Re: tlug: FD Controller cards

[Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>]

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tlug note from Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>
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On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Dennis McMurchy wrote:

>   Sorry for a non-Lignux specific question, but I've just had the
> FD controller on my one-and-only box crap out on me...

  I just came across this week-old message (I'm still a little behind
with my mail).  I had forgotten that I had posted this.  If I had posted
the whole context of the apparent problem, someone might have had some
useful advice to offer.

  I had just installed an Adaptec 2940W card and a SCSI CDROM drive in
my tiny non-tower PC.  A quick initial test showed that things worked
fine, so I actually took out my old EIDE CDROM drive and built the new
one in in its place (this required taking apart half the computer).  When
I got it all reassembled and back in the case and turned on the machine,
the access light on the FD drive came on and stayed on and the SCSI card
was no longer recognizing the SCSI CDROM either. Catastrophe!

  I just jumped to the conclusion that I had somehow damaged the FD 
drive during the disassembly/reassembly, and after a few failed tries
to get it working again, I just disconnected it.  Swapping in another
FD unit didn't change anything, so I concluded the FD controller was shot.

  It never occurred to me that removing the SCSI card would have any 
effect on the FD situation, so I didn't even try until someone else
suggested it (seems obvious enough in retrospect).  Lo and behold, that
revived the FD drive, and, wonder of wonders, when I put the SCSI card
back in again, everything worked fine once again and has continued to
do so for all of the last week anyway.  

  I'm no longer worried about this - it all seems perfectly stable -
but I am curious to know what happened.  Could this be due to PCI bus
arbitration problems, or what?  Anyone have any thoughts on this or similar
experiences?

Dennis McMurchy, 
Sointula, B.C. / Tojinmachi, Fukuoka
Canada           Japan


Next TLUG meeting is Saturday October 11, 1997
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