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Ultra160 SCSIHBA (A6828A/A6829A) Support on MPE/iX

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by Jim Hawkins -- MPE/iX Lab

The A6828A and A6829A are Ultra160 LVD SCSI Host Bus Adaptor cards for use with HP e3000 A-Class and N-Class (PCI I/O) systems. These cards are being offered as "plug compatible" replacement cards for the previously available A5149A and A5150A (Ultra2 LVD HBAs) which have reached End Of Sales.

Support for these "U160" cards was offered starting with MPE/iX Release 7.5. However, problems in the interaction between U160 HBAs and some disks now make it a REQUIREMENT to have patch MPEMXE8, or superceding patches, for these cards to be supported. For customers running MPE/iX 7.5, MPEMXE8 "B" is part of the MPE/iX 7.5 PowerPatch 1 (included via MPEMXE7 "A" which supercedes MPEMXE8 "B"). In addition, a 7.0 version of MPEMXE8 is available for customers who need to purchase new LVD HBA cards for their existing A or N-Class system running MPE/iX 7.0. If at all possible MPEMXE8 (directly, via superceding patch, or PPT) should be installed before accessing any SCSI devices attached to the U160 HBAs.

Card Details

A6828A

Single Port Ultra160 SCSI (PCI bus) Adapter Card. This card plugs into a PCI Bus on the system and presents a single SCSI Bus to the outside world. This SCSI Bus is capable of operating in either LVD or SE Mode. This determination is made automatically by the card based upon the devices and termination present on the Bus; there is no software control for this feature. This bus must be terminated. Depending upon the cables/connectors being used, this would typically be either a High Density (HD) 68-pin LVD/SE terminator such as C2364A or, for Very High Density (VHDCI) 68-pin LVD/SE cables, a C2370A.

A6829A

Dual Port Ultra160 SCSI (PCI bus) Adapter Card. (N-Class Only) This card plugs into a PCI Bus on the system and presents two (2) independent SCSI Buses to the outside world. These SCSI Buses are capable of operating in either LVD or SE Mode. This determination is made automatically by the card based upon the devices and termination present on the Bus; there is no software control for this feature. Each SCSI bus must be independently terminated. Depending upon the cables/connectors being used this would typically be either a High Density (HD) 68-pin LVD/SE terminator such as C2364A or, for Very High Density (VHDCI) 68-pin LVD/SE cables, a C2370A.

Configuration

For SYSGEN/IOCONFIG configuration purposes, the commands used are identical to that used with the previous cards ("AP 0/4/0/0 A5149A"). Any device ID associated with the PCI_SCSI_DAM in IODFAULT.PUB.SYS may be used, e.g. A4800A, A5149A, A5150A, A5159A, A6828A, or A6829A are all equivalent. During initialization the PCI_SCSI_DAM queries the card for its attributes and sets proper operating characteristics independent of the configuration group values.

Operational Note

When attached to MPE/iX Systems the "U160" cards run the SCSI bus at Ultra2 Speed (80MByte/sec) rather than U160 (160MByte/sec) due to limitations in the MPE/iX Driver. Peripherals rated to run at U160 and (future) U320 Speeds may still be connected to this card; MPE/iX simply negotiates all transfers to be done at Ultra2 speeds.



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