Yes ! It has BIOS v 1.34 which supports greater than 8Gb hd's (so full size support for a 9GB or 18Gb scsi HD):
Adaptec AHA-2940AU BIOS findings

Probably a moot point. Usually when those cards fail it's the ASIC

Horun wrote on 2022-01-01, 15:34:

Yes ! It has BIOS v 1.34 which supports greater than 8Gb hd's (so full size support for a 9GB or 18Gb scsi HD):
Adaptec AHA-2940AU BIOS findings

Worth saving the bios chip then and perhaps sending it to someone who can dump the BIOS for others with this card to use ?

What symptoms tell you the card is broken ?

weedeewee wrote on 2022-01-01, 16:44:

What symptoms tell you the card is broken ?

The system won't even power on with this card inserted. No beeps or boops. Just nothing.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-01-01, 16:24:

Probably a moot point. Usually when those cards fail it's the ASIC

What are the symptoms of a failing ASIC?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-01, 16:38:

Worth saving the bios chip then and perhaps sending it to someone who can dump the BIOS for others with this card to use ?

I'll dump the ROM when I get a chance and add it to the other thread mentioned above.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-01-01, 18:01:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-01-01, 16:44:

What symptoms tell you the card is broken ?

The system won't even power on with this card inserted. No beeps or boops. Just nothing.

any fan spin ?

I plugged it in again to test and the system turned on but it didn't detect the card. I moved it over to another slot and it detected. Moved it back to the other slot and it detected. So it was probably oxidation on the contacts, reforming of the capacitors, or a combination of both. I don't recall if there was fan spin or not initially.

There was never any ROM BIOS option at startup but I could at least see that it was detected by Windows.

This is just a SCSI host controller (without RAID) so it probably doesn´t provide it´s own BIOS menu at startup.
Just jumper the connected SCSI drives and install the driver under the respective OS. All drives will be JBOD.

It clearly has a scsi bios on board. The presence of the (e)eprom and version info makes that clear.

The Scsi bios is not required for the card to be detected in windows, so it could very well be that the bios is damaged, dead or oxidized pins.

Correct - according to the manual there is the "SCSI Selest" settings menu accessible at startuup with Ctrl-A as usual.

majestyk wrote on 2022-01-01, 19:37:

Correct - according to the manual there is the "SCSI Selest" settings menu accessible at startuup with Ctrl-A as usual.

Yep ! The previous user may have disabled the BIOS if it was used just for CDROM, ZIP, JAZZ, tape drive, etc as the BIOS is only needed if using it to boot from.
"SCSISelect User's Guide >> Advanced Settings >> Host Adapter BIOS
This option enables or disables the host adapter BIOS. The default setting is Enabled. If the user is booting from a SCSI disk drive connected to the host adapter, the BIOS must be enabled. The user should disable the host adapter BIOS if the peripherals on the SCSI bus (for example CD-ROM drives) are all controlled by device drivers and do not need the BIOS. "

I would clean the edge contacts and pull the ROM and clean the pins with ISO alcohol just to make sure.....

yep,

A message should always be displayed even if the code isn't being used.
normally it's CTRL-A during boot of the machine to enter the adaptec scsi rom,

if memory serves me right.