Re: Tyan 1662D new Award BIOS bugs

J. Maynard Gelinas (maynard@jmg.com)
Sun, 24 May 1998 14:45:21 -0400 (EDT)


There may be an underlying relationship between _why_ both fail,
but since you're using a completely different MB and BIOS knowing why
probably won't help us Tyan users _right now_. I don't know enough to
figure out what's different yet, only that the previous BIOS worked, and
this new one doesn't. I'd like to point out that I specified the kernel
driver only to identify the SCSI board to readers; obviously, if it's
having trouble reading the boot loader the kernel and SCSI driver haven't
been loaded yet.

The message was both a heads up to Tyan users and a shot in the
dark for help. BTW: Anyone know if there's an 'Open Source BIOS' project
underway? I suspect a freeware BIOS would probably get regular updates,
and in general _work properly_. ;-)

Thanks!
--jmg

On Sun, 24 May 1998, Grant R. Guenther wrote:

> J. Maynard Gelinas wrote, concerning a Tyan motherboard:
>
> > Unfortunately, it also seems buggy. My Symbios Logic SCSI
> > controller, with the NCR53C8XX driver, gets recognized after POST and
> > tests for devices on the SCSI chain. But, no matter what setting I use
> > for boot order (SCSI,C,A or C,CDROM,A or what_have_you) the computer
> > intermittantly refuses to attempt to boot off of the SCSI controller. So
> > I'll get a 'INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY' when it attempts to
> > boot, and if I press a key repeatedly after a while it will somehow catch
> > that the scsi controller wants to boot my primary disk and launch lilo.
>
> Oddly enough, at my work we have precisely the same symptom on a different
> motherboard, different bios, different SCSI controller and probably a
> different kernel.
>
> In our case: Dell Optiplex with BT-958 SCSI controller and 2.0.32.
> Occasionally, the BT-958 will fail to "install" the boot disk into the
> BIOS - although it does detect it.
>
> I mention this only in case there's some remote connection between the
> two phenomena ...
>

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