Hello All,
In my last tread I mentioned I am having problems with my genuine A4000T and a Cyberstorm MK2 card working due to the on built A4000T SCSI controller. The Cyberstorm works fine in A4000 desktop machine. Does anyone have an idea how to disable the A4000T SCSI controller? I have tried playing around with the built in dip switch's on the back of the machine with no result's. The only thing I can think off is putting A4000 desktop Kickstart roms in my A4000T as it doesn't know about the A4000T SCSI controller. But I just hope there is a better way. I would love to hear your feedback on the subject.

Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent

@Amiga1084
Why would you want to disable the on board SCSI controller? With no units connected, it would not bother the operation of the machine at all. Besides, I would use the mainboard SCSI over the MKII SCSI any time, because in my experience it's usually faster than phase5's SCSI-II controllers. (And it's also able to do DMA transfers to Fast RAM.)

Anyway, the second possibility is, to use BlizKick, from Aminet with some kind of modified ROM (or even a 4000D ROM, no idea if that works), which lacks the driver for the mainboard SCSI controller, this way it would never fire up after the softkicked ROM is active. The CyberStorm MKII has an excellent MapROM feature, and BlizKick is a really advanced MapROM utility, it would be a waste not to take advantage of.

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@Amiga1084
I agree with Chain-Q, but you can possibly do it in the CS MapROM feature, by using non-A4000T roms, and with BlitzKick. The OS 4.1 does not use the A4000's scsi because of DMA issues, so it it automatically excluded. But as far as I have experienced, it is benign hardware that only is active when a device is attached.

Is your problem at the pre-Boot level or at post-boot level? There are Many Updates to the SCSI.device at the Post-Boot level (mind you that the SCSI.device refers to the IDE and 2ndSCSI.device refers to the NCR chip-based 4091 controller).

Last edited by bdb on 02-Jun-2012 at 01:41 AM.

@Chain-Q

This the thread:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=35828&forum=14#667118

If it works fine with no units then problem solved! However I have heard different.

@Chain-Q

Got some more info. Apparently the CyberStorm 060 (his is MkII) conflicts with the onboard SCSI controller. And that is known with conflicts between the CyberStorm and the 4091 or DKB Fastlane as well.

@Hypex
Actually, I have used a Cyberstorm MKII in an A4000T a while ago, using SCSI units on the mainboard SCSI, and it was working perfectly. However, I did not had or use an MKII SCSI module. That's all I can say.

If you ask me, If it causes conflicts, I would simply remove the MKII's SCSI module, and use the mainboard one. The MKII itself surely doesn't conflict with the mainboard SCSI, because I know many people who use such configs, without issues. And I also had such a config for years. I see no advantages insisting in on the MKII SCSI, over the mainboard one. But feel free to enlighten me on this. :)

Edit: ah, I read the other thread, and it says it's an early MKII, which suspected to have such issues. I can't talk on that. Mine was working perfectly in a 4000T (even at 66Mhz overclocked).

Last edited by Chain-Q on 04-Jun-2012 at 03:50 PM.

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"Strip the Amiga community of speculation and we can fit every forum on a 720k floppy." (by resle)

@Chain-Q

That was tried also. But the conflict isn't with the Cyber SCSI apparently. But the CyberStorm itself conflicts with a 4091 SCSI controller.

With proper Cyber libs in place and an update Cyber ROM this should be easy to fix. But did Phase 5 know about this when the A4000T came out? Were they able to supply a patch or update since?

@Chain-Q

Try again. I've been told it WAS with the CyberSCSI module! And he doesn't want to use the 4091 because he thinks it's buggy and a bad controller.

But, I was looking in the CyberStorm manual I have for my card. And it does mention conflicts. However it pertains to the A3000 series. Both the A3000D and T models conflict as the INT2 line is sent to the CPU slot. And these machines required a mod to fix this.

Regarding the A4000T it does not mention any conflict but says to read the chapter on expansion in the Amiga manual and that jumpers J100 and J104 must be set to internal!

@Hypex
Quote:

And he doesn't want to use the 4091 because he thinks it's buggy and a bad controller.

He is confused. True, I never used a 4091 card, but apparently the 4000T's mainboard SCSI is one of the best and most robust SCSI controller I ever worked with. It just always worked for me with every buggy device and bad termination. And never had any data loss or corruption with it. But I can't help whatever people trying to imagine for themselves.

The 3000D problem is totally different, and indeed, there's a problem with the mainboard SCSI vs. the MKII in the 3000D, but the 3000's mainboard, and its SCSI is a different beast.

And yes, the 4000T requires different jumper settings compared to a 4000D, when the CyberStorm MKII is installed.

_________________
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"Strip the Amiga community of speculation and we can fit every forum on a 720k floppy." (by resle)

@Chain-Q

There is some info on A4091 bugs here since he has the orginal Commodore hardware on the A4000T.

http://www.hough.ca/personal/hay4091.html

I actually did a test. I slotted in an A4091 card in my A4000D, which has a CyberStorm 060 with matching SCSI card attached to one HD and an A4091 terminator on the end. The A4091 was left unplugged. IDE had HD and DVD on cable. CyberSCSI with one HD.

The system worked fine. There was no conflict. So I don't know what problem his A4000T has!

But, he is under the impression the A4091 is a bad controller. I don't know if he has even fully tested it. Apparently it's the sane SCSI chip as the Warp Engine uses, which he replaced with the CyberStorm. So sounds like a perfect upgrade to me!

I really need to get over there and check his system out. He says with both SCSI controllers in the system is just crashes at boot up. Historically he has had an incorrect SCSI setup in the past (IIRC termination issue) which somehow worked with OS3.9 but broke when testing OS4. But because it used to work he thought it was okay and didn't know why OS4 had issues.

The other tihng is you can't just change a SCSI HD from one controller to the next as the MaxTransfer and Mask values must be correctly set to match. If they aren't you can expect problems such as drives going missing and especially crashes at bootup or soon after.

Unfortunately he was unable to bring his A4000T into our club for diagnosis. Since it's huge and heavy and he needs a lift. Plus a ride.

All he can bring is his problems in verbal fashion.

Last edited by Hypex on 11-Jun-2012 at 03:14 AM.

@Amiga1084

Quote:

Amiga1084 wrote: Hello All, In my last tread I mentioned I am having problems with my genuine A4000T and a Cyberstorm MK2 card working due to the on built A4000T SCSI controller. The Cyberstorm works fine in A4000 desktop machine. Does anyone have an idea how to disable the A4000T SCSI controller? I have tried playing around with the built in dip switch's on the back of the machine with no result's. The only thing I can think off is putting A4000 desktop Kickstart roms in my A4000T as it doesn't know about the A4000T SCSI controller. But I just hope there is a better way. I would love to hear your feedback on the subject. Thanks in advance, Merv Stent

You see me a bit surprised that you want to disable the SCSI adapter. For standard A4ks normally it is the other way round - people want to disable the internal IDE (e.g. in favour of the UW-SCSI on the CSPPC) and want to use SCSI instead, as it makes the system more responsive.
I haven't read your last thread - so I don't know about your problems.

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@Dandy

In short, the CyberStorm SCSI controller is apparently conflicting with the on board 4091 SCSI controller, as the machine can't boot with both in the system and crashes at boot up. I think there has to be more to it. As I have this controller in my A4000D and tested with an A4091 card. No problem.

Unless there really is a hardware problem. But the CyberStorm manual is aware of the A3000T and A4000T list no A4000T problems. Of course that is the CyberStorm, I haven't read the SCSI manual yet.

@Hypex

Would it not be possible to just unsolder the power leg of the IC from the mobo, bend it up and put a wire bridge in with an inline switch, so it can be reenabled ?

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@JurassicC

That's an interesting idea. I've been told that A4000D ROMs can be used but the board needs hardware modification to as well to disable the SCSI.

But this still seems too much. Phase5 engineered the hardware when the A4000T was out. They mention it in the manual. So surely if there really was a conflict they or someone would have discovered it? The orginal poster claims in his other thread there is a conflict but doesn't site an references as such. The hardware and/or software could just be misconfigured.

On my machine I would avoid all such hacks and make sure my hardware is set up properly regarding termination and cable setup as well as simplying the hardware as much as possible by using a SCSI2 drive and not a SCSI3 with adaptor for instance. And ensure my MaxTransfer and Mask values are correct for the controller.

Only then after thorough testing of a proper setup would I conclude there is a hardware bug or conflict. To the best of ability anyway. I've had OS3.9 cause my machine to blank and lose the harddrives at bootup when I used a WarpEngine! I ended up replacing it with CyberStorm and SCSI and then my CD driver was crashing. Yup, I missed a crucial settign, MaxTransfer!

FWIW CyberSCSI must limit this to 0xFFFFFF, Mask is 0xFFFFFFFC for optimal transfers, But if that MaxTransfer is too big expect crashes at bootup!

Why do we have to painfully do research and testing to find this information? Honestly, I read threads about "HD crashes" and in some and no one mentions MaxTransfer!

I've learnt the hard way. My A1200 Ferret SCSI could do a max 2GB type 0x7FFFFFFF MaxTransfer. I was told the A4000 is superior to the A1200 and I expected the hardware to not only match but better my Ferret. NO! Wrong! Most A4000 SCSI controllers have inferior MaxTransfer limits that will crash if not set correctly. As I found going from a 31-bit transfer capable controller to a 23 -bit one. You can see why it would crash.

Sorry for long post.. Hehe.

Last edited by Hypex on 15-Jun-2012 at 10:50 AM.