NCR 53C810, 53C815, 53C820, 53C825 HBAs

Preconfiguration Information

Known Problems and Limitations

• Because the NCR BIOS and the Solaris fdisk program may be incompatible, use the DOS version of FDISK (or equivalent utility) to create an entry in the FDISK partition table before installing the Solaris software. Create at least a 1-cylinder DOS partition starting at cylinder 0. If the DOS partition isn't created, the system won't reboot after Solaris installation.

• An add-in card with the 53C815, 53C820, or 53C825 controller can only be used in a bus-mastering PCI slot. On motherboards with only two PCI slots, both of the PCI slots are usually bus-master capable. On motherboards with three or more PCI slots, and on motherboards with several embedded PCI controllers, some of the PCI slots may not be bus-master capable.

• Some PCI motherboards with the NCR SDMS BIOS and an embedded 53C810 controller do not work correctly with 53C82x add-in cards that also have an NCR SDMS BIOS. Upgrading the motherboard BIOS, the add-in card, or both may prevent these conflicts.

• The SCSI Tagged Queuing option is not supported.

• On some early PCI systems with the 53C810 chip on the motherboard, the interrupt pin on the chip is not connected. Such a system cannot be used with Solaris software.

• The Solaris ncrs driver does not support the Wide SCSI option. Some add-in 53C8xx cards include connectors for both narrow cables (8-bit SCSI A cables) and wide cables (16-bit SCSI P cables). You can connect devices to the SCSI Wide connectors using SCSI P cables, but the Solaris ncrs driver will not initiate or accept the Wide Data Transfer option. The attached devices will function in 8-bit narrow mode.