Chip 1996 October/CHIP_CD_1996_10_PL.iso/software/ktest/qemm8/technote.qip/BUS-MAST.TEC

Text File | 1995-11-15 | 15.2 KB | 306 lines

            Using SCSI and Bus-Mastering Devices

 Quarterdeck Technical Note #121         Filename: BUS-MAST.TEC
 by Quarterdeck Technical Support      CompuServe: BUSMAS.TEC
 Last revised: 3/28/95                   Category: HW

 Subject: This note provides troubleshooting tips for users of
          bus-mastering (typically SCSI) hard drives, and explains
          bus-mastering technology in general for those who are
          interested.

 Note: All references to 386 computers or to the 80386 processor,
 unless otherwise stated, refer to 386 and higher processors.

 This note is divided into two parts -- a troubleshooting section
 for those who believe that they are having problems with QEMM and
 a SCSI hard drive, and an informational section on bus-mastering
 issues.

 Refer to the troubleshooting section of the QEMM manual, or in the
 technical note QEMM GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING (TROUBLE.TEC) for
 instructions on how to boot your machine without QEMM.

 1) If your machine locks immediately after posting the banner for
    QEMM386, check to see if the DB=2 parameter is on the
    QEMM386.SYS line in CONFIG.SYS. If this parameter is not
    present, add it. If your machine now works, you're done, and
    you may read the information section below. If your machine
    still fails, continue with Step 2.

 2) Add the parameter VDS:N to the QEMM line, and reboot. If this
    solves your problem, proceed to Step 3.

 3) Remove VDS:N parmeter (if one is present) from the QEMM line,
    and immediately before the QEMM386.SYS place the line

    DEVICE=C:\QEMM\FIXINT13.SYS /STACKSIZE=384

    FIXINT13.SYS is in the QEMM directory.  It is also
    available on the Quarterdeck BBS at UK 01245-496943 or Ireland
    353 1 2844381. If this solves your problem, you're done.
    If this does not solve your problem (but the VDS parameter did),
    replace it. In either case, you may now choose to read the
    information section below.

 Q. What is a bus-mastering device?

 A. Bus-mastering devices are peripherals, typically hard drives,
    that do their own direct memory addressing (DMA) without going
    through the machine's Central Processing Unit (CPU) or its DMA
    controller. The most common bus-mastering devices are SCSI hard
    disk controllers, but other types of devices can be
    bus-mastering as well. Bus-mastering ESDI disk controllers and
    video cards do exist, and an increasing number of bus-mastering
    network cards are available as well. While bus-mastering
    devices are high-performance devices and quite often found on
    386 and higher systems, they are, unfortunately, by design
    incompatible with one of the most common operating modes of the
    80386 processor--the Virtual 86 mode.

    Specifically, the problem is that the device puts data into
    absolute memory addresses and assumes that the contents of
    those memory addresses will always remain constant. However, on
    a 386 processor in Virtual 86 mode, this is often an incorrect
    assumption. When a 386 memory manager such as QEMM, or a 386
    operating environment such as DESQview 386 or Microsoft Windows
    Enhanced Mode is used, it typically associates physical memory
    with linear or "logical" addresses. QEMM does this, for
    instance, to make High RAM appear at addresses between 640K and
    1MB. When a bus-mastering device tries to access data in
    memory, it presumes that physical and logical addresses are the
    same. In Virtual 86 mode, a given memory address can, at any
    moment, contain code or data from various regions of physical
    memory.

    If you are using a bus-mastering device on a 386 that is in
    Virtual 86 mode and memory paging is occurring (when QEMM is
    providing High RAM; when QEMM is providing expanded memory;
    when DESQview 386 or Microsoft Windows is switching from one
    virtual machine to another), your machine will probably hang
    when you use the bus-mastering device, unless certain
    precautions are taken.

    Quarterdeck first became aware of the problem from customers
    who had bus-mastering SCSI hard disk controllers. Users
    reported that they could boot their machines and start up
    DESQview. As long as they ran only one application, their
    system ran fine. As soon as they opened a second application,
    the system would hang. The problem was also seen by users who
    were not using DESQview, but who were using the LOADHI feature
    of QEMM. In both cases, the hang would occur because the disk
    controller assumed that memory really existed at the address
    that it was accessing. In theory, this could have caused data
    corruption, but in reality it never did. The memory corruption
    was typically so extensive that the systems simply hung as soon
    as a change in the memory map occurred. Other 386 memory
    managers exhibited the same symptoms, as did Windows version
    3.x when run in Enhanced Mode. QEMM solved the problem in its
    own code, but this solution was not adopted by Windows when it
    entered Enhanced Mode (see the reference to SMARTDRV in item 4
    below).

 Q. What is the best approach to running bus-mastering devices?

 A. There are several possible solutions:

 1) THE BEST SOLUTION: Contact the maker of your bus-mastering
    device and see whether the manufacturer supports the VDS
    (Virtual DMA Services) specification. VDS is now an
    industry-wide specification supported by IBM, Microsoft and
    Quarterdeck, as well as many other hardware and software
    suppliers. VDS, either provided in the device's ROM or as a
    device driver, allows a bus-mastering device to find the real
    physical address of its data when the processor is in Virtual
    86 mode. QEMM versions 5.00 and later support the VDS
    specification. A VDS driver provides the best solution to this
    problem in terms of reliability, speed and memory efficiency. A
    VDS driver may be loaded into High RAM if it appears in the
    CONFIG.SYS file after the QEMM386.SYS line, but you may need to
    manually add a DB=2 parameter to the QEMM386.SYS device line to
    accomplish this if you are not using QEMM 7.5 or later; see
    section 6 below.

 2) Make sure you're using QEMM version 7.5 or later. QEMM now
    automatically creates a buffer when it detects an addressing
    problem with a bus-mastering hard drive controller, and this
    buffer's support continues into Microsoft Windows.

 3) Similarly, the drivers of many bus-mastering hard disks have
    proprietary (that is, non-VDS) buffering options. The best
    course in this case is to check the documentation for your disk
    controller to see if the driver has a parameter to set up
    buffering for disk operations. Some drivers will also document
    parameters that are specific to 386 operations. For example,
    the early Adaptec drivers SCSIHA.SYS and AHA1540.SYS included
    both 386 and disk buffering options invoked by the parameters
    "/v386" and "/b:64." "/v386" stands for virtual 386; "/b:64"
    allocates a 64k buffer, for DMA.

    Unlike the drivers in (1) above, these drivers do not provide
    VDS services. If you are using a driver such as this, make sure
    that it is not loaded high. The purpose of such a driver is to
    provide buffering into physical addresses that are the same as
    logical addresses; if the program is loaded high, its buffer
    will be in logical addresses that are not the same as their
    physical addresses. Please read the section below titled
    "Making Sure Your Device Driver Loads Low".

 4) Check the documentation for your bus-mastering device and see
    if it can be configured to use the BIOS or any one of the
    standard DMA channels. QEMM can correct the problem if the BIOS
    or standard DMA channels are used.

 5) As mentioned above, bus-mastering hard drives can also cause
    problems for Microsoft Windows 3. Microsoft's solution is in
    its SmartDrive disk cache. SMARTDRV (and other disk caches)
    contain code that can buffer direct memory access. Before QEMM
    7.03, QEMM's VDS services were almost completely disabled when
    you entered Enhanced mode, so SMARTDRV's buffering was needed
    to ensure that no bus-mastering conflicts occured inside of
    Microsoft Windows. If you are using QEMM 7.5 or later, QEMM's
    VDS services and disk buffering will function properly while
    Microsoft Windows Enhanced mode is running, so loading SMARTDRV
    is not necessary.

    a) The versions of Smartdrv that ship with Microsoft Windows
       3.1, DOS 5, and DOS 6 have two functions: to provide disk
       caching through a module loaded in AUTOEXEC.BAT, and to
       provide buffering for SCSI hard drives through a module
       loaded in CONFIG.SYS. If you are using Windows 3.1 AND a
       bus-mastering hard drive and you are NOT using any of the
       options numbered 1 through 4 above, make sure that the
       following line appears in CONFIG.SYS:

       DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER

       (If your path to SmartDrive differs, change C:\WINDOWS to
       the correct path.) Please read the section below titled
       "Making Sure Your Device Driver Loads Low".

    b) Windows 3.0 and DOS 5 shipped with SmartDrive version 3 or
       lower. If you are using one of these versions of SmartDrive,
       make sure that the following line appears in your CONFIG.SYS
       file:

       DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.SYS

       (If your path to SmartDrive differs, change C:\WINDOWS to
       the correct path.)

       Please read the section below titled "Making Sure Your
       Device Driver Loads Low".

 6) QEMM has a DB=xx (DISKBUF=xx) parameter that can prevent
    QEMM-SCSI problems at the expense of a little conventional
    memory. "xx" is the number of K used for buffering. Any value
    for xx is sufficient to correct the problem. DISKBUF=2 is fine
    for most cases. Configuring QEMM with a DISKBUF greater than 2
    might improve disk performance, but setting DISKBUF to more
    than 10 is probably a waste of memory.

 Q. How does QEMM's detection of bus-mastering hard drives work?

 A. QEMM will detect a bus-mastering hard drive and create a disk
    buffer automatically as long as QEMM itself is loaded from that
    bus-mastering hard drive. If you load a driver that provides
    VDS (Virtual DMA Services) support BEFORE you load QEMM, QEMM
    will not create the disk buffer. In cases where QEMM
    automatically creates this buffer, it does not add a DISKBUF
    parameter to the QEMM386.SYS line. QEMM's automatic detection
    of bus-mastering hard disks is active only when the RAM
    parameter is specified on the QEMM386.SYS line in the
    CONFIG.SYS file. You can disable QEMM's automatic disk
    buffering by using the QEMM386.SYS parameters DISKBUF=0, but
    there is usually no reason to disable this feature. If you have
    a bus-mastering hard disk that you do not load QEMM from, QEMM
    will not detect bus-mastering conflicts with it, and you must
    either use the disk controller's VDS support or specify the
    DISKBUF=nn (DB=nn).

    Use of the DB= parameter will not help if the bus-mastering
    device is something other than a hard disk. If your
    bus-mastering device is not a hard disk then the solutions
    above, especially #1, are your only options.

    If your bus-mastering hard disk controller uses a VDS device
    driver that is loaded after QEMM386.SYS, QEMM will still create
    a 2K disk buffer, because the VDS support will not be active
    when QEMM loads. This disk buffer will be necessary in most
    circumstances, because the Optimize program would otherwise
    fail when it tried to load the VDS driver into High RAM.
    However, you may wish in this circumstance to reduce the size
    of the disk buffer as much as possible by placing the DISKBUF=1
    parameter on the QEMM386.SYS device driver line. The smaller
    disk buffer is preferable here, because the disk buffer will
    never again be used after the VDS driver loads, and a bigger
    disk buffer uses valuable conventional memory.

    If you are both disabling automatic disk buffering (with the
    DISKBUF=0 parameter) and creating a disk buffer for the page
    frame (with the DISKBUFFRAME=xx parameter), you must place the
    DISKBUF=0 parameter before the DISKBUFFRAME=xx parameter on the
    QEMM386.SYS line in the CONFIG.SYS file. If you reverse this
    ordering, automatic disk buffering will still be disabled, but
    the disk buffer for the page frame will not be created.

 Q. I don't have a VDS driver, and I think that my proprietary
    device driver or my disk cache should be loaded low. How do I
    prevent it from loading high?

 A. For double-buffering to work properly, the device driver for
    your bus-mastering hardware must be loaded in conventional
    memory, where physical and logical addresses are almost always
    the same. You must therefore make sure that it loads low if you
    are depending on it to provide DMA buffering. We will use
    SMARTDRV as an example of such a program. Change the
    instructions below to fit your device driver.

    Ensure that there is no LOADHI command preceding SMARTDRV on
    the line which loads it.

    OPTIMIZE will very likely try to load SmartDrive high, unless
    you instruct it not to do so. This is most easily done as
    follows:

    1) Using a text editor, create a text file called OPTIMIZE.NOT
       in the \QEMM directory. Systems with DOS 5 and later can
       type "EDIT OPTIMIZE.NOT" from the \QEMM directory to create
       the file. If such a file exists already, simply open it for
       editing.

    2) Put a new line in OPTIMIZE.NOT that says:

       SMARTDRV

       Do not specify a pathname nor an extension to the file name.
       Save the file and exit the editor.

    3) From now on, OPTIMIZE will not affect the SMARTDRV line in
       either CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT. As long as SMARTDRV is
       not being loaded high already, it will not load high during
       future OPTIMIZE sessions.

 Q. I know I have a bus-mastering device on my computer, but I
    haven't seen any problem. Why not?

 A. It's possible that your bus-mastering device uses a standard
    DMA channel for DMA operations. QEMM automatically supports
    bus-mastering when standard DMA channels are used.

    Your bus-mastering device may have been shipped with a VDS
    driver in its ROM. Some bus-mastering hard disk controllers
    ship with drivers that make VDS calls, and these drivers do not
    require the DB parameter or any other buffering. We expect that
    most bus-mastering devices will eventually include VDS drivers
    and, therefore, will not exhibit any problems when run in
    Virtual 86 mode.

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 *      Trademarks are property of their respective owners.       *
 *   This and other technical notes may be available in updated   *
 *     forms through Quarterdeck's standard support channels.     *
 *          Copyright (C) 1995 Quarterdeck Corporation            *
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