SUMMARY: help diag SCSI problems

From: Darrell McCauley (jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 05 1992 - 22:24:32 CST


In comp.sys.sun.admin I wrote:

>[reposted from tamu.unix.sun]

>sd2: SCSI transport failed: reason 'reset': retrying command
>esp0: Target 3 now Synchronous at 4.167 mb/s max transmit rate
>esp0: Current command timeout for Target 2 Lun 0
>sd2: SCSI transport failed: reason 'reset': retrying command
>esp0: Target 3 now Synchronous at 4.167 mb/s max transmit rate
>esp0: Target 0 now Synchronous at 4.167 mb/s max transmit rate
>[repeated ad nauseum]

>Has anyone seen anything like this before? Here's the setup:
> Sun IPC, Sun OS 4.1.1
> I have sd0 (internal-came with system), sd2 (cheapo GB disk),
> sd3 (salvaged from a 386i), tape drive (in shoebox w/ sd3).
> IPC(sd0)---sd2---sd3---tape
>Fairly often (~20 minutes), when folks are really working the disk
>over, things lock up (it's filesystems are mounted other places),
>then I get the error above, and the tape drive rattles.

>Anyone have any clues? sd2 is from ICS.

Here is the summary of responses:

1. check the connection inside the SCSI connector on the tape drive
2. check the cables - the shorter the cables the better.
3. check termination - the SCSI-chain should be terminated on both
   ends and _only_ there. In the IPC - the termination should be on
   the cpu-board - _not_ on the internal drive.
4. applying the Sun NFS Jumbo patch and disabling Synchronous SCSI
   mode in the kernel lowers the occurrence of this problem.
5. >From the Sun Field Engineer Handbook-- "SCSI bus errors may occur when
   multiple SCSI devices are used with CPU boards below 501-1689-06."
   Check the CPU board to see if this is true--if you do have a downrev
   board and you have a maintenance contract, a call to your local support
   engineer should be enough to get it replaced.

I have not had a chance to check these yet (busy trying to graduate)
and I'm waiting for the error to happen again (system load has been way
down during the holidays).

Thanks to those who replied by email:
        Phill Everson <phill@sequent.com>,
        halvard@trd.sdata.no (Halvard Halvorsen),
        Dorian Deane <ddeane@chesapeake.ads.com>,
        Keenan Royle <royle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>,
        gstevens@ads.com (Greg Stevens),
        weimer@ssd.kodak.com (Gary Weimer 726-3370),
        Terry.Bartlett@central.sun.com (Terry Bartlett),
        phanes@hal.com (Pamela D. Hanes).

-- 
James Darrell McCauley, Grad Res Asst, Spatial Analysis Lab 
Dept of Ag Engr, Texas A&M Univ, College Station, TX 77843-2117, USA
(Darrell.McCauley@tamu.edu, jdm5548@tamagen.bitnet)



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