AST RESEARCH, INC.           TECHNICAL BULLETIN # 1311           9-21-95



                        Vines and HP/Exabyte Tape Drives


PROBLEM:    When attempting to perform a Banyan Vines backup to an older 
            HP or Exabyte tape drive (Exabyte 8200, 8200XL, for example), 
            you may encounter errors indicating SCSI BUS timeouts or resets.  
            These errors may occur when the tape drive is attached to a 
            Fast-SCSI controller such as the integrated NCR, DAC 960, or 
            DPT controller cards.  This condition can occur on any i486 or 
            Pentium-based product and is not specific to AST products.

SOLUTION:   Attach the tape drive to a standard SCSI controller card 
            (Banyan recommends the Adaptec 1540).

SYSTEMS 
AFFECTED:   Any AST System that is being used as a Banyan Vines server and 
            that incorporates a "Fast SCSI" disk controller.