*BSD News Article 18396


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From: wilko@idca.tds.philips.nl (Wilko Bulte)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: EISA experiences?
Message-ID: <wilko.742661274@spoetnix.idca.tds.philips.nl>
Date: 14 Jul 93 14:47:54 GMT
References: <21f1t9$r3c@pandora.sdsu.edu> <2490@hcshh.hcs.de> <CA42nB.6wD@nebulus.ampr.ab.ca>
Sender: news@idca.tds.philips.nl
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dennis@nebulus.ampr.ab.ca (Dennis S. Breckenridge) writes:

>hm@hcshh.hcs.de (Hellmuth Michaelis) writes:

>>In <21f1t9$r3c@pandora.sdsu.edu> mrh@io.nosc.mil (Mike Halderman) writes:

>>>How many people are using EISA systems for 386bsd?  Is the EISA worth the 
>>>extra expense when buying a new system?  Any proplems to watch out for?

>I have upgraded from ISA to EISA c/w the adaptec 1542B to 1742A controller
>and 3C509 to 3C3nn (I cannot remember the number). Both system cards run
>DX2/66 486 CPU's and 16 MB of memory. I then benchmarked both systems 
>using the BYTE UNIX benchmark. Much to my dismay the EISA mother board
>was no faster than the ISA mother board. I have a complete cross reference

Why should it be faster??? Only traffic to/from the EISA bus is faster
and ONLY if you use EISA controllers. I have observed a 2 x performance
boost with sequential IO when using a 174x iso a 154x. Note that you
need a disk that is fast enough to make the controller become the
bottleneck! 174x must run in 'enhanced mode', not in '154x compatible'
mode. And hope and pray that your OS has decent enhanced mode drivers.

Wilko

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