Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Early experience with 2090A controller
Keywords: sure doesn't smell like a rose
Message-ID: <12772@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 13 Oct 88 00:06:36 GMT
References: <c0.6va0CVf1010TxC9.@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com|
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 41

In article <c0.6va0CVf1010TxC9.@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com| kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes:
[lots of details edited out]
|Attached are the initial experiences one of my co-workers has had
|with the recently released A2090A hard disk controller.  I have
|edited some of Dave's "more critical remarks" [ items in brackets ].
|Suffice it to say that he is less than happy with the product, and
|more than a little bit upset.
||  
|| I bought a 40 meg Seagate ST251 to connect to my new 2090A disk
|| controller last weekend and had a number of problems installing
|| the drive.  [Most of the problems can be attributed to inadequate
|| documentation, and to what appears to be faulty software.]
||  
|| After only 2 days of operation, my new Seagate disk started getting
|| massive numbers of r/w errors.  DOS couldn't even validate it, and the
|| whole thing became corrupted.
||  
|| The problem was not the disk, but the 2090A controller.  It seems that
|| the board has thermal problems, and if I plug it in next to my ASDG
|| memory board, it wrecks havoc, even with the cover off.  The only reliable
|| mode of operation I've found so far is to separate the two boards as
|| much as possible, leave the case open, and aim a humongous and noisy
|| fan at the controller.

I have been running the A2090 + Seagate ST251 + ASDG 8MI for almost a year now
with ABSOLUTELY no problem, including 100 degrees days here in LA with NO air
conditioning on.    The A2090 is between the 8MI and a BridgeCard.
I thought the ONLY difference between the A2090 and the A2090A was the 
autoboot ROMS.  Is this the case?

My "old" prep did not automatically create the mountlist, since I made the
drive with two partitions.  It wasn't really a big deal to edit the mountlist
as the manual explains, though. But you DO have to know the charcteristics
of the drive (no. cyl, tracks, etc...) to be able to properly set up the 
mountlist.

-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
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