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-Some notes for ftape users with PCI motherboards:
-=================================================
-
-The problem:
-------------
-
-There have been some problem reports from people using PCI-bus based
-systems getting overrun errors.
-I wasn't able to reproduce these until I ran ftape on a Intel Plato
-(Premiere PCI II) motherboard with bios version 1.00.08AX1.
-It turned out that if GAT (Guaranteed Access Timing) is enabled (?)
-ftape gets a lot of overrun errors.
-The problem disappears when disabling GAT in the bios.
-Note that Intel removed this setting (permanently disabled) from the
-1.00.10AX1 bios !
-
-It looks like that if GAT is enabled there are often large periods
-(greater than 120 us !??) on the ISA bus that the DMA controller cannot
-service the floppy disk controller.
-I cannot imagine this being acceptable in a decent PCI implementation.
-Maybe this is a `feature' of the chipset. I can only speculate why
-Intel choose to remove the option from the latest Bios...
-
-The lesson of this all is that there may be other motherboard
-implementations having the same of similar problems.
-If you experience a lot of overrun errors during a backup to tape,
-see if there is some setting in the Bios that may influence the
-bus timing.
-
-I judge this a hardware problem and not a limitation of ftape ;-)
-My DOS backup software seems to be suffering from the same problems
-and even refuses to run at 1 Mbps !
-Ftape will reduce the data-rate from 1 Mbps to 500 Kbps if the number
-of overrun errors on a track exceeds a threshold.
-
-
-Possible solutions:
--------------------
-
-Some of the problems were solved by upgrading the (flash) bios.
-Other suggest that it has to do with the FDC being on the PCI
-bus, but that is not the case with the Intel Premiere II boards.
-[If upgrading the bios doesn't solve the problem you could try
-a floppy disk controller on the isa-bus].
-
-Here is a list of systems and recommended BIOS settings:
-
-
- Intel Premiere PCI (Revenge):
-
-Bios version 1.00.09.AF2 is reported to work.
-
-
-
- Intel Premiere PCI II (Plato):
-
-Bios version 1.00.10.AX1 and version 11 beta are ok.
-If using version 1.00.08.AX1, GAT must be disabled !
-
-
-
- ASUS PCI/I-SP3G:
-
-Preferred settings: ISA-GAT-mode : disabled
- DMA-linebuffer-mode : standard
- ISA-masterbuffer-mode : standard
-
-
- DELL Dimension XPS P90
-
-Bios version A2 is reported to be broken, while bios version A5 works.
-You can get a flash bios upgrade from http://www.dell.com
-
-
-To see if you're having the GAT problem, try making a backup
-under DOS. If it's very slow and often repositions you're
-probably having this problem.
-
- --//--
- LocalWords: ftape PCI bios GAT ISA DMA chipset Mbps Kbps FDC isa AF ok ASUS
- LocalWords: SP linebuffer masterbuffer XPS http www com