promise tx2 133 and alpha cpu

[Sten]

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003, John Wheez wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I saw a message in which you reported trouble using a promise tx2 with
> alpha on freebsd. I have the same problem. The controler always sets
> itself to pi0 mode after failing crc checks in ata133 mode.
>
> Were you ever able to get the card to work in ata133 mode? Perhaps
> promise supplies bad cables and better ones are needed to be used in an
> Alpha?

I wasn't able to get this to work, the box is colocated so I wasn't
able to do extensive testing.

> I never could get it to work well. Si I put it in a linux x86 box and it
> worked fine. When i boot using the x86 box the promise bios screen comes
> up to detect the hard drives. this never happened on my alpha 164lx
> system. Perhaps this promise card requires a x86 environment??

nope, the bios is not required for the card to work.

> I'd like to hear your experiences and results when you have time..

I could not get umda66 mode to work with the card/alpha.
I do have time, and a card available. But not the exact same alpha.
However further research of mine has lead to some interesting conclusions :(.

I have a regular intel box ( supermicro ) with a promise 100 tx2 card
and the latest bios. This promise card shows really strange behavior
depending on the disks connected to it.
2 120gb maxtor disks ( old 5400 ), and a 30gb quantum fireball
won't work properly on the promise controller, I swapped cables
for ages,did rain dances, It just won't work.
Whereas an ibm disk works just fine.
This is with every os I had available ( windows, linux,
bsd ). The alpha uses an promise 133tx2 and a maxtor disk, which
leads me to believe that this is no freebsd problem but
a hardware issue.

I'll powerup the old alphastation 500 which I have laying around,
burn 2 fbsd cd's and stuff the promise 100tx2 in it.

-- 
Sten Spans

There is a crack in everything that's how the light gets in.