Cable swap blows Ultra2 cards?

[Harlan Andrews]

* From the T10 (formerly SCSI) Reflector (t10 at symbios.com), posted by:
* Harlan Andrews <hea at apple.com>
*
Gary,

Do your sources report whether the bus was in LVD mode prior to 
hot-plugging 
the Single Ended drive ?

...Harlan

----------------------------- Reply Seperator 
-----------------------------

* From the T10 (formerly SCSI) Reflector (t10 at symbios.com), posted by:
* Gary Watson <gary at trimm.co.uk>
*

Hi all,
We are hearing an alarming number of reports that attaching a single 
ended 
disk subsystem to a powered-up PC with an LVD host adapter in it can 
result 
in catastrophic failure of the host adapter.  Obviously people ought to 
switch off everything before changing SCSI cables around, but technicians 
tend not to bother as the conventional wisdom is that you don't need to 
for 
SCSI.  Has anyone else seen this?  Could it be related to the fact that 
the 
host adapter is operating its multimode drivers in differential mode by 
default, and when a live cable is plugged on, DIFFSENS is not the first 
wire to mate, and effectively a bunch of active differential drivers get 
shorted to ground for a second or two?  I know this theory has a big hole 
in it as the host adapter ought to be tristated, but it's all I can think 
of unless there is some kind of odd construction being used in the 
multimode output pads which blows up if the voltage is out of the 
expected 
range for LVD operation when trying to run in LVD mode.  I thought about 
ground potential between the cabinets, but I've now measured this in two 
failed systems and found that the grounds were bonded perfectly.  So I am 
at a loss.  Is it possible to deduce the problem by post-mortem 
examination 
of the silicon?

Gary Watson			Trimm Technologies Ltd.
Engineering Manager		A Subsidiary of Robroy Industries, Inc.
gary at trimm.co.uk		Nottingham NG8 6AR  ENGLAND
http://www.trimm.co.uk		+44 115 951 9951


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