SCSI to Ethernet Adapter on New Hardware

Michael_b said:

Finally got my scuznet board assembled. To my great surprise, it worked on first boot - booted straight into 7.5.5 on an SE/30! Tomorrow, networking...

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@Michael_b  Could you comment on the final parts list you used?  I have two PCBs I hadn’t had time to assemble or buy the components for yet (other than the programmer). I saw there was a little bit of confusion earlier in the thread regarding the correct  BOM so any tips are appreciated. 

Hi!

Will there be preprogrammed sets to solder at some point? Is that even possible?

Cheers,

Jörg

superjer2000 said:

@Michael_b  Could you comment on the final parts list you used?  I have two PCBs I hadn’t had time to assemble or buy the components for yet (other than the programmer). I saw there was a little bit of confusion earlier in the thread regarding the correct  BOM so any tips are appreciated. 

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I used the BOM available in the Github repository and had no issues (except IIRC either C5 or R5 doesn’t exist on the PCB). For the most part I ordered from Newark so I can’t comment on the accuracy of the Digikey part numbers.

IIRC the BOM confusion was just regarding an MCU change that didn’t matter that much? - whichever of the MCUs you end up using you can just compile to target that device.

Michael_b said:

I used the BOM available in the Github repository and had no issues (except IIRC either C5 or R5 doesn’t exist on the PCB). For the most part I ordered from Newark so I can’t comment on the accuracy of the Digikey part numbers.

IIRC the BOM confusion was just regarding an MCU change that didn’t matter that much? - whichever of the MCUs you end up using you can just compile to target that device.

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Thanks. Which mcu did you use? Do you have a Newark part list you can share?

superjer2000 said:

Thanks. Which mcu did you use? Do you have a Newark part list you can share?

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I just used the ATXMEGA64A3U. All of the parts that I used I simply found based on the specifications in this BOM. If you want I could try to find the Newark order, but I also ordered some parts from Moueser, others from Digikey. Happy to provide these part lists but they are not annotated and include many parts for other projects - lmk.

Michael_b said:

I just used the ATXMEGA64A3U. All of the parts that I used I simply found based on the specifications in this BOM. If you want I could try to find the Newark order, but I also ordered some parts from Moueser, others from Digikey. Happy to provide these part lists but they are not annotated and include many parts for other projects - lmk.

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@Michael_b Thanks for confirming the MCU. Nothing else needed for me. I’ll report back when I have a chance to order,, build and test.  

I had issues with he first board I built but demented to make a second one using new parts and the networking works with the following issues noticed, though I can't be certain if its and issue with the boards firmware or with my lan setup at this time. perhaps some of you whom have one can check these if my issues are isolated or common:

1. large file transfers will randomly freeze the Mac while using Fetch 4.0.3

2. Appletalk via ethernet doesn't work, it freezes the Mac. I have A2Server on my network and while I can 'see' it on the Mac it freezes the system

I have another se/30 that has a network card in the PDS slot and I don't have either of the issues I pointed out above. both systems are rung MacOS 7.5.5, but ive tried 7.0.1 and 7.1

I also have the same issues if I use classic networking rather the Open Transport v1.3

also if anyone is trying to setup the SD-card I found that if I put a blank card in it and use a program called SCSI Director 4.0 then I can format it and make partitions directly on the Mac, might be worth adding that to the Github page instructions perhaps?

Based on what you're describing, I'd guess there is a hardware problem on the new board. I added a test dongle design and firmware for helping to diagnose these issues on Github; if you have a chance, try that out, it may give a hint as to what's going on.

The documentation is a little out of date: the latest firmware should support the commands needed to format using generally-available tools. I've used the standard HD SC utility with the usual ResEdit modification, but I'll add the SCSI Director 4.0 note next time I update Github.

saybur said:

Based on what you're describing, I'd guess there is a hardware problem on the new board. I added a test dongle design and firmware for helping to diagnose these issues on Github; if you have a chance, try that out, it may give a hint as to what's going on.

The documentation is a little out of date: the latest firmware should support the commands needed to format using generally-available tools. I've used the standard HD SC utility with the usual ResEdit modification, but I'll add the SCSI Director 4.0 note next time I update Github.

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ive flashed the test firmware and built the db25 loopback and when I run it I get the pulsing status led so Im assuming that the hardware is working as intended. this has me completely perplexed tbh. is there anything else you would suggest me trying?

im working on testing different file transfer sizes atm, so far small sub 15mb files I have no issues with ever. will be testing large file transfers over the coming days to see where the issues begins to show itself and ill update as I get results

im not sure if its a driver issue or a firmware issue but are you able to try transferring some large files say 100-250mb and let me know how things go with your setup?

Appletalk still also freezes both mac's so Im only using ftp transfers with Fetch 4.0.3 atm btw

Silly thing to check first: make sure that both interfaces involved have the same MTU.  This is almost certainly not the cause, but it would be extremely annoying to do hardware troubleshooting then find that that was the cause all along (though I can't see how that would cause the AppleTalk issues...)

hmm that's an interesting idea actually, my mtu is set to 1500. im not sure if the scuznet Leeds something lower but I'll definitely give that a fiddle with to see if I get different results. I do have a pds lan card that never fails me but I also have a pds graphics card that I use and unfortunately that lan card doesn't have a passthrough pls connector so im at the point here I either figure out what's wrong with my scuznet/2x se/30's/lan setup or give up on the scuznet and either make a pds 2 slot adaptor or bodge an extra connector on the top of my lan card...

I'd rather either get this scuznet running or use a dual slot pds adaptor but if I go the route of using a dual slot adaptor I don't know if I can be bothered firing up eagle to design a pcb or not (its a pity no-one has release a dual slot pcb Gerber tbh).

from the lack of feedback im assuming im the only one who has had issues with this so im also now questioning if I have a hardware issue with my se/30's. ive run MacTest Pro several times on both and apart from needing to disable the ROM checksum test (using custom. flash ROM SIMMs with patched 32bit ROM's) everything passes every time so im just not sure what the issue is.

ive also tried building the firmware on a different linux based computer incase my Hackintosh has some stage compile problems, and ive also tried different ethernet adaptors. ive tried replacing both the microchip ethernet IC, the Atmel micro, and the mag jack on the pcb, tired using external psu for power, tried different system software, classic and open transport 1.3,  ive tried using completely different RAM Simms, two different se/30's, . nothing ive tried has worked so far in stoping this ransom lockups so ive really at a lot for what to try next.

I really just want to get lan working so that I can start doing some programming with the long term goal or rewriting parts of the system software etc but with a way to easily transfer data across so I don't have to use sneakernet

Oh, here's another thing you could do: plug the output of the scuzznet straight into some UNIX machine or other, run wireshark on the other machine, and see what comes out when you're trying to talk AppleTalk, if anything does...

thanks, it's getting late here tonight but that's worth investigating tomorrow. my main machine runs MacOS X so I should be able to run Wireshark easily.

the symptom I have is that when I go into Appletalk Control panel it either freezes the Mac straight away if ethernet is selected or when I select ethernet is fines my A2Server and freezes when I try to save the settings and exit.

from logical deduction its ether and hardware issue with the scuznet (firmware etc or actually some IC is not working properly though the hardware test firmware came back with everything all good) or its a driver issue. remotely it could be some fault with both my SE/30's but since both hav the exact same issue that's unlikely

honesty im at the point of giving up and designing a dual pds slot adaptor card in eagle cad lol

Chopsticks said:

the symptom I have is that when I go into Appletalk Control panel it either freezes the Mac straight away if ethernet is selected or when I select ethernet is fines my A2Server and freezes when I try to save the settings and exit.

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This to me sounds like getting the zone list fails and/or address allocation fails.  Both of those rely on broadcast.   Wondering if something about incoming broadcast traffic is broken... 

The crash on AppleTalk startup makes me think there is something weird going on with this particular board, FWIW. The test firmware is not comprehensive, it was written quickly to help diagnose soldering issues where pins were bridged or a whole chip was borked. More subtle issues may be missed by it.

Based on your note about the HDD formatting, I'm assuming the emulated hard drive is working fine. That should rule out most SCSI bus issues and SCSI driver chip problems. Please mention if that's not the case. If the HDD is also not working, those two items probably need checking.

Another option is compiling the normal firmware with debugging support and hang a listener off the UART test pin, and monitor what the board is sending. This is dumb printf() type stuff, and might also not report anything all that useful, but it might give a hint as to where things are crashing.

Chopsticks said:

honesty im at the point of giving up and designing a dual pds slot adaptor card in eagle cad lol

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Better yet, design a combo board with 50MHz 030/FPU, Graphics and Ethernet/Wifi.  One can dream, right?

saybur said:

The crash on AppleTalk startup makes me think there is something weird going on with this particular board, FWIW. The test firmware is not comprehensive, it was written quickly to help diagnose soldering issues where pins were bridged or a whole chip was borked. More subtle issues may be missed by it.

Based on your note about the HDD formatting, I'm assuming the emulated hard drive is working fine. That should rule out most SCSI bus issues and SCSI driver chip problems. Please mention if that's not the case. If the HDD is also not working, those two items probably need checking.

Another option is compiling the normal firmware with debugging support and hang a listener off the UART test pin, and monitor what the board is sending. This is dumb printf() type stuff, and might also not report anything all that useful, but it might give a hint as to where things are crashing.

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yes no issues with the hdd side of the board, I've been running it for quite awhile as my main hdd, so Im pretty confident it isn't a scsi issue.

I think that's a good point, I should recompile with debug enabled and see what I get out of the TX pin.

JCBone said:

Better yet, design a combo board with 50MHz 030/FPU, Graphics and Ethernet/Wifi.  One can dream, right?

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well while I don't have much trouble designing pcbs and circuits that undertaking that would require is a bit beyond me at this time...

so just a quick update,

I still have to recompile the firmware with the debug option to see what I get on the tx line but in the meantime I have tried a different sd-card, and I have also tried in increasing the disk cache to about 7mb but still no luck, though while not confirmed the increase in disk cache does improve it a little... I think anyways?

I have a couple of the microchip ethernet IC's in the mail atm to see if maybe its an issue with that but if its not that then its either my actual lan/router causing the issue or its a firmware/driver issue...