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From: rbabel@babylon.rmt.sub.org (Ralph Babel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: sysinfo crashes my System with 50Mhz GVP board.
Message-ID: <07295.AA07295@babylon.rmt.sub.org>
Date: 7 Apr 91 23:53:45 GMT
References: <1991Mar25.160246.19670@cbnewse.att.com> <06971.AA06971@babylon.rmt.sub.org> <helmutn.671114107@cip-s01>
Reply-To: cbmvax.commodore.com!cbmehq!babylon!rbabel (Ralph Babel)
Lines: 53

In article <helmutn.671114107@cip-s01>,
helmutn@cip-s01.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Helmut Neumann) writes:

> can you describe a little more precise what the difference
> between V2.3 and V3.X is ?

V3.x supports GVP's new 50-MHz '030 and the new RAM32 memory
expansion. The driver now recognizes a drive's proper vendor
name, and it also supports the new 2.0 TD_GETGEOMETRY call,
which is required by GVP's A-Max AT driver. Some minor
changes have been made to the automounting code, but there
are _no_functional_differences_ between V2.3 and V3.x in the
AT driver's I/O section itself!

> But sometimes, espacially when running Kick 2.0 at Adress
> 200000 with zkick, i get read/write Errors, sometimes i
> even can not do retry, they are stable (in this IO). Next
> time i use the Problem-File everything is ok again. When i
> start Kick 2.0 with setcpu at f00000 there are NO
> read/write errors (and the system is MUCH faster).

Might be a problem related to an old developer's version of
Kickstart 2.0, but it might also be timing-related: Maybe
the AT drive you are using is not really mode-2 (or faster),
as required by GVP's AT interface.

> An other interesting thing is, that Write-Performance on
> my 210-MB Rodime is only 2/3 of the speed of my 110 MB
> Rodime, why ? [...] with 4096 KB-Writes the 110 MB goes to
> 180 KB/s and the 210 MB just reaches 100 KB/s.

Might be disk fragmentation, might be the drive's firmware,
or maybe it's different density zones.

> However, the read-speeds are excellent on both HDs,
> expacially the 210 MB goes over 850 KB/s for Reads greater
> than 4096 Bytes. So why is Write-Access so slow ?

Theoretically, the driver can _write_ data as fast as it can
_read_ data, but most drives are faster during reads.

> Have you changed something in the ROM V3.X that may solve
> this curiosity ?

It's certainly not driver-related.

> Please give me a PM where i can get the new ROMs, DTM told
> me that they are not out now.

V3.x has been shipping since last year. Ask GVP about
upgrades.

Ralph