Andy Stewart wrote:

HI Everybody,

Having recently rebuilt my "good" computer, I'm now seeing a bunch of disk I/O errors in my system log. I have 3 SCSI disks connected to a Symbios controller using the sym53c8xx module and a 2.4.20 kernel.

At first, I suspected an individual drive, as it is nearly 4 years old, and all of the errors were there. I have since physically removed that drive, and now the other drives are logging errors rather sporatically. Typically, I see an error message from reiserfs about how it couldn't write to the drive, and a disk I/O error in the log. The system is then wedged and requires a reboot.

With the problem showing up on all 3 SCSI drives, I'm now suspicious of the (used) controller which I received as a "present" from a guy at work.

If it should be the controller, do you folks have recommendations about reasonably priced SCSI controllers? I have 6 SCSI devices in my system and I need 68-pin as well as 50-pin capabilities. One of my disks is U160, and I think the others are slower, but with disks always getting faster, I'd probably want a U160 controller. I don't think I want to pay the premium for a U320 controller.

Thanks,

Andy

have you tried to reset the cmos on the motherboard to a defaul setting

Andy wrote:

If it should be the controller, do you folks have recommendations about reasonably priced SCSI controllers? I have 6 SCSI devices in my system and I need 68-pin as well as 50-pin capabilities. One of my disks is U160, and I think the others are slower, but with disks always getting faster, I'd probably want a U160 controller. I don't think I want to pay the premium for a U320 controller.

Funny you should ask. I saw Adaptec 2940UW controllers on ebay last night for $10-20. They have both a 50 pin and a 68 pin internal connector, and a 68 pin external. You can hook everything up to the 68 pin connector, but you need 68 to 50 pin dongles, or you can hook some to each as long as the IDs are unique. --Skip