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SCSI issues on a TT


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Hi all,

 

I bought a TT that worked just fine the first time I booted it up.

 

However after the first boot the boot process would stop half way. I removed the hard drive and the TT would boot every time. I thought it might have been the hard drive failing (well... shipping an old hdd is not the best thing to do, especially when it is handled by USPS) so I replaced it with a spare SCSI2SD v5.1 that I have been using without issues in the (recent) past. As soon as I load HDDriver and it tries to enumerate the TT hangs again. The mouse can still move around, and no bombs show up, but the access LED of the SCSI2SD stays solid ON. 

 

I also booted the TT with TT Diagnostics cart (both v1.4 and v1.5) and when I try to run the SCSI tests it is failing at cycle 1. RAM (ST) tests pass every time.

 

The TT is just a plain TT, I even removed both TT and ST extra memory (so it runs with the on board 2MB ST RAM only) and I also replaced the PSU with the one from my TT that I use regularly, so I know it is a good PSU. Even the old one I measured correct voltages (something like 5.2V and 12.2V) but as we know noise from the PSU sometimes is hidden from multimeters. Also I have been using the SCSI ribbon cable from my working TT because I have been bitten by a faulty ribbon SCSI cable before... 

 

Interestingly I tried to reboot it several times with the HDDriver disk in the floppy, and of course 99% of the times the TT would freeze but once in a (*very*) while the HDDriver will run to completion and the TT will boot. When I try to partition it of course I would get the same behavior: the utility will freeze and the LED will stay on for ever.

 

ICs seem to be running cool, between (82-90 F/28-32 C) after I rebooted several times.

 

I removed and re-sited the SCSI controller (L5380 JC-2) - the nice with this board is that all ICs are socketed, but no luck. I cannot use the controller of my working TT because it is soldered. 

 

So everything is telling me "buy another SCSI controller from Best" but before I do I thought I would share this with you and get some input before I do so... 

 

Any thoughts appreciated!

 

Edited by larrylaffer
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From my notes:
The TT030 has a "T" style SCSI chain. This means the internal HD is one chain and the SCSI port on the back is the other. Both chains must be terminated. To clarify, the internal drive must be terminated. If you use the external SCSI port, remove the terminating resistor packs from the motherboard. If you do not use the external SCSI port, the terminating resistor packs should be left on the motherboard.

Edited by lp060
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Yeah, using the ASCSI (external) port makes sense. However using only internal HDD the SCSI2SD has built in termination and it is on. Also as I mentioned the SCSI2SD I have was previously on my other TT and it worked fine...

 

The other thing I am thinking is to do a visual inspection of the motherboard for any possible broken contacts... But this means I will need to take out the board from the cover... But I think I should do it before I spend money... 

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Ok... I also used a satan drive with a known working SD card but with Petar Putnik's driver (and no device on the internal SCSI bus). Same behavior: sometimes boots fine sometimes not. Then when it booted sometimes I could not create a new directory but when I would connect the satan drive to my ST it all worked fine.

 

So to recap:

 

I have been testing with only one device at a time. One set of tests with the hard drive on the internal bus. One set of tests with the SCSI2SD on the internal bus, one set of tests with the satan drive on the ASCSI external bus. Same behavior: sometimes it boots, sometimes not, when it works sometimes I have issues (mostly with write as far as I can tell).

 

I don't think it is a software issue as both drivers exhibit the same behavior. Everything points towards the hardware that handles scsi: I tested the disk drive and I could format, read/write successfully every time.

 

Looking at the schematics here I can see the 5830 SCSI controller, the DCU and the DMAC being involved in the whole SCSI path... Do you guys think I should get one of each just to be safe? Or just start with the 8230 and see how it goes? Is any of these ICs known to fail?

 

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  • 1 month later...

Just for completion of the thread: after a lot of sleepless nights and banging my head against the wall I believe I figured it out:

 

The nvram battery was around 2.2V. As a result the content of the nvram became random and specifically the scsi device id. I ran Uwe's program for updating the nvram settings (set the device is to 7) after I replaced the battery and adding the scsi resistor packs and for more than a day my sd2scsi has been booting and copying files to and from without issues. The resistor packs alone were not enough...

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