G V P I N S T A L L A T I O N D I S K N O T E S ============================================================================= C O N T E N T S --------------- A. Introduction B. Files contained in the GVP drawer 1. SCSI a. GvpScsiCtrl b. FastPrep c. ExpertPrep d. SCSIMaskFix 2. Memory a. MemTest 3. 68040 a. GvpCpuCtrl 4. SystemInfo a. GvpInfo 5. IO a. IOEPrefs b. GvpIOCtrl c. SetDevice 6. GVPPatch C. A2000 GForce040 Accelerator Notes 1. Hard Drive Performance 2. DMA Mask 3. Setting the DMA Mask 4. Maximizing System Performance 5. Multiple SCSI device reminder D. FastROM 4.5 Notes 1. Quantum 120/240 firmware problems E. Getting Help ============================================================================= A. I N T R O D U C T I O N This GVP.Install disk contains a minimal Workbench 2.04 environment (enough to boot from and prepare a hard disk). It should not be copied onto the hard disk and used as Workbench. The FastPrep (and ExpertPrep) program will prompt you to copy Workbench onto that hard drive after it finishes prepping and formatting a partition; this request is explicitely aimed at the Workbench disks that were included with the Amiga when purchased (or any subsequent Enhancer Kit). The GVP.Install:GVP drawer (and the DH0:GVP drawer on units shipped with pre-formatted hard drives) contains standard utilities provided to help diagnose any problems that might be encountered when additional RAM is added, or other system components are modified. An explanation of the drawers and files found in the GVP drawer can be found in the next section of this document. (NOTE: In order to provide the most useful environment for the pre-formatted hard drive there are certain drawers within the GVP drawer that may not pertain to the 68040 accelerator, and are therefore not described in this document. The ReadMe file on the hard drive will contain a description of the rest of the files). ============================================================================= A. T H E G V P D R A W E R This section of the document will describe the various utilities included on the GVP.Install disk (and the DH0:GVP drawer for GVP products that have pre-formatted hard drives. Please note that ALL of the standard GVP utilities are provided on this disk; only a few of them will actually pertain to a single product. The others will either report errors -- because the product they were designed for could not be located -- or they will perform no noticeable function.) 1. The SCSI drawer a. GvpScsiCtrl - This program was written to modify the operating parameters of the gvpscsi.device driver while it is running; without requiring a reboot. It has the following template: GvpScsiCtrl (option) where option is one of the following: -m This option will force gvpscsi.device to re-examine the SCSI bus and mount any cartridges inserted into removable media drives after the system has been booted. -r This option will force gvpscsi.device to re-examine the SCSI bus for drives (of any type) that it did not recognize when the system booted (i.e. a drive that is slow to spin-up from a cold start). -s This option is similar to the one above, except that if it locates a removale media device without a cartridge inserted, it will not return control back to the parent CLI until a cartridge is mounted and spun-up. (This can be RUN >NIL: in the startup-sequence, and then whenever a cartridge is first inserted into the drive, it will immediately be recognized). (DCOFF|DCON) This option forces gvpscsi.device to recognize Disconnect/ReConnect requests from a device or tells it to ignore those requests, regardless of what the information in a Rigid Disk Block indicates. This is useful for drives that do not support the Disconnect/ReConnect functions, but do not have a Rigid Disk Block either (i.e. a streaming tape drive). b. FastPrep - This program is the Automatic Hard Drive Prep-and-Format program. It has an easy-to-use Intuition (point-and- click) interface, and performs most of the work for you. Please refer to the FastPrep User's Guide for more information. c. ExpertPrep - This program is a more advanced version of FastPrep and allows more control over the prepping and formatting operations for a hard drive. Care should be taken when using this program, because it allows you to change almost all of the parameters of the drive. While it does attempt to warn you when a potentially problematic operation is requested, it will let you proceed! d. SCSIMaskFix - This Command-LIne utility will toggle the DMA Mask Value back-and-forth between 0xFFFFFE and 0xFFFFFFFE. Please read the section on Series-II 68030 accelerators and Extended Memory for more on this utility. 2. The Memory drawer a. MemTest - This program is actually a small script that calls two memory test programs to allocate all of the RAM currently in your system (and not in use) and performs tests on it. These tests include writing random values to a RAM address and then reading it back to compare with the original value. If any errors occur, it will report them to the screen. Since it is almost impossible to detect which chip on a SIMM module (or even which SIMM module) is at fault when an error is reported, attempts should be made to slowly reduce the amount of RAM in the system (and the tests re-run) to determine where the bad RAM chip may be. 3. The 68040 drawer a. GvpCpuCtrl - This program was designed to allow control over the GForce040 accelerator without needing to resort to changing jumper settings. A complete list of the program options are listed below: FASTROM - This re-maps Kickstart into on-board 32-bit RAM (if possible). NOFASTROM - This function performs the exact opposite of the above function, and returns Kickstart control back to the ROM in the Amiga. BOOT68000 - This option will reboot the computer with the GForce040 accelerator disabled, and the original Amiga 68000 processor active. Note that this disables the entire GForce040 board (including any RAM, SCSI, or other interface present on the board). 4. The SystemInfo drawer a. GvpInfo - This utility provides in-depth information about the various expansion products installed into the Amiga, CPU and RAM operations, and other useful information that can be helpful to have handy when calling GVP's Technical Support department for help. 5. The IO drawer a. IOEPrefs - This utility controls the default settings of the GVP serial ports (i.e. default baud rate, data/stop bits, etc.). It is similar to the Workbench 2.04 Serial Prefs program. b. GvpIOCtrl - This utility allows the GVP serial or parallel port to be mapped as the default system port. The GVP parallel port can be set as the default port and any calls to PRT: or PAR: will be re-directed to the GVP port automatically. c. SetDevice - This utility is the engine behind GvpIOCtrl. It reads the settings saved by GvpIOCtrl and actually performs the setting of default ports. It MUST be run before any port re-direction can occur; the suggested method of use is to run it in s:user-startup. 6. The GVPPatch drawer a. GVPPatch - This utility should be used if you are experiencing errors at high serial transmission speeds. To install it, double click on the `InstallGVPPatch' icon. ============================================================================= C. A 2 0 0 0 G F O R C E 0 4 0 A C C E L E R A T O R 1. Hard Disk Drive Performance It may be possible that SCSI drives already set up on other controllers may have limits set on the memory range they can directly address. This can have an adverse affect on the hard drive transfer rates since all data from such a drive has to be buffered through the 1 megabyte of RAM on the Amiga motherboard. For the fastest possible drive speeds, a SCSI drive should be connected to the Series II 68030 and have access to the full address range of system and extended memory. To ensure that the maximum SCSI performance is achieved with the built-in controller of the '030 Combo board, it is very important that the "DMA Mask" in the RDB on the hard drive is correctly set. 2. DMA Mask The drive parameter that sets the drive's usable address range is the DMA mask. This is a hexadecimal number, which when translated into binary, makes a list of address bits that can be used. The default value for most existing DMA controllers is only six characters long. This is enough to access all of the standard Amiga memory, but not the extended memory. With a drive attached to the Combo board SCSI interface, the mask should be changed to 0xFFFFFFFE which will allow the controller to transfer data to all the standard Amiga memory AND the extended memory on the combo board. 3. Setting the DMA Mask There are two methods for setting the DMA mask for your previously prepped and formatted hard disk drives. The first is a simple command line utility called SCSIMaskFix. The program has instructions built into it and can be displayed by typing, "gvp.install:GVP/SCSI/scsimaskfix ?" from a shell. The GVP FastPrep program can also change the mask value and runs under Workbench. Please refer to the FastPrep User's Guide for detailed information on changing drive (or partition) information. Both of these methods will only affect SCSI devices connected to GVP SCSI controllers! 4. Maximizing System Performance Included as part of the Commodore 2.04 system a command called `CPU' that performs useful functions when dealing with a 68040 processor, such as turning on and off the data and instruction caches. Please refer to the CPU documentation in the User's Guide provided with Workbench 2.04. 5. A Reminder about multiple SCSI drives. The GVP FastROM device driver allows you to boot from any partition on any drive, regardless of the number. There are two flags that are used to determine which partition should be the boot partition. First the drive needs to be flagged as bootable (please refer to the FastPrep 2.0 User's Guide for information on setting this flag) and then the BootPriority of the drive needs to be within the valid `boot' range. This range begins at -127 (the lowest BootPriority) and functionally goes up to +4 (the highest BootPriority that a hard drive should be set to). BootPriorities actually extend to +127, but it is unwise to exceed the BootPriority of the Amiga's floppy drives, which are permanently set to +5. A standard BootPriority for a boot partition is -5 or -10. Other partitions can be set to an equal BootPriority, but be flagged as Non-Bootable partitions. (Again, please refer to the FastPrep User's Guide for more information). ============================================================================= D. N O T E S O N F A S T R O M 4 . 5 1. A word about Quantum 120 and 240LPS drives Quantum's two most recent drives, the 120LPS and 240LPS contain a firmware bug that makes them unreliable when more than one SCSI device is connected to a single SCSI host adaptor. Quantum is working on a firmware update, but until then user's of these drives may experience some problems when using multiple drives. GVP has developed a special version of gvpscsi.device (4.5) to help alleviate the problem with the Quantum drives, and under most circumstances, the problems do not appear. It is impossible to anticipate and correct all of the problems associated with the firmware bug, and some configurations will still experience problems. Tested and working configurations include (but are not limited to): Quantum 120LPS and Quantum 105LPS Quantum 240LPS and Maxtor LXT213SY Quantum 120LPS and Quantum 240LPS Quantum 120LPS and Quantum 52Q ============================================================================= E. C A L L I N G G V P F O R T E C H N I C A L S U P P O R T GVP maintains a staff of Technical Support Representatives to answer calls and assist with installation and operation problems with GVP peripherals. The phone number is (215) 337-8770 and the fax number is (215) 337-9922. Please try to have your machine in front of you when you call, and be ready to provide answers to questions about motherboard revision, Kickstart and Workbench versions, GVP product versions, etc. A little extra research ahead of time will make it easier for the GVP Technicians to diagnose and solve your particular problem.