SCSI Boot-delay in A3000

[StompinSteve]

Hello, does anybody perhaps know how long the "short" boot delay is on the A3000 with ROM 3.1 ?
I have not found documentation on this specific subject so far.

Background:
I have installed a RP2040 with Firmware 1.2.0 into my Amiga 3000. When the "SCSI Timeout" on the onboard SCSI-Controller is set to the default of "Short", the system does not detect the ZuluSCSI. In other words, the "insert floppy animation" is shown instead. When I then reboot (not power-cycle) with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga, the system detects and boots from the ZuluSCSI just fine.

When I change the SCSI Timeout to "Long", Then power-on the Amiga, there is a delay and then the system boots up normally.
This delay is quite long. But it's better than the "short" setting which prevents boot-from-scsi directly after power-on.

The thing is that his "long" or "short" setting (stored in the SCSI-controllers NVRAM) was used with spinning harddrives. Drives that where slow to report themselves on the SCSI-Bus where given more time to spin up and make their presence known.
Ofcourse, with modern flash, this is moot. But the "Short" setting is a tad too aggressive. It is so fast, that the ZuluSCSI is not seen on the bus yet.


Before anyone asks: i cannot "try out" things right now unfortunately. My A3000 did not survive the installation of official 3.1.4 ROMs yesterday. Never had such a thing happen before :-(
It needs to be sent away for repair. Long story and I don't want to bore anyone.

[Snoopy1234]

from Setbatt1.2 docs
" * SCSI_TIMEOUT [used]
*
* adjusts the timeout value for SCSI device selection. A
* value of 0 will produce short timeouts (128 ms) while a
* value of 1 produces long timeouts (2 sec). This is used
* for SeaCrate drives (and some Maxtors apparently) that
* don`t respond to selection until they are fully spun up
* and intialised.
"

[StompinSteve]

Thanks Snoopy

[fgh]

You may need long SCSI timeout, but you can still use the RDB flags ‘Last disk’ and ‘Last target ID’ (SCSI ID), and turn off lun scanning to probably speed up the boot significantly.

[StompinSteve]

Originally Posted by fgh

You may need long SCSI timeout, but you can still use the RDB flags ‘Last disk’ and ‘Last target ID’ (SCSI ID), and turn off lun scanning to probably speed up the boot significantly.

I indeed need "long" to make the Zulu work after power-on.
I created a single partition and a FSS filesystem on it, then configured it to not auto-mount. I guess that has the effect of having, as you describe, "RDB flags ‘Last disk’ and ‘Last target ID’ (SCSI ID), and turn off lun scanning".

The system boots up really fast now. There is almost no delay.

[fgh]

I don’t think automounting affects those settings.
(And I don’t see why you would not automount your partitions)

But if it boots fast enough, good for you. (I got the impression you were unhaooy with the boot time with long timeout.)

Anyway - The mentioned settings are the main ones (along with timeout) affecting boot times, if you ever want to experiment further.

[StompinSteve]

Originally Posted by fgh

And I don’t see why you would not automount your partitions.

I have 6 individual SCSI hard-drives emulated by the ZuluSCSI (and a CD-ROM drive on ID-6). Don't need a seventh Harddisk on the CF-Card

Originally Posted by fgh

I got the impression you were unhaooy with the boot time with long timeout.

If set to "long", it does take a while for the ZuluSCSI HDD to kick in and start loading the OS. I'm not an impatient man but if that could go just a wee bit faster, that would be nice
I am active on the ZuluSCSI forum (Github discussions) and are chatting with the developer. After the Zulu fully initialises, it waits a minimum of 1 second. By that time, those 128 ms are already over.

Originally Posted by fgh

if you ever want to experiment further.

No can do. My A3000 does not work anymore since I installed the two official 3.1.4 A3000D ROM's Put the 3.1's back in. Still dead
Never happened to me before (ROM chips can be bad sure, but the old ones should still work).
Since the swap (and swapp 3.1 back) the power-led comes on but faint and the Caps-lock LED comes on briefly but those are the only signs of life. The Status LED on my active external SCSI terminator does not even light up (it normally always does).
When I do Ctrl-A-A the caps-lock LED briefly blinks so there is a response. But everything else is dead as a donkey.
She is off to a repair shop. This is over my head. Until then, nos experimentos amigos.