#A4000 SCSI Controllers
33 messages in this thread
To all Amiga experts,
I have just purchased a new Amiga 4000-040/Toaster 4000 system. I would
like to use this system with a Micropolis 1.2 GB SCSI drive and a Syquest
44 MB SCSI that I am now using with my A2000. My dealer has recommended
the GVP Series II Model HC8II SCSI controller card. Is this a good SCSI
controller? Are there other SCSI controllers that I should consider?
Thanks very much for your help.
Tom
If you are running the Toaster, you need a FAST hard drive and shouldn't
settle for anything less than an A4091 SCSI-II controller. It will be
eons faster than the GVP controller. Also, you get the latest Buster
chip, etc…
-Jonathan
Jonathan,
Thanks for the info regarding the A4091 SCSI-II controller.
Unfortunately, my dealer says he has not been able to get this controller
to date. Do you know if the A4091 is shipping?
Tom
Yes, the controller is shipping. My dealer had about 10 in stock last
time I was there! They have been shipping for a while now….
-Jonathan
Jonathan,
Every time I ask my dealer, he says that the A4091 is *not* available here in
the US yet. Is this true or not?
Thanks
Matt
Not true… my dealer has had them for a while.
-Jonathan
You are right about the GVP unit versus the A4091.
However, the new Fastlane Z3 from Germany is the best option. It is the
fastest and gives you access to 256 MB of fast ram!
You can get info thru Advanced Systems at 214-239-2000 or via this compuserve
#.
You are right, I forgot about the Fastlane.. an excellent choice (so I am
told)..
-Jonathan
Your dealer is a duffus. Get an A4091. Much nicer. Nothing against GVP,
it's just that the A4091 is a Zorro-III device and Zorro-III is very much
faster than Zorro-II.
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Dale,
That is a stupid comment to make. You have no idea as to why the dealer
might have recommended that card. Perhaps Thomas said the word
'inexpensive' when asking the dealer a question. Perhaps, like me, he has
had trouble getting the 4091 from Commodore?
The fact is, if price is a concern, that is one of the best cards to put
into a system. It is not the only answer mind you, the A4091 is nice,
however, you should reframe from blanket stupid statements.
The GVP sure works a helluva lot better than the 2091 does.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
Mark,
Pardon me for jumping in. Price was not a consideration when I asked my
dealer to recommend a SCSI controller. I did specifically ask the dealer
to recommend a card that would give me optimum performance from my
Micropolis 1.2 GB hard drive which is SCSI-II. I also specifically asked
about the Commodore A4091 controller. Regarding the latter, my dealer
said that he simply had not been able to get an A4091, and since all my
software is stored on SCSI drives and the Toaster software practically
fills up the 120 MB IDE drive on the new A4000, we then explored other
SCSI controller solutions. My dealer strongly recommended the GVP Series
II controller as "a very good SCSI controller." I specifically asked if
it was a SCSI-II capable controller and my dealer said "no, but I doubt if
you'll see much difference in speed between the GVP and the Commodore
A4091." One reason I went with this dealer is that he seems knowledgeable
about the Amiga and honest in his oppinions expressed to me.
Unfortunately, GVP sent my dealer their controller with the wrong ROM
installed so that it will not work in my new A4000. My dealer noted the
ROM on the GVP card was wrong the minute he started to install it, called
GVP and asked them to send out the corect ROM (for the A4000), which he
had ordered in the first place, by overnight air. That was last Thursday
morning and my dealer and I are both still waiting for the correct ROM.
My dealer called GVP again today, and they admitted that even though he
had requested "urgent — next day air" on the ROM, they had just "been too
busy to ship it and had pushed the order aside." They said they would try
and get the order out today, so it looks like I'll be without my SCSI
drives for a few more days. This episode does not make me feel very good
about GVP although I have used their Series II 030 combo card accelerator
for two years on my A2000 without problems and like it very much.
Tom
Thanks for the clarification, Dale message just annoyed me as I am a
dealer and it is so easy for people to take pot shots at the dealer as if
we were all ignorant. We are not, and if it were not for the few of us
that bothered to sell Amigas, Commodore would have been in much worse
shape than it is now.
Commodore and (ex-Commodore employees) should consider a little respect
for labeling someone as 'duffus'.
Oh, there are bad dealers out there, no doubt. However, I don't think
they are in the majority.
I do think the 4091 would be a better choice with your drive by the way.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
Mark, I'm sorry that "duffus" offended you. It wasn't meant as a pot shot
at anyone. It wasn't even meant seriously. I have, to my knowledge, no
particular disrespect for any Amiga dealers.
My serious disrespect contains language unsuitable for CIS, so you won't
see it posted here. 🙂
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Mark, ( and all others who replied regarding SCSI controllers for the
A4000:)
Thanks very much to all of you who offered help and advice regarding SCSI
controllers for the A4000. Since my dealer had already put the GVP SCSI
controller card in my A4000 and had ordered the correct ROM, I have
decided, at least for the moment, to stay with this controller.
Today the correct ROM for using the GVP SCSI controller in the A4000
arrived and I took my A4000 back to the dealer along with a Syquest 44MB
removal SCSI in an external case so I could check it out at the dealers.
Everything worked fine after putting in the correct ROM. The Syquest was
immediately identified and ran fine. However, upon getting home disaster
struck! I attached a Micropolis 1200 XL SCSI 1.2 GB drive to the A4000.
The Micropolis was powered up, I heard the drive come up to speed and the
buzz of disk activity, but the A4000 would not boot. I then tried the
A4000 again with the Syquest and it booted fine. Again I tried the
Micropolis, but the A4000 would not boot. Now I have discovered that the
Micropolis, which is only eight months old and has worked flawlessly on my
A2000, is not even bringing the drive up to speed when it is turned on and
no longer works with my A2000. Thus somehow in attempting to get the
Micropolis to work with the A4000 I have caused the drive to fail and will
have to send the entire unit which also includes a DAT SCSI tape drive
back to HT Electronics for repair. Worst of all I fear that when I get
the Micropolis back and plug it into the SCSI port on the GVP card in the
A4000, it will again damage the drive. I don't understand how this could
happen since this same port is operating the Syquest without problems. If
anyone has any ideas as to what caused the failure of the Micropolis, I'd
sure like to hear them. Oh yes, all connections to all equipment were
made only after power was off to everything and all disk activity had
finished.
Thanks again for your help.
Tom
Thomas,
Can I assume that you were not attempting to power the Micropolis with the
A4000? If you were'nt I can't imagine what happened.
Anyone else?
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
I had a similar experience with a Seagate 1 gig HD in an external box.
This one was a 5.25" full height drive- a major motor current hog.. 🙂 The
external box was a modified clone minitower case. I found that the typical
PC power supply isn't well (or at all) regulated on the 12v. If there's
not enough load on the 5 volts, there's not enough current capacity on the
12 volts. The drive appeared to spin up, but never actually went ready. I
finally had to hook up a dummy load – a 4 ohm 50 watt resistor – to the 5
volts. (But not before I had mistakenly sent the first drive back 🙁 )
Jim
Jim,
Thanks for taking the time to share your comments with me on your Seagate
1 GB hard drive problem. My Micropolis suddenly, for no apparent reason,
ceased to spin up *at all* when the power is turned on. The disk light
flashes very briefly once, but absolutely no disk activity occurs. The
1.2 GB Micropolis is only eight months old and is still under warranty. I
have returned it to HT Electronics where I purchased it for diagnosis and
repair. Again thanks for your help.
Tom
>I had a similar experience with a Seagate 1 gig HD in an external box.
I haven't followed the thread but I have a external box (converted
mini-tower) and I believe I maybe having PS problems with it. The drive
seems to power down for a split second for no reason.
>I finally had to hook up a dummy load – a 4 ohm 50 watt resistor – to the
>5 volts.
How can I do this? I am NOT a electronics techie so could you give me a
detailed explanation?
Thanks…
<<< Tony D. Tracer >>>
Tony,
I had this resistor in the junk box, so I used it. 🙂 Basically, I found
that plugging in a couple of old junker HDs into the power supply let the
main 1 gig drive spin up ok. So, since the 2 drives put a total of 2.4
amps on the 5v, Ohm's law says R=V/I. R=5v/2.4a or 2.08 ohms. The power is
V*I or 5v * 2.4a or 12 watts. Then I double it for safety. 🙂 The resistor
I had was fairly large. It was also hollow with a center bolt and mica
insulators. I was able to bolt it to the case frame out of the way. It
will get hot, so you want to mount it someplace where it will have good
airflow and not be resting on cables. Radio Shack has some terminal strips
that can mount to the case. You can solder the resistor(s) to the strip,
the leads will hold in out in the air. Then use the female half of a HD
power extension cable to make a cable for the resistor. You can just plug
it to one of the HD power cables. Meter the cable to find the 5v side. The
two center wires are ground. One of the outside is 5v the other is 12v.
Those clone towers are all different, but the one I had came with a short
extender with a tap for the power LED. I just spliced into that rather
than making a custom cable.
Note that if you can't find one resistor of the right power rating, you
can take advantage of paralelling them. Two 10 ohm resistors in paralell
is 5 ohms & the power is spread between them, so they can be smaller,like
5 or 10 watts. (10 is better…)
-Jim "Mr. Duct Tape"
I still blanket recomend against Zorro-II SCSI cards in an A4000 for two
reasons. First, someone who wants that kind of upgrade may want other
upgrades for which getting the motherboard/cpu card revisions now will be
nice to have out of the way. Second, and most important, is that once
you've bought an A4000, there is a certain level of 'inexpensive' you've
already given up on. You just don't save money on your Ferrari by using
85 octane gas or using retreads. They'll work in the short term if you
don't push them, but you'll want to push them later if not now, and you'll
regret it later.
As for trouble getting the A4091, same analogy applies. My car is in the
shop right now waiting for a part. I'm not going to tell them to use a
part from a Honda Civic on my Accura Legend just because they have one in
stock. Not even if they told me that the Civic part would fit and do the
job I needed right now but just not perform at the same level as the
better Accura part.
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Dale,
I have no real problem with your recommendation, however what is important
to you may not be as important to another. I, of course, recommend the
A4091 first.
However, if asked if there is 'another' way, I always show the
alternatives along with their trade offs.
This would not make me a duffus, but rather a dealer who is trying to help
the customer.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
Dale,
Thanks much for the advice. I did ask my dealer about the A4091 but he
claims not to be able to get one in to date. Do you know if the A4091 is
shipping?
Tom
The A4091 has been available for a while now….
-Jonathan
Many people have 4091's in their machines. I don't know whether some
dealers are having an easier time of getting them. I do know that they
can be a pain in the butt for the dealer if s/he has to swap your
motherboard and/or CPU card due to non-socketed buster and a PAL
revision.
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Right on the money about the GVP! But the A4091 is not the best on the market
regardless of the special upgrade offers. If you are looking for performance,
reliability and memory expansion up to 256MB, check the new Fastlane Z3 which
is now available in the US. The unit will be reviewed in the upcoming issues
of the main magazines. Info available via this Cserve number or by calling
Larry Lyons at 214-239-2000.
BTW. What do you do with the free time on hand?
Christian –
There is SCSI-II, SCSI-II wide, and SCSI-II fast.
Which is the Fastlane Z3 ?
. . . . JimDoc, on AutoPilot
Don't forget SCSI-II fast and wide.
Dale Larson
– An Amiga Software Engineer with some time on his hands.
Jim,
I would guess that its Fast SCSI-II, judging from their claimed transfer
rates. Wide SCSI-II is still a very rare animal, and an expensive one,
too.
//Jonathan,
\\//via AutoPilot
Jim,
the Fastlane Z3 is a Fast-SCSI-II Host-Adapter
Juan 😉 APFlying from Holland
You should consider the new Fastlane Z3 which is a super fast controller built
in Germany. It also gives you access to up to 256MB of fats memory!
You can get more info from the local office of the manufacturer, Advanced
Systems & Software International Group. The phone number is 214-239-2000, the
fax is 214-821-3464 or via this Compuserve number. The person handling the
controller sales and information is Larry Lyons.
The controller has been shipping in the US since July. The Fastlane Z3 may not
be available everywhere because of very high demand from VAR's that have known
about the product while it was developed. However, the major distributors are
now carrying it and should deliver in the next few days. This is a really hot
item. Check it out before committing to the A4091.
Sounds imteresting, but will C= replace both my motherboard and CPU board
so that I can install a non C= controller? I think I am stuck with a 4091.
At least for a while. I could always dump it later and move to the
Fastlane.
BTW my dealer is still waiting for my 4091 and upgrade stuff. But I am in
no hurry since Jim over at U.U. has stated that 4091s have been recalled
since the "fast scsi" option is broken. I'd rather get a later one that
works.
Still poking along with my 2091. . .
…AutoPilot Engaged…
-Paul-
Paul..
One of the members from our local club call Gold Service and they
replaced the MB without him having to purchase the 4091…
Eddie.Ski
OK I'll check with my dealer.
…AutoPilot Engaged…
-Paul-