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ValVashon · 09:04 PM

Hello again- thanks for all your help with my monitor problem on my G3. Here's a new one for you: The SCSI card I have laying around is an Adaptec AHA-2940W/2940UW. This project's been a while in the making, so some details have been lost. This card may have come with the G3, or it may have come out of my previous computer a beige PowerMac G3 desktop (not tower) unit. Or the beige one may have had SCSI built in to the motherboard. I can't remember.

Anyway, this card has a sticker on the main chip that says "AHA-2940UWPI MAC" on it, so I assume it's the Mac version of this card and not the PC version. Some quick innertube searching reveals that details from Adaptec are pretty thin, but they do say this in response to a question about G5 compatibility:

The HotConnect 8945 (AHA-8945), PowerDomain 2940 (AHA-2940), PowerDomain 2940W (AHA-2940W), PowerDomain 2940UW (AHA-2940UW), PowerDomain 3940 (AHA-3940), PowerDomain 3940UW (AHA-3940UW) are not supported in any system released after the Blue and White G3.

So, supposedly my card should work. At first I got "No SCSI bus" in the Apple Profilier menu and then I reinstalled the drivers that I found on the Adapted website (and deleted the old ones):

Depending on the version of Mac OS X installed, it may be necessary to install or update the Adaptec drivers for a specific SCSI card in the system.
Mac OS X 10.1 to OS X 10.4.x will come with varying versions of the following drivers:

Adaptec78xxSCSI.kext
Adaptec2906-2930.kext
Adaptec29160x.kext
Adaptec39160.kext

The Adaptec78xxSCSI.kext drivers are not supported by Adaptec Technical Support.

Note:
It is not necessary, but the 78xxSCSI.kext drivers can be removed from the "System\Library\Extension" folder prior to installing the non-Beta 1.2 or 1.1 versions of the drivers. Removing these drivers will not inhibit the functionality or performance of the Adaptec controller in any way. For reference, here is a list of drivers that are installed in Mac OS X.

Adaptec290x-2930
Adaptec29160x.kext
Adaptec39160.kext

None of these seem to be a driver for the AHA-2940, but it's all that Adaptec offers. Restarting then showed "SCSI Bus" on the Apple Profilier but the card still does not show up in the PCI menu. The red LED on the card does light up, and the LED activity light on a connected SCSI hard drive does light up, although it is steady and doesn't blink. Needless to say, the drive does not mount on the desktop. I know I'm working with some really old stuff here, but the SCSI drive I have has most of my music on it and I just need to get it mounted on the desktop ASAP.

I should also mention that this computer does not currently have a PRAM battery in it (it went dead). Thanks for not keeping your store stocked, Renton Washington Fry's. Anyway, the computer seems to start up and run just fine otherwise.

Thanks for all of your help and bearing with me.

Val

Waragainstsleep · Feb 19, 2011, 09:59 AM

Those Adaptec cards have been unsupported for a long time. I tried to get one running in a G4 a while back to discover it didn't work at all in Leopard. I have a feeling I got it read only in Tiger. I might have the OS versions wrong, it might have been read only in Panther.
This was a fair while back now and all I recall for certain is that to work with a half decent OS version I needed an ATTO card. A great pity since Adaptec cards are so easy to find. They are very cheap on eBay but that turned out to be because they don't work on a modern OS.

ValVashon · Feb 19, 2011, 12:09 PM

The first quote above comes from an article on the Adaptec website that is mostly about whether or not the cards will physically fit into newer computers as they seemed to have a different style of PCI slot. I guess that's different than them being supported in the OS that will run on the machine. Wonder if I loaded up OS 9 if the card would work?

Val

reader50 · Feb 19, 2011, 05:35 PM

Adaptec was one of the good guys under OS 9, with regular Mac support. If memory serves, they didn't want to be bothered when we transitioned to OS X. They dragged their heels on driver / firmware updates, then just dropped Mac support on X.

So the chances under 9 are pretty good.

olePigeon · Feb 19, 2011, 06:50 PM

Regular Adaptec SCSI cards will not work on Macintosh. Adaptec purposefully crippled their SCSI card ROMs so you had to pay a premium for their PowerDomain cards versus using the significantly cheaper PC versions. They claim they did it because it cost more money to develop the software for Mac OS than for Windows.

So unless it's a PowerDomain, you can't use it.

Waragainstsleep · Feb 20, 2011, 08:52 AM

The 2940s are ubiquitous among earlier Macs and will run fine on OS 9. Many, many Macs shipped with them if I recall.

ValVashon · 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Regular Adaptec SCSI cards will not work on Macintosh. Adaptec purposefully crippled their SCSI card ROMs so you had to pay a premium for their PowerDomain cards versus using the significantly cheaper PC versions. They claim they did it because it cost more money to develop the software for Mac OS than for Windows.

So unless it's a PowerDomain, you can't use it.

I remember reading that somewhere. I'm pretty sure that the markings here identify it as a PowerDomain card (sorry for the slightly blurry photo):

The drive/drives I'm trying to use it with are Ultra2 SCSI 68 pin/LVD. Anybody have a specific card recommendation and driver availability?

Thanks-

Val

UPDATE: Just went to the Discontinued Products list on the Adaptec website and the AHA-2940UW is listed there. They have drivers for it, but only for OS 8 and 9. Having "classic" running probably wouldn't let OSX use it, correct?

olePigeon · Feb 21, 2011, 06:41 PM

You may be out of luck, sorry.

Waragainstsleep · Feb 21, 2011, 08:55 PM

I get the strange feeling I'm being ignored, but I'll repeat myself anyway.

Adaptec cards are very common since they shipped with lots of PowerMacs but they have had no drivers since Tiger where they were read only. This is why they sell for virtually nothing, because they are virtually useless on any hardware worth running.

Get an ATTO Express UL3D card. Just search eBay for UL3D. They vary a lot in price but if you look around you should get one fairly cheap. The later cards should also work but will cost a lot more since they approach current/useful speeds.

ValVashon · Feb 21, 2011, 11:31 PM

You're not being ignored- it's just that I kept finding hints on the web of OSX usefulness of these cards. Welovemacs.com, for example, posted a link to the driver software. It returns an Adaptec page not found. They are still selling the card, so I had assumed that it could run under OSX. Apple, in it's help pages, also hints at OSX usefulness. It wasn't until I found the discontinued products page in the Adaptec website that I was convinced that they won't run under OSX.

Thanks for the tip on the ATTO card.

Val

ChrisF · Feb 22, 2011, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by ValVashon

The drive/drives I'm trying to use it with are Ultra2 SCSI 68 pin/LVD. Anybody have a specific card recommendation and driver availability?

The 2940UW is not an Ultra2 card so that's likely why you're unable to use those drives. The suggestion for the ATTO UL3 is a good one; they have very good support in OS X. UL3S is a single channel card, UL3D is dual. Be sure you get the appropriate LVD cable with integrated terminator as many Ultra2 SCSI drives did not have termination as an option.