#: 19224 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Oct-93  08:52:22
Sb: #19222-#MM1-68340
Fm: John R. Wainwright 72517,676
To: Zack Sessions 71532,1555 (X)

 > Hmm, was that U18 on the IO board by any chance? Reason I ask was that I
 > received just today, a replacement PAL for U18, from Bill Wittman. He states
in
 > his letter that "on some systems, not many" require the new PAL to help
solve
 > "hard drive problems". Even though I am not having hard drive problems
(unless
 > you consider not being able to boot from the hard drive as a "problem"),
"Pease
 > highly recommends that you put it in".
 >

To tell the truth, in the conversation with Kevin Pease about how he tracked
down the problem, I got a little confused about which PAL was the culprit.  I
thought Kevin said U13 - but that is the one they knew about already in
Atlanta, and I had already replaced it.  Bill Wittman said he had one other
board with a similar problem and suspected U18.  Kevin said the new PAL he made
gave it a little more margin in the timing.  Peeking under the lid -- the chip
NOW in U18 is marked CPL16L8 25NC.  Is that the one you got in the mail?

HeHe-- if Pease "highly recommends that you put it in" ...... I'd do it.  The
problem was kinda tricky - very marginal timing - in fact, if it ran long
enough, it would drift into alignment and work just fine.  One night after
getting some advice from K.P. I sent him a message to say it was fixed -- next
morning I turned it on, copied one file to /h0, and trashed the directory.
After Kevin got the machine, he called me to say he couldn't get it to do
anything wrong.  I suggested he turn it off, start it in the morning and change
something on the hard drive - that did it.  Back in my TV repairman days, I
used to blast chips with "FREON" to cool them when I suspected heat-related
intermittent problems.  That's an EPA "NO-NO" now, I don't know what technique
current techs are using (ice cubes in little plastic bags, maybe?) (GRIN).

BTW, I grabbed that software speed change util source from Brian White and
compiled it -- seems to work fine.  Kevin warned me to make speed changes in
small steps - he thought it was possible that a big change, like from 8 to 16
meg in one step, just might cause a problem.  (Timing again - slightly over my
head).

Kevin also mentioned that the way the SCSI driver works with the new chip is
improved - much less chance of screwing up a long upload or download when you
get something real busy going in another window.



           John R. Wainwright

 > >

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