Desktops General - Read Only

[ward3068]

I've got an OptiPlex that contains an Adaptec 2940AU SCSI card. On other PC's you get a message during boot up saying something like "press any key to view option ROM message", which when pressed shows the Adaptec SCSI Select message, which I can then access by pressing CTRL+A. Is there any way to make this message visible on my OptiPlex?

Thanks.

[speedstep]

If this doesnt show up its because another bios interferes , the CTRL A has been disabled OR because your PCI bus is 2.3 and the 2940 card.  Booting and hitting CTRL A many times before POST may bring up
the rom menu.  Then you use F6 to reset the bios to defaults.  Its also possible that there is NO BIOS on the card.

The AHA2940AU is PCI 2.1  AKA its a 5v card.  5V cards are NOT SUPPORTED on PCI 2.3

PCI 2.3 requires 3.3v or Universal PCI cards with 2 keyways in the PCI connector.

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/scsi/

You didnt say what model Dell you have.

This is not the Adaptec Support forum.

[ward3068]

Thanks for the info.

My Dell model is a GX240 runnig BIOS A05.

I'm sorry for posting an Adaptec question here, but as the card works perfectly OK in another machine (and displays the CTRL+A menu) I guessed it was OptiPlex specific. Obviously I was wrong in that assumption.

[speedstep]

Newer chipsets especially The Pentium4 Class aka

INTEL 845/850/865 etc have much lower signal voltages for cards than to
Older chipsets like the 810/815/440BX etc.

That is why AGP 1.0 spec 3.3v cards are not supported.
Only AGP 2.0 or higher spec cards work aka 1.5v or .8v Cards.

Same is true for PCI. You need 3.3v PCI instead of 5v PCI cards with newer
boards due to faster bus timing and lower signal voltages.

The card doesnt work because its too old and slow.

If you need a SCSI card a newer Unversal 3.3v pci card should work fine.

[ward3068]

The weird thing is that the card does work at the O/S level (Win 2000 Server). I just needed to access the CTRL+A menu to verify some settings coz I was having trouble getting some application software to see an attached HP SureStore optical jukebox (even though the jukebox was seen at O/S level all the time).

Again, many thanks for the info.

Dave.

[speedstep]

If the card works then the Bios chip is too slow. Plug it into a system thats slow and do CTRL A and reset the bios parameters. If it still doesnt work then you may need to replace the bios chip with a faster part. Cheaper to buy a new card unless you have eprom burner and other stuff already handy.