From: Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646 [tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 1999 3:21 PM
To: Jim Fitzmaurice
Subject: Re: Some hints on the DEGPA driver kit


> Tom,
> 	The two machines were purchased separatly at different times. The 466Mhz
> was purchased just prior to the 600MHz release, and the 600MHz machine was
> purchased soon after it became available. Now upper management is waiting
> for the 1GHz chip to become available before we buy our third machine.
> 	Anyway the SRM Firmware is at V5.3-3. It has to be V5.3-3 or better for the
> DEGPA card. In fact the card comes with a CD that contains neccessary
> firmware and drivers. I used the disk to upgrade both systems to the same
> required firmware level. I'm not sure what a PALcode revision is or where to
> find it. I've been working in UNIX for most of my adult life, unfortunatly,
> I am fairly new to Tru64-UNIX world, just over 4 months. So I trust you can
> tell me how to find the PALcode revision? And any further help is greatly
> appreciated.
> 
> Jim Fitzmaurice
> jpfitz@fnal.gov

The PAL is delivered in the SRM console firmware; but the fact that you've got
the same firmware on both systems means (to me) that whatever is making this
driver fail on the 466MHz system behaves slightly differently on the 600MHz
system.  This is VERY interesting..  

I need to talk to the driver developer and see what are the circumstances in
which the driver will fail to configure when (as far as we can tell from the
parts swapping you've been doing) the hardware should be working just fine.

And I need to better understand if in fact these systems behave differently 
in some fundamental ways than systems that have been built earlier -- if in
fact that's the case, then we might have a subtle software bug that we need
to fix, and finding it sooner rather than later is a good thing.

More once I have more information.

Tom
 
 Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + UNIX Software Group + Compaq Computer Corporation
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