Checking for circuits, but then Copilot is telling me that an Ultra 3 / LVD U160 is not compatible, even with the cable to a SE mode interface on the 2940UW, you'd need a 19160, 29160, 29320 - unless that cable is a fancy active converter

I've gotten lucky and found old stock SCSI cables & terminators at my local microcenter. They don't have any of it in the online inventory, and sometimes I get a strange look from the cashiers when buying them.
I would not recommend trying to make your own 68-pin terminators, the pin spacing is brutal.

Small pin spacing should not be a problem.
Unless something weird, of course.
I can deal with electronic and pcb, it's been one of my jobs.
I live in a small town in Canada, not much Microcenter or whatever.
A local store sold me a Voodoo 2 and a Vortex 2 for 20$, he is fabulous but not magic 😀
I don't know much about SCSI compatibility. In the 2000 I had a 18 G with a also 2940U2W., a scanner and a cdrom. It worked perfectly.
I've read about nightmares but never experimented .
Let's say I'm a noob about SCSI.
I just suppose the electronic circuit for a terminator may be quite simple, and I'am sure i can replicate it if I get a schematic.
Passive or active.

Matth79 wrote on 2025-09-19, 00:37:

Checking for circuits, but then Copilot is telling me that an Ultra 3 / LVD U160 is not compatible, even with the cable to a SE mode interface on the 2940UW, you'd need a 19160, 29160, 29320 - unless that cable is a fancy active converter

This is true. Your disk is U160 SCSI(LVD). Your SCSI card is Ultra-wide SCSI(SE). I also recommend getting a different scsi card as lvd scsi disks are much easier to get. Bear in mind some lvd scsi cards does not support optional boot rom support. Although i encountered some 68pin seagate drives support both se and lvd.

homemade scsi terminators are not easy as high speed scsi has strict requirements for proper termination. usually it as achieved by discrete ic such as UCC5640.

https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ucc5640.pdf … www.ti.com%252F

In theory, one can reproduce the functionality of such ic with modern parts....

15MB/sec off an IDE disk is about expected for that system.

The 2940 might double that.

In the end, it will be the access time and not the throughput that makes the difference.

I once tested win98 on a k6-2 475 on an ali chipset board with a 2940UW / 7200rpm 4.5GB Seagate jobbie. The win98 screen just appears for a couple of seconds while the disk goes gggggk before it enters the gui. Shutdown is faster than the screen can mode switch. Quite mind blowing. I attributed it to the tagged command queuing improving seek efficiency.

Does the difference between the U160 SCSI(LVD) disk and the card just make it work slower, or not at all ?
I don't have much money, so I'd prefer not to have to buy other parts.

Of course, it's not only a matter of speed, but access time and cpu utilisation. IDE is quite enoying with a small cpu.
Back in circa 2000 I remember playing Quake 3 while also scanning a big image with a dual Celeron 433 😀 SCSI help a lot, and I had a 2940 LVD , disk,cd writer and scanner.
The UCC5640 seems interesting, and a pack of 5 just cost 7$ CAD on AlieExpress

First thing I thought of when I saw the title...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW9UCRxF9GM

Sorry. 🤣

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-09-20, 01:23:

First thing I thought of when I saw the title...
Sorry. 🤣

So I need to find "flesh compound " ... Is this even legal ? 😀

Matth79 wrote on 2025-09-19, 00:37:

Checking for circuits, but then Copilot is telling me that an Ultra 3 / LVD U160 is not compatible, even with the cable to a SE mode interface on the 2940UW, you'd need a 19160, 29160, 29320 - unless that cable is a fancy active converter

I've read a bit, and found an article where they say LVD disk are often compatible with non LVD.
And the datasheet of the disk speak about LVD, but also Fast SCSI (Single-Ended) and Fast 20 SCSI (Single-Ended).
So it seems this combo card/disk may work.
A more modern card may be a problem with Win98 because of drivers.
And I also have a Linux boot, to play old Loki games with the TNT2 or an Ati 8500 DV. But I have to use an old light version to be compatible.
It seems Debian Etch or Sarge are correct. So of course I need a card compatible too, but it seems the driver aic79xx works. for 19160 cards.

I have LVD terminators that do not work at SE SCSI.
In no flavours: Async, Sync, Fast, Ultra, Wide.

Can you give a further description or a picture of your 68 pin cable?

For differential SCSI it should have twisted pair cables. And lots of them come with terminator.
But there are some untwisted cables with LVD terminator too.

LVD drives usually do not have any termination.

I remember I had a 68 pins cable with terminator years ago.
The cable I have now is a gift from the disk seller. I asked him if he had an old cable, and he gave me one brand new 😀
Nice guy with some old stuff on Canadian eBay ( electric.labyrinth ).
I don't have any detail about this cable, it came without packaging, but it looks pretty twisted to me.
Too bad, I used to have a 2940UW with LVD, but I don't have it anymore.

parabellum wrote on 2025-09-19, 03:19:

This is true. Your disk is U160 SCSI(LVD). Your SCSI card is Ultra-wide SCSI(SE). I also recommend getting a different scsi card […]
Show full quote

Matth79 wrote on 2025-09-19, 00:37:

Checking for circuits, but then Copilot is telling me that an Ultra 3 / LVD U160 is not compatible, even with the cable to a SE mode interface on the 2940UW, you'd need a 19160, 29160, 29320 - unless that cable is a fancy active converter

This is true. Your disk is U160 SCSI(LVD). Your SCSI card is Ultra-wide SCSI(SE). I also recommend getting a different scsi card as lvd scsi disks are much easier to get. Bear in mind some lvd scsi cards does not support optional boot rom support. Although i encountered some 68pin seagate drives support both se and lvd.

homemade scsi terminators are not easy as high speed scsi has strict requirements for proper termination. usually it as achieved by discrete ic such as UCC5640.

https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ucc5640.pdf … www.ti.com%252F

In theory, one can reproduce the functionality of such ic with modern parts....

No it isn't. LVD drives are backwards compatible with SE HBA

nali wrote on 2025-09-20, 11:47:

The cable I have now is a gift from the disk seller. I asked him if he had an old cable, and he gave me one brand new 😀

Can you show the other end of the cable?
I'm not sure whether this is a normal connector or has an integrated terminator.