site)
         www.adaptec.com (web site)
         ftp.adaptec.com (ftp site)

Advansys:     [phone] (main desk)
         [phone] (direct credit card sales)
         [phone] (tech. support -- 24 hours)
         [phone] (FAXback)
         [phone] (FAX)
         [phone] (BBS - N81)
         ftp.advansys.com (FTP site)
         www.advansys.com (WWW site)

BusLogic:     [phone] (Voice)
         [phone] (tech. support -- 7 A.M. - 5 P.M.
                 Pacific Time, Mon. - Fri.)
         [phone] (FAX)
         [phone] (BBS - N81)
         [e-mail] (E-Mail tech. support)
         ftp.buslogic.com (FTP site)
         www.buslogic.com (WWW site)

DPT:         (800) 322-4DPT (sales)
         [phone] (tech. support)
         [phone] (BBS)
         ftp.dpt.com (FTP site)
         www.dpt.com (WWW site)

Intel:           [phone] (tech. support)

                 FAXBack:
                 --------
                 [phone]  (US or Canada)
                 [phone] (Europe)
                 [phone]    (Singapore)
                 [phone] (Hong Kong)
                 [phone] (Taiwan)
                 [phone]   (Korea)
                 [phone]  (Australia)
                 [phone]  (World wide)

                 BBSes:
                 ------
                 [phone]  (US or Canada/World wide)
                 [phone] (Europe)
                 [phone]    (Singapore)
                 [phone] (Hong Kong)
                 [phone] (Taiwan)
                 [phone]   (Korea)
                 [phone]  (Australia)

                 ftp.intel.com (FTP site)
                 www.intel.com (WWW site)

NCR:             [e-mail] (OS/2 tech. support)
                 ftp.symbios.com (NCR SCSI drivers)

QLogic:          [phone] (sales)
                 [phone] (tech. support)
                 [e-mail] (sales E-Mail)
                 [e-mail] (tech. support E-Mail)
                 ftp.qlc.com (FTP site)
                 www.qlc.com (WWW site)

Tekram:          www.tekram.com (WWW site)

Tyan:            [phone] (sales)
                 [phone] (FAX)
                 [phone] (BBS)
                 www.tyan.com (WWW site)
                 ftp.tyan.com (FTP site)

Washburn (AMI):  [phone] / [phone] (General inquiries)
                 [phone] (faxback and information about specials)
                 [phone] (tech. support)
                 [phone] (FAX)

Western Digital: www.wdc.com (WWW site)

Manufacturer           Model         Comments
------------------------------------------------------
 Adaptec           2940*         This is Adaptec's non-RAID SCSI
                     controller for the PCI bus.
The basic 2940 uses fast SCSI (SCSI-2, 10 MB/S), and the 2940W uses
fast/wide SCSI (SCSI-2, 20 MB/S).  There latest driver for the card
(available from the Adaptec FTP site) now supports the extra driver
switch /PCIHW, which tells the driver to bypass the PCI BIOS and query
the PCI hardware directly for configuration information.  This switch
should now enable the adapter to work on most systems.    The controller
is definitely known to work with the Intel Premiere and Premiere II
boards as well as most (if not all) of the Asus boards. The cards will
not coexist with the Quantum Empire 1080S drive when communication speed
between the drive and controller is set to 10 MB/sec (the card won't
recognize it during the BIOS scan, which makes it difficult to boot...).
If you're not sure whether the 2940 will work in your setup, you can
call the Adaptec FaxBack service (408-957-7150) and request document
21105, which gives a list of PCI systems tested with the card.    (It may
be necessary to disable the green functions in the motherboard's BIOS to
get the card to work properly.)  There have been reported problems with
getting the 2940W to consistently recognize either a Fujitsu or a
Seagate 1 GB HD.  As the 2940 and 2940W are essentially similar
controllers, this problem may be endemic to both.

(Adaptec:  9004/36868) (11/26/95)

 Under 2.1/2.11:  This card will work with the driver found on
ftp-os2.cdrom.com.

 Under Warp:  Driver support is built in, though not as robust as it
could be (from reports I've seen on the .net).  The latest driver
(mentioned above) should fix this.  The driver which comes with fixpack
10 (5/30/95, 5:53p, 34092, AIC7870.ADD) apparently does not work with
the Intel Plato boards and BIOS revision 1.00.13.AX1.  The latest driver
available from Adaptec (8/8/95, 2:44a, 40956, AIC7870.ADD) apparently
does work.  (The adapter halts at the start of the boot process with the
floppy light and hard drive light glowing.)  Apparently as well the
fixpack 10 driver will not report the total number of PCI buses present,
whereas the Adaptec driver will, indicating that perhaps the fixpack 10
driver is likely based upon an older version of AIC7870.ADD.  Version
1.21 of the BIOS does not work with the Asus PVI-486SP3 motherboard.

Note:  Many of the problems people have reported with the card may be
due to things beyond Adaptec's control:

Some problems may be caused by BIOS bugs.  The reason for this is that
the drivers included with OS/2 Warp make use of BIOS calls to configure
the PCI BUS. These calls fail in older BIOSes which do not support this
feature properly.  The latest drivers have as an option writing directly
to the PCI hardware instead.  This option should be used (by adding the
/PCIHW switch to the basedev line for the adapter) if the driver fails
(either that, or update the BIOS, if possible).  Of course, if you can't
update the BIOS and your motherboard does not support a driver which
writes to the PCI hardware directly (some don't), you're stuck.

 Adaptec           2940UW*         This is Adaptec's first UltraSCSI
                     controller.  It is essentially the
same card as the 2940 above, with the exception that it now supports the
20/40 MB/s fast and fast/wide SCSI bus timings.  I've had several
reports of success (all in combination with Intel Advanced/ZP boards)
and one report of failure with the card.

(Adaptec:  9004/36868) (12/3/95)

 Under 2.1/2.11:  Driver support unknown, though presumably it's in
place.
 Under Warp:  Driver support is in place and reported to work well on
Triton-based boards but not at all on another board (Asus PVI/486SP3 --
the system did not even get past the bus scan on initial power-up).

 Adaptec           3940*         This is Adaptec's two-channel SCSI
                     controller for the PCI bus.  Like
the 2940, it comes in a fast-only model (3940, 7 devices on each channel
for a total of 14 devices, 7 of which may be external) and a fast/wide
model (3940W, 15 devices on each channel for a total of 30 devices, 15
of which may be external).  To put more than one channel on a card,
Adaptec employs two AIC7870 processors (one for each channel) linked by
a PCI-PCI bridge.  In order for these cards to work, therefore, your
system _MUST_ support PCI-PCI bridges, and not all do. Check with
Adaptec and/or your system motehrboard manufacturer before proceeding.
I've had a report of success now with the 3940W in a couple of different
installations, one of which had another 2940 in a different slot, so
I've upgraded their status to 'recommended'.

(Adaptec:  9004/36868) (5/26/96)

 Adaptec           3985         This is Adaptec's RAID controller,
                     and performs some RAID functions
automatically with more than one drive attached. In a manner similar to
the 3940, the 3985 uses multiple (three in this case) AIC7870 chips
linked by PCI-PCI bridges to support up to 21 devices on the adapter. It
also has a dedicated RAID coprocessor to handle all RAID 5 parity
calculations.  It comes with software (Netware-based, I think) to
monitor the array status and performance from the server console or any
windows-based client on the network.  The adapter supports hot swapping
of drives and hot spare drives.  All connections to the card are
standard 50-pin, and no wide model exists.  I've had no reports from
people using this card.

(Adaptec:  9004/36868) (8/27/95)

 Advansys           ABP9XX         Advansys is a relative newcomer to
                     the SCSI controller market, but
they make what could be a very nice line of SCSI controllers.  All
adapters run on the same driver (drivers are available for OS/2, NT,
DOS, SCO, Interactive, Win/95, Linux, and Netware).  All adapters are
capable of starting a local I/O request 10 microseconds after the SCSI
bus is detected as being free and should, therefore, be ideal for RAID
applications (especially the higher-end controllers).  The controllers
also auto-terminate, so that you need not worry about termination
problems if you have a removable external device attached. I've had a
(very positive) report of success with the 940 and OS/2 Warp and Warp
Connect.  I've been less lucky with the card myself, however (I got the
940 after all the reports of success); the card does not seem to
co-exist nicely with my SB-16 Value Edition, cutting out sound in DOOM
at random points with the drivers loaded, and causing Windows (under
DOS) to lock up during exit (possibly also related to the sound
problem).  Tech. support (24 hours) knows about the problem and worked
with me extensively on a solution, but with no luck.  I've noticed too
that the OS/2 drivers for the card will not work from a floppy (utility
disk) boot; OS/2 reports no drive present.  Others have reported that
the DOS drivers don't work in Win/95, though this is less of an issue
given that you can set up a menu at boot time to select drivers.  Given
these troubles, I really can't recommend these cards, in spite of the
fact that the company has been one of the very best ones I've dealt
with.

(Advanced System Products:  10CD/4301) (5/18/96)

The controllers themselves are:

      1. ABP950 -- 2 channel SCSI adapter with 500 I/O requests stored locally
         on the adapter.  50-pin high-density external connector.
      2. ABP940 -- 1 channel SCSI adapter with 250 I/O requests stored locally
         on the adapter.  50-pin high-density external connector.
         ($149 from the Advansys 800 number for card, four-connector
         cable, and driver disk.  $199 will get you CorelSCSI.)
      3. ABP930 -- 1 channel SCSI adapter with 20 I/O requests stored locally
         and a 50-pin high-density external connector.
      4. ABP920 -- 1 channel SCSI adapter with 20 I/O requests stored locally
         and a 25-pin low-density external connector.
         ($99 from the Advansys 800 number)

 AMD               <various>    AMD makes a SCSI controller
                    chip which is apparently used by
Zeos, Compaq, and HP in their computers. OS/2 drivers are apparently
shipped with the boards which use it.  The controller is reported to
work well under DOS/Win and OS/2 by one user on an HP, though one user
reports lock ups under OS/2 after a couple of hours.

(Advanced Micro Devices:  1022/4130) (9/10/95)

 AMI               MegaRAID      Here's a controller for the truly
                     power-hungry.  This is a fast/wide
controller with three separate SCSI channels, each of which supports up
to 15 peripherals (so you can attach up to 45 SCSI devices to _one_
card).    It uses an Intel i960 RISC processor to control all this, and
will take up to 128 (!) MB of cache (in 72-pin SIMMs) on the controller
itself. It is PCI 2.0-compliant and supports all the regular SCSI
features, as well as RAID.  Three NCR53C720 processors (one for each
channel) are used.  The card has 50 and 68-pin internal connectors and a
120-pin external connector.  It is fault-tolerant.  I've no reports of
success with this card as yet, but driver support is there, apparently.

(American Megatrends:  101E/4126) (8/27/95)

 BusLogic           BT946C*         This is BusLogic's PCI SCSI
                     controller.  The same SCSI
controller chip is apparently used in their VL card, and so the drivers
for that card will work with the PCI card as well.  There are apparently
six revisions of the PCI card out, the first two of which (released
before Nov. '94) were not PCI 2.0-compliant.  The newer revsions (C, D,
E, and F (for Micronics motherboards only)) _are_ PCI 2.0-compliant, but
people have been having problems getting revision C running properly on
motherboards with Opti chipsets (apparently the PCI controller is not
being programmed properly).  To get the older cards (A and B) running,
you have to either set the card to match the IRQ pin in your PCI slot
(usually A, B, or C), or move the card to slot A (where the card is set
initially). Failure to do so will result in hangs under Warp (but
apparently not 2.1/2.11).  The newer versions of the card do this
automatically.    To tell what version of the BusLogic Card you have,
either look at the revision number in the model (it's indicated there),
or have a look at the firmware and BIOS levels on startup.  The firmware
version should be 4.22 for rev. B, and 4.23 for rev. C.  The latest
version is 4.25J. Bios version 4.86 is for rev. B, and 4.90 is for rev.
C.

(Buslogic:  104B/4171) (12/3/95)

Deal of the week:  $180 from Billy Bath
                 ASA Computers,Inc.
                 [phone] x 201 (voice)
                 [phone] (FAX)
                 [e-mail] (E-Mail)
                 http://www.asacomputers.com (WEB site)
                 http://gw1.asacomputers.com/asa/products/hdd.htm
                 (product/price information)

 BusLogic           Flashpoint    This is an UltraSCSI (narrow)
               LT*         controller from BusLogic.
                     Througput (to non-ultra drives)
is said to be better than the Adaptec 2940, and driver support is in
place.    The card supports SCAM (SCSI Configured AutoMagically), which
will allow IDs to be set automatically as new (SCAM-compliant) devices
are plugged in.  The card can be configured manually (via the BIOS setup
routine on the card) if needed/desired. I've had a couple of reports of
success with this card and OS/2.

(Buslogic:  104B/4171) (6/2/96)

 DPT               PM series**   DPT makes a series of cards, all of
                     which are reported to perform very
well under OS/2.  All cards have seven LEDs which light in repsonse to
actions taken by the card (cache hit, SCSI bus activity, etc.), and a
cache design which starts cache flush 250 ns after CPU idle is detected,
thus protecting data from system hangs, etc.  The cards are reported to
be very sensitive to termination, to the extent that if the SCSI bus is
not properly terminated not all peripherals will be seen or work
properly.  (By contrast, I ran my NCR controller with termination
disabled for weeks without knowing it.)  Make sure too that you have the
latest driver (not the one that comes with Warp) to avoid traps with
OS2ASPI.DMD (if you're using it) and the DPT20XX.ADD driver.  Version
2.A8 is, apparently, included with Warp.  Note that the latest driver
(and others before it) cause the SCSI activity LED to stop working once
they're loaded.  The various cards are as follows:

(Distributed Processing Technology:  1044/4164) (6/2/96)

               PM2024         This card uses a Motorola 68000
                     chip for SCSI operations and,
like the PM3224 below, will do caching and RAID, but apparently you must
purchase the cache/RAID modules and RAM separately for the card in order
to do it.  This card is full-length, and there is no plastic guide for
the 50-pin connector on it.  (8/27/95)

               PM2124         This is a similar card to the 2024
                     above.  The primary difference
between this card and the 2024 is that the 2124 uses a 20 MHz Motorola
68020 for SCSI operations, in contrast to the 16 MHz 68000 used by the
2024 above. (8/27/95)

               SmartRAID     Now _this_ sounds like a card for
               PM3224         high-performance fanatics.
                     The card is caching (RAM must be
purchased separately) and, once RAM, a separate RAID module, and the
necessary drives are added, will do RAID automatically. (8/27/95)

 Future Domain           TMC-3260SVP   This card _will_ work with the 60
                     MHz Intel Pentium motherboard, with
one reported exception, and one note. The exception:  It hangs during
BIOS initialization during the device scan if a SCSI tape device (the
reported one was a Wangtec 5525ES) is connected.  Replacing this tape
drive with a Conner 2GB DAT drive solved the problem (switching the
older tape drive to SCSI-2 mode did not).  The note:  FD sets things up
differently than most other SCSI adapters, in that the hard disk with
the HIGHEST ID is set to drive C:, and is the boot drive.

(Future Domain:  1036/4150) (8/27/95)

Deal of the week:  $105 from ComputAbility [phone]/[phone]

 NCR/Symbios           <Various>**   NCR makes both boards and chips.
                     Boards using the NCR/Symbios chips
are also available from Acculogic, Asus, Nexstor, and many others (note
that Intel is no longer selling this board).  One of these boards is
used in OS/2-certified systems of which I know. As all of the NCR chips
support busmastering, are PCI 2.0 compliant, and are available in your
choice of fast/wide SCSI combinations (the Acculogic is made special
note of here for its wide array of possible connectors), they are both
fantastic bargains and highly recommended at typically about 25% of the
price of the Adaptecs. One thing to check for when picking your SCSI
card is whether or not your motherboard has the NCR BIOS built into the
system BIOS.  The Intel Premiere and Premiere II motherboards mentioned
in the PCI motherboard list certainly do, and I believe all of the Asus
boards have that support built in. If you don't have the supporting BIOS
built into your motherboard, cards are available with BIOSes on them
(the card by NexStor for example) which have BIOS support built in.

(NCR:  101A/4122) (6/2/96)

In any case, the chips themselves are as follows:

        NCR53c810 - FAST SCSI-2, no BIOS
        NCR53c815 - FAST SCSI-2, BIOS
        NCR53c820 - FAST WIDE SCSI-2, no BIOS
        NCR53c825 - FAST WIDE SCSI-2, BIOS

Setup tips:         It may be necessary on some motherboards
             (during install only -- I haven't had this problem
             when running OS/2 the rest of the time) to set
             IRQ9 to 'used' in the flash BIOS, so that the card
             will be assigned IRQ 10 (which isn't this weird
             cascaded thing like 9 is anyway).    Other cards
             (like the one by Asus) have the PCI INT# for the card
             set to 'A' by default, so be sure to put it in the
             right slot.  If you're installing 2.10 (not 2.11),
             you may have to rem out the dpt20xx.add in your
             disk 1 config.sys in order to get the install to
             proceed if you have this card. It may also be
             necessary to set the "2nd SCSI" jumper on some
             adapters to get them to work (even when there are
             no other SCSI adapters in the system, oddly
             enough).

Potential problems:  Revision 3.02 of OS2CAM.ADD appears to be
             incompatible with the Quantum Prodrive 540S;
             revision 3.03 is required for trouble-free
             operation.  Be warned that revision 3.03 of the
             driver may conflict with some revisions of the
             SoundBlaster driver (the 8-bit card), and cause
             desktop corruption. The problem does not seem to
             appear under DOS.    Some NCR cards come configured
             for edge-triggered interrupts as default, which
             causes problems for OS2CAM.ADD. Level-triggered
             interrupts must be used (despite what the manual
             may claim) to make the card work properly (or at
                     all) under OS/2.  This, though, is in direct
                     contradiction to information from Intel, who say
                     that 2.0-compliant boards must use EDGE-triggered
                     interrupts...  In addition, early revisions (A)
             of the NCR 53c810 will reset the chip to use
             asynchronous mode when more than one fast SCSI-2
             device is present in the SCSI chain.  What should
             happen is that the chip should negotiate with each
             device attached and use the fastest mode available
             for each different device. This, quite obviously,
             was not the case for the early chips.  Revision B
             53c810 chips and the full 53c825 series correct
             this problem.  Note also that the NCR/Symbios
             drivers have problems with drives using removable
             media:  if no media is present at boot time, the
             drive will not be given BIOS support (after a
             protracted waiting period), and all versions of
             os2cam.add will hang on startup (with a trap 000d)
                     if no media is present.  The chip apparently does
                     not properly support drives with more than 64 heads
                     and 1024 cylinders, as it will not recognize
                     partitions which begin past the 1 GB point.

Deal of the week:  $199 for a (brand-unspecified) 53c825-based fast/wide
           SCSI controller (with 50 and 68-pin internal
           connectors and a 50-pin external connector), from
           JDR Micro
           NCR 8250, $110, from
           Insight, [phone]

 QLogic            IQ PCI*         Qlogic makes what are apparently
                     very good fast and fast/wide SCSI
cards which have drivers for OS/2 (1.12 are the latest and are reported
to work well under Warp).  They feature a 12 MIPS processor (as opposed
to the 1 MIPS one which forms part of the NCR fast/wide processors, for
whatever that gets you) and are fully SCSI-2 compliant.  The IQ PCI
supports two SCSI channels and 1000 queued I/O operations, and the IQ
PCI/10 (fast only) supports one channel and 400 queued I/O operations.
These cards will work with the Intel 60 MHz motherboard, and one (the
fast/wide one) is in fact being used with a #9 GXE64 in a 60 MHz system
with no problems (under 2.11 or Warp).    The IQ PCI is now at revision 2.
One caveat:  The IQ PCI series of cards uses extended BIOS translation
for 1GB+ drives.  There's no way to disable this, so if you're switching
from a controller where you had extended translation disabled, you'll
have to reformat your drive.  It should be noted that it seems like
QLogic controllers will _not_ work with NEC CDR-84 CD-ROM drives. QLogic
apparently knows of the problem but is not addressing it.

(QLogic:  1077/4215) (5/18/96)

Setup tips:  If you are using the controller with an Asus P54/P55
         motherboard, get the newest BIOS chip from QLogic to fix a
         problem caused by the motherboard, which does a PCI bus
         reset after the controller scans the SCSI bus, causing
         problems for the controller.  (It will be obvious if you
         have the problem -- your system will not boot.)  The
         ISP1020 firmware level should be 1.27 or greater.

Deal of the week:  $209 from Hard Drive Super Source, [phone]
                              [phone]

 QLogic            PCI Basic*    This card differs from the previous
                     two QLogic cards in that it's
cheaper ($135 MSRP), and that it uses a different chip (the "400"
series).  I've had a few reports of success with this card under Warp.
It should be noted, however, that it seems like QLogic controllers will
_not_ work with NEC CDR-84 CD-ROM drives.  QLogic apparently knows of
the problem but is not addressing it.

(QLogic:  1077/4215) (8/27/95)

 Tekram            DC-390*         This card is apparently a low-cost
                     fast SCSI-2 to PCI adapter.  It
includes drivers for OS/2 2.0 (!) and Warp.  It has a menu-driven setup
program to configure the adapter, attached devices, and card BIOS.  The
BIOS supports 7 drives (as most cards do) and drives bigger than 1 GB
(presumably this means sector translation; I don't know if this can be
disabled).  The card also automatically terminates itself (like the
Advansys cards). The card is reported to work well with OS/2 Warp/Warp
Connect/Warp Japanese.

(Tekram Technology Co., Ltd.:  10E1/4321) (9/13/95)

 Tyan               Yorktown*     This card is based on the NCR
                     53c825 fast/wide chipset and is
reported to work well in combination with OS/2 and the Tyan Titan III
motherboard.

(Tyan Computer:  10F1/4337) (6/2/96)

 Western Digital       WD7193*       This card is about equivalent in
                     performance (perhaps slightly
better) than the Adaptec 2940, with similar features.  It does, however,
have a flash BIOS, unlike the 2940 (and, for that matter, most of the
PCI adapters listed here).  It also auto-terminates.  I've had a report
of success with this card under Warp.

(Western Digital Corporation:  101C/4124) (5/18/96)

 Western Digital       WD7197*       This card is about equivalent in
                                     performance and features (perhaps
slightly better) than the Adaptec 2940W.  It does, however, have a flash
BIOS, unlike the 2940 (and, for that matter, most of the PCI adapters
listed here).  Connectors are provided for wide and narrow internal
devices, and high-density wide external devices. It also
auto-terminates.  I've had a report of success with this card under
Warp.

(Western Digital Corporation:  101C/4124) (6/2/96)

 Western Digital       WD7296*       This card is about equivalent in
                     performance (perhaps slightly
better) than the Adaptec 2940W, with similar features.    It does, however,
have a flash BIOS, unlike the 2940W (and, for that matter, most of the
PCI adapters listed here).  It also auto-terminates.  Apparently it is
necessary to get the latest drivers from WD to make sure the card works
properly with Warp (the drivers which come in the box may not, although
they claim this).  I'm not sure what differentiates this card from the
7197, listed above.

(Western Digital Corporation:  101C/4124) (6/2/96)

There's what I know.  Please E-Mail suggestions/corrections and I'll
post again.
--
Patrick Duffy, [e-mail]

"Evil is out there making hand-crafted mischief for the swap meet of villany."
                                    -- The Tick