Preconfiguration Information

Known Problems and Limitations

• For Ultra2 SCSI LVD transfer, make sure you use Ultra2 SCSI LVD-compliant SCSI cable. Also, for best performance, keep the devices 6 to 8 inches apart.

• If both the 53C896 chip and an older 53C8xx chip are embedded on the motherboard, when your system boots, the system BIOS recognizes the older 53C8xx chip first. In this case, wait until the newer version of the Symbios SDMS BIOS, which supports the newer 53C896 chip, recognizes all 53C8xx chips embedded on your motherboard before proceeding.

  To prevent the older BIOS utility from coming up, reflash the older 53C8xx BIOS of the add-in controller.

  You can download the latest Symbios SDMS BIOS from http://www.symbios.com/techsupport/pci_sw.htm#Symbios CPI BIOS & Flash Utility.

• Due to a hardware problem in revisions B0 and C0 of the 53C896 chip, the symhisl driver does not work properly with 64-bit PCI slots. The symhisl driver issues a SCSI bus reset when the problem occurs. To avoid this problem, upgrade to revision C1 of the 53C896 chip.

  Other revisions of the 53C896 chip may exhibit hardware incompatibilities with earlier PCI chips and designs. For a complete list of errata about each revision of the 53C896 chip, see LSI Logic's Web site (http://www.lsil.com).

• Under some conditions, LVD technology may exhibit firmware incompatibilities. If you experience SCSI errors with a correctly configured LVD SCSI bus, contact the manufacturer for updated firmware.