Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:72909 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:4785
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!uwm.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Speed of HardFrame/2000 and Quantum Q105S (problem) (longish)
Keywords: HardFrame, Quantum
Message-ID: <2279@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 28 Nov 90 19:10:08 GMT
Lines: 75
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <3989.659757130@lemsys.UUCP>, clemon@lemsys.UUCP (Craig Lemon) writes:

>KS 1.2
>WB 1.3.2

This is not a good idea, in general. Mixing releases can lead to all sorts of
subtle problems.

>This is what RDPrep says the
>settings are for my Rigid Block setup :
>
>Existing Partitions on this disk. 
>block 27, Name "DH0" 
> TableSize : 16 
> SizeBlock : 128
> SecOrg : 0 
> Surfaces : 1 
> SectorPerBlock : 1 
> BlocksPerTrack : 201 
> Reserved : 2 
> PreAloc : 0 
> Interleave : 0 
> LowCyl : 1 
> HighCyl : 1018 
> NumBufers : 5 

Good idea here would be to increase the number of buffers, at least a little.

> BufMemType : 5 
> MaxTransfer : 131072 

Unless Microbotics has changed their hardware, this value is just a little
high. The most you should have here is 130560 (128K-512 bytes). This limitation
is because of the limitations in the SCSI chip and the DMA controller.

> Mask : 0x0fe

This is most likely to be the biggest factor in your lack of speed. Tha mask
value is used to determine where host adapter is allowed to use DMA, and where
it has to use programmed IO. With the value set as you show it here, the
HardFrame will only DMA into even addreses between $00 and $fe. _ALL_ accesses
to or from FAST memory, or to CHIP memory above $fe, will be done using
programmed IO.

The proper value here is 0xfffffe for a 2000, which says that the host adapter
may DMA to any even address in the natural addressing range.

> BotPri : 3 
> DosType : "DOS^A"
>
>	What about my MaxTransfer setting?  Could this be the culprit? 
>I've left it at default as well.

The rdprep program has gone through several revisions. One of the revisions may
have changed this value to 130560. At any rate, it should be reduced to this
value.

>  I haven't tried playing with it because
>I haven't got a backup of this drive and I don't want to accidently do
>something or encounter a power out at the worst possible time or something
>like that.

Do yourself a favour. Make a backup, then play with the figures. Changing
MaxTransfer and Mask will not destroy your data, but any time you are playing
around with drive stuff like this, a small mistake could cause problems.

-larry

--
The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches and IBM PCs.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
| \X/    lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips |
|        COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322  -or-  76703.4322@compuserve.com        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+