Got this answer from an engineer at compaq on the tru64-unix-managers
list earlier today:

"You may want to look at the EPSON oscillator chip on the MDR fibre
module.  It has been reported that chips with date codes 0192b, 0193b
and 0115b produce a high amount of jitter, causing both speed problems
and disappearing devices."

My EPSON chip has a date code of 0192b. Compaq support was made aware 
of this issue sometime in July of this year. Waiting for the part to be
ordered and hopefully this will fix my problems.

-Charles Ballowe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Kingery [mailto:larry.kingery AT veritas DOT com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 12:44 PM
> To: Ballowe, Charles
> Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Strange problem--drive/robot disappear
> 
> 
> Nothing in particular.
> 
> Things have to fail sometime I guess.
> 
> Ballowe, Charles writes:
> > Good point -- any idea why it'd work for a while then disappear?
> > I hadn't even thought of that.
> > 
> > -Charles Ballowe
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Larry Kingery [mailto:larry.kingery AT veritas DOT com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 10:56 AM
> > > To: Ballowe, Charles
> > > Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Strange problem--drive/robot disappear
> > > 
> > > 
> > > The robot and WHICH drive?
> > > 
> > > It's pretty common to (SCSI) cable the robot and the first drive
> > > together.  
> > > 
> > > Just thinking this might narrow it down to a single SCSI 
> channel on
> > > the bridge.
> > > 
> 
> -- 
> Larry Kingery 
>                It's not if, it's when and how hard
>