Adaptec SCSI Card

Bill:

Regarding your question:

“Does anybody know if the Adaptec 2940 SCSI card works in OS X and is it bootable? Thanks.”

There is a guy named Bob Nunn, in Memphis, TN, who has been rebuilding Mac systems for 17-years.
He seems like one of the most Mac savvy people I have found, and he is an excellent resource for refurbished parts. The first link listed below leads to “Bob Mac User Tech Tips.” On page-5 he notes
tests he ran using the Adaptec 2940 and ATTO SCSI cards. I have a bit of difficulty finding Bob’s
store entrance vs. his tech tips so the second link leads to his sales dept.

http://resale.headgap.com/bobsmactips.html

http://headgap.com/homepage.spml

At Adaptec’s KB support site, I entered “2940 scsi card + macintosh.” It gave 135 “Searchable Answers.” Inserting “macintosh + 2940 scsi card” produced 298 “Searchable Answers,” exactly the same number it gave me for the 39160. For some reason merely turning the words around generates different answers. Doing it a third time produces 500 answers. Leave out the Mac reference and you’ll get 4400+ answers. The link below leads to Adaptec's KB.

http://adaptec-tic.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adaptectic.cfg/php/enduser/stdalp.php?

I have read quite a few articles lately in which people indicate that “Initio” cards are by far superior to Adaptec’s. The link to an article by “Mac Gurus” that is listed below states this in pretty strong terms, and they also appear to be much more reasonably priced.

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/scsi/mgscsiinitioboards.php

In 2000, when I installed the 39160, an Adaptec Rep had me download some sort of a patch from Apple. There was a workaround for properly installing the card in the “beige” that I can’t recall. I paid $60+ for an out of warranty call to an Adaptec Rep who basically told me to “flash the card from a drive hooked directly into the motherboard.” This is the only way I’ve managed to get any OS loaded on my Ultra 160 LVD drive since then, and it functions at the SCSI-2 level. The Adaptec Rep’s only response to my desire for installing Jaguar was “OS X and SCSI don’t get along very well.”

I have noticed that Grant Bennet-Alder appears to be very well informed about SCSI issues, as reflected by his reply to my questions in Msg.#3 of the “Beige Quandaries,” and your own exchanges with him in this forum. Also, someplace in Bob Nunn’s “Tech Notes,” he indicates that he has put SCSI cards and OS X together without a hitch.

There are a couple things I do recall that the Adaptec Rep told me in 2000 regarding SCSI ID’s.

1) The 39160 card is set to ID = 7 by default.

2) For some reason he set the original IBM drive with ID = 0 (On Bus-0) even though the “Internal ATA
CD-ROM” drive is also set to ID = 0; and he indicated this posed no problem. Again, the IBM 9GB drive,
is plugged into the motherboard, and occupies SCSI Bus-0 by itself.

3) The Quantum 10k Atlas (LVD) drive is connected to SCSI Bus-1 by itself. It’s set to ID = 6.

I use a separate Adaptec cable with an LVD-SE terminator for each drive, and the drives are the only thing connected to these cables.

Yours and Brent’s knowledge of what is actually going on in the box by far exceeds mine. I’m just brainstorming here, and I thought I’d point out the best resources I’ve found in the midst of a pretty exhaustive study upon SCSI cards, and who knows, maybe even stumble across an answer.

Best wishes … Terry C

Bill,

By the way, the reason I mentioned the "Mac Gurus" article listed above, is that it covers quite a liteny of subjects involving connections and termination that you and Grant Bennet-Alder have been examining recently. It also appears to emphasize that the "Initio" card is plug and play in OS X, and that it actually requires a firmware patch for booting into OS 9.

Also, I wanted to properly thank Grant Bennet-Alder for his exhaustive study of these subjects, which
I have read with considerable interest, and apologize for transposing his name. I encountered a bit of stormy weather myself over the summer, and consciousness has been sort of like a completely new thing lately.

Terry ...

It doesn't look hopeful:

Adaptec: Mac OS X Compliance Update

One other thing. The 2940 and 39160 card pulled up virtually the same FAQ in Adaptec's KB. While
I was cycling from window to window for days on end, I made an MS Word Doc with a table of contents.
It would be a 120 page attachment, but it takes you from any FAQ to the answer with a click. Adaptec Reps were up front in saying that they had no intition for developing anything to make their cards OS X compatable. The FAQs appear to stress that Adaptec cards do not facilitate booting from OS X.

If booting from OS X on an LVD drive is the objective, Initio's cards appear to be the most cost effective means of accomplishing it. They are very reasonably priced.

The Apple/ATTO Express PCI PSC, which shipped in the beige server G3s, works fine in Mac OS X after firmware update (either Apple or ATTO) but only does SE-Single Ended.

The Apple/ATTO UL2D card after firmware update works in Mac OS 9, but crashes the CD/DVD driver, especially if there is an inactive CD in the Drive at Startup. It is not supported, but seems to work fine from my experience in Mac OS X. Others have observed that the de-populated second internal connector can be re-installed and work.

Had some of those Adaptec 2940 cards and they are not supported in OSX.

ALso some users reported 2906 and 2930 cards are no longer working in 10.4 aka Tiger.

Adaptec does no longer support Mac systems wich also means no new drivers (only the beta ones for the 29160, 39160).

There are only ATTO, ACARD and INITIO left.

SCSI is downward compatible wich means U320 cards can also do SCSI1.

INITIO's fastest card is U2W (80MB/s)
ACARD's fastest card is U160 dual channel
ATTO's fastest card is U320 dual channel

For a Beige I would recommend the Miles2 (U2W) or the ATTO PSC (UW 40MB/s).

Regards

Nicolas

For a cheap solution for a beige G3, you can't beat the original Apple/ATTO express PCI PSC [SE(only)] card. It will go up to 40 MB/sec with fast/wide rated cables, and can be had on eBay for about US$5 to $10, often including the approx 3 foot special cable.

I recently managed to get my hands on two supposedly different versions of the Adaptec 2940W/2940UW PCI SCSI card, namely the non-Mac version and the Mac version (usually known as the PowerDomain). The labels on the chips indicate that they are respectively for IBM and Mac. I downloaded the latest Flash Utility for this card (v4.1, from memory) from the Adaptec site and flashed each card in the Mac on which I was trying them out (a 9500 running System 9.2.2, courtesy of OS9 Helper). They both worked like a charm and, as far as I could tell, were being recognized identically. Tempting fate (and hoping to be surprised even further, which I was) I tried them both in a beige G3 MT (running System 9.2.2 and OS X 10.3.9, courtesy of XPostFacto3). Both cards worked properly under both OS's! I have not yet had a chance to test whether they affect other functions and/or devices and if they can be booted from, but so far everything seems to be OK. My next move will be to try a standard Adaptec 2940U2W card, as the 2940W/UW definitely does not handle LVD drives.

I've been able to use Adaptec 29160, ATTO UL3S, but the PSC is the easiest to use of the three. Some people have managed to use ATTO UL2S/D but you had to be careful of what firmware you used.

Whatever you do, keep an ATA drive that is bootable. You should never flash a card with any drives connected, whether Miles2 or Adaptec/ATTO.

The PSC, even @ 40MB/sec feels snappy with a 15K Atlas drive on it, so that is what I stayed with.

I have not yet tried to boot from the 2940UW. I will within the next few days and report back here with the results.

I have managed to boot from a drive attached to the Adaptec 2940UW on both my 9600/200 running Sys 9.2.2 and my beige G3 MT, also running Sys 9.2.2. When I tried booting from the same card (instead of from the normal OS X boot drive - an IDE drive attached via the built-in IDE bus) in OS X 10.3.9 on the beige G3 MT, it didn't like it, and stalled near the start of the boot process - when the silver apple on the white background appears and the 12-spoked wheel cursor starts spinning, it stopped spinning after about 3 times "round the clock". I will try again in a few days time and see if things improve. At least, booting in System 9.2.2 gave no problems at all on my setup.

After digging round Adaptec's web site and reading many of their "answers", I have assumed that the non-Mac version of the 2940UW which I have (and which flashed OK with the Mac Utility) is probably a full retail version. According to Adaptec, the ROM's/BIOS's in the OEM versions (those bundled with other manufacturers' products) are not flashable in the same way that the full Adaptec retail versions were, and were designed/limited to be usable with the bundled hardware/software combo, and might or might not work with other combinations. In fact, I have been trying out a 2940U2W (which I know is an OEM version) for its LVD capability. When I put it in the 9600, it was not recognized by the system. However, it was recognized as a PowerDomain (Mac version) 2940U2W card by both the PowerDomain Control Utility (for changing settings on the card) and the 2940U2W v 1.1 Flash Utility. Attempting to flash the card resulted in a message indicating that no firmware upgrades were carried out because ROM verification failed (error no. -27). When I put this same card in my beige G3 MT under 9.2.2 the same scenario played out. Trying to use it under OS X 10.3.9 yielded fruit - it was recognized and allowed connected hard drives to show up on the desktop and be used normally, both on the LVD connector and the normal Ultra2 connector.

Whoops!! I don't even know what computers I have - all references to 9600 should have been 9500.