From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 14 20:47:16 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2AFD21065672 for ; Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:47:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail2.fluidhosting.com (mx21.fluidhosting.com [204.14.89.4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C6D048FC0A for ; Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:47:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 26942 invoked by uid 399); 14 Dec 2009 20:47:15 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO foreign.dougb.net) (dougb@dougbarton.us@127.0.0.1) by localhost with ESMTPAM; 14 Dec 2009 20:47:15 -0000 X-Originating-IP: 127.0.0.1 X-Sender: dougb@dougbarton.us Message-ID: <4B26A45B.4020302@FreeBSD.org> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:47:23 -0800 From: Doug Barton Organization: http://SupersetSolutions.com/ User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20091206) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "b. f." References: <4B25D1ED.5060509@FreeBSD.org> <4B25DA75.5080807@FreeBSD.org> <4B25EC42.4090604@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.96.0 OpenPGP: id=D5B2F0FB Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: AHCI/ATA_CAM for dummies? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:47:16 -0000 b. f. wrote: > On 12/14/09, Doug Barton wrote: > I believe what they meant in the Intel document was that in order to > use certain features supported by AHCI, such as NCQ, the disk drive > must also support them. Your disk drive seems to support NCQ. Ok, I believe you. :) This is clearly not my area. > So this does not seem to explain why ahci(4) fails to attach to your > SATA controller. I suspect that your bios or motherboard fails to use > AHCI mode. Maybe there is a later bios revision, There is no later BIOS available, at least not from Dell. This is a Latitude D620 laptop. And as I said previously, there are no BIOS options that mention anything even remotely similar. There are two hard drive related options. One is related to making it "slower and quieter" vs. "faster and noisier." Guess which one I picked. :) The other is related to power management (DPMI). I did look up the spec sheet on the hard drive last night, and although it does mention SATA and NCQ it does not explicitly mention AHCI. http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/50C8DBC2A315A4C786256F400065B756/$file/7K100_SATA_FINAL_DS.pdf and http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/products/Travelstar_7K100 if you're interested. I also didn't see any mentions of jumpers on the drive to enable AHCI, which I was kind of hoping for since that's pretty easy to remove. > or some jumper > settings on the board that will allow it to be enabled. You may have > to talk to the manufacturer. I would be willing to dive into that if someone could give me clear guidance that one exists. I'm not really eager to open the case otherwise. > Of course, there is a small chance that > there is a problem with our drivers. Have you tried a live CD of a > Linux distro, to see AHCI works with another OS? No, but I'm happy to do so. Any suggestions on what distro is most likely to succeed, and what to look for? I have used Ubuntu for a project in the past with good success but I'd be willing to try anything that folks think will work. In any case I do appreciate your time on this. I run -current on purpose to try out new features, help get them fleshed out from a "regular user" perspective, and to expose bugs (often my own of course). Better performance and cool new toys don't hurt either ... Doug -- Improve the effectiveness of your Internet presence with a domain name makeover! http://SupersetSolutions.com/