Adaptec 29160 and other SCSI ?'s

[kdogg]

I recently purchased an Adaptec 29160 SCSI controller and a 18.3gig IBM ultrastar SCSI 160 drive. I have the sytem set up and it appears to be running well, but I have a few questions still that I am having trouble getting answered.

First of all the Adaptec 29160 has 2 68 pin connectors and 1 50 pin connector. I set up the previously mentioned scsi drive on the first 68 pin connector (as reccomended on the Adaptec site) I notice that there are 2 jumpers on the controller, at the base of both 68 pin connectors. Can anyone tell me what these jumpers do? I am assuming that they are for manual termination, but I am not sure. Adaptec seems to have no documentation ANYWHERE on thier site and searching the net has not yeilded any answers.

Second, what are the advantages/disadvantages of having the controller card's BIOS enabled or disabled? will I see better performace with it enabled? Keep in mind that this setup is in a high end workstation (not a server)

I have pretty much exhausted my resources so any help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Crashman]

The jumpers are most likely for termination. Remember that BOTH ends get terminated, the card usally terminates the base end through jumpers as described.
You only need the controllers BIOS enabled IF you are booting from that controller. It doesn't hurt anything.

Video killed my Radio Card!

 

[Guest]

The jumpers are for manual/automatic termination.. and probably should be left in automatic (default) unless you are experiencing some problems running devices on both connectors of one segment. The card is designed to self determine when you have devices on both segments (2 LVD connectors and 2 SE connectors) of the bus.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***

 

[Crashman]

I don't own his card, and only knew what the jumpers on my card were for.

Video killed my Radio Card!

 

[kdogg]

Thanks fellas, I went ahead and set the jumper and set the card to automatic termination just to be sure, I am booting from that disk so I need to leave the bios enabled... Thanks again for the responce!~

 

[Nelsonjr]

Answer ID 1092
Products
SCSI Host Adapters - Ultra160 Family
Adaptec SCSI Card 19160
Adaptec SCSI Card 29160N
Adaptec SCSI Card 29160
Adaptec SCSI Card 39160
C Gateengeoraryl
0D2a/t0e3 C/2r0e0a0te 0d2:10 PM
0L5a/s0t8 U/2p0d0a8t e1d2:09 AM
EAvcecreysosn eLevel
What is the purpose of the jumpers on the
Ultra160 SCSI cards?
Question
What is the purpose of the jumpers on the Ultra160 SCSI cards?
When should these jumpers be used?
This information applies to the following products:
- 19160, 29160N, 29160, 39160 - PCI SCSI Card(s)
This information applies to the following Operating System(s):
- All / PC
Answer
The jumper blocks (pin sets) found on Adaptec's Ultra160 SCSI
cards are specifically for termination and bus activity LED:
The termination jumper blocks allow you to force termination on
the particular segment / channel of the
SCSI card to be enabled at all times. This is only useful if you
are:
A. troubleshooting
B. sharing a SCSI device between two computers (in which
case you
must
leave one computer powered off at all times)
The default setting for all termination jumpers is Off (no jumper
installed
over the pin sets). This allows
the SCSI Select utility on the card to control the termination
setting for each
segment / channel of the card.
The Activity LED jumper blocks are 4 pin connectors with
the following pin-out:
Activity - Ground - Ground - Activity
Termination Activity
LED
19160 J4 (LVD-TE) / (J5
SE-TE) J2
29160N J4 (LVD-TE) / J5
(SE-TE) J2
29160 J2 (TE-PRI) / J6
(TE-SEC) J7
39160 J3 (TE-B) / J5
(TE-A) J8
What is the purpose of the jumpers on the Ultra160 SCSI cards? Page 1 of 2
http://ask.adaptec.com/scripts/adaptec_tic.cfg/php.exe/enduser/prnt_adp.php?p_faqid=... 13/3/2009
If your LED has only 2 pins, it can be connected to either
the first or second
pair of the 4 pins. If you don't see activity on your LED when the
computer is
powered on (a SCSI device helps but is not needed), then try
reversing the
connector - it may be backwards. If your LED still shows no
activity, then you
will need to test the LED itself.
What is the purpose of the jumpers on the Ultra160 SCSI cards? Page 2 of 2
http://ask.adaptec.com/scripts/adaptec_tic.cfg/php.exe/enduser/prnt_adp.php?p_faqid=... 13/3/2009