From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 11 17:20:08 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 70A7316A40F for ; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:20:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from richw@richw.org) Received: from smtp3.stanford.edu (smtp3.Stanford.EDU [171.67.20.26]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98B8243F95 for ; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:14:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from richw@richw.org) Received: from smtp3.stanford.edu (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by localhost (Postfix) with SMTP id EB10F4CBB5 for ; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:14:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from whodunit.richw.org (SW-90-716-276-1.Stanford.EDU [171.66.155.243]) by smtp3.stanford.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id D1D794C1E5 for ; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:14:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by whodunit.richw.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF5223C36D; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:14:05 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at richw.org Received: from whodunit.richw.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (whodunit.richw.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id V5yaalvw81wu; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:14:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [171.66.139.173] (jessejames.stanford.edu [171.66.139.173]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "jessejames.richw.org", Issuer "richw.org" (verified OK)) (Authenticated sender: richw) by whodunit.richw.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 637123C36B; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:14:04 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:14:04 -0700 From: Rich Wales User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Macintosh/20060909) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org References: <20061003053303.9249A3C36B@whodunit.richw.org> In-Reply-To: <20061003053303.9249A3C36B@whodunit.richw.org> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <20061011171404.637123C36B@whodunit.richw.org> Subject: Re: Sata controller headache 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: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:20:08 -0000 Earlier, I wrote in -current: > I've been seeing the same kinds of errors [as Paul Bliss was having] > with a Promise SATA300 TX4 controller and a pair of Seagate 300GB > SATA drives. Apparently, people have been having similar problems > with SATA drives on Promise controllers for quite some time now, in > both FreeBSD and Linux systems. Lots of reports and requests for > help, but no one so far has admitted to having a clue as to what is > causing it. I wanted to let people know that I managed to fix (or, at least, work around) my problem by adjusting the BIOS settings for my (old "Slot A" Athlon system) motherboard. Specifically, I disabled PCI master burst mode, and although this slowed down disk I/O significantly, it made the instabilities w/r/t the Promise card go away completely. I'm not sure whether the fundamental problem is flaky PCI bus design in some motherboards, or overly picky bus expectations by Promise, but this experience suggests to me that people who are having timeouts and hanging errors with Promise SATA controllers might want to try playing with the PCI-related BIOS settings on their motherboards and see if that gives them relief. If anyone is having trouble with a Promise card in a recent-design motherboard with normal BIOS settings, of course, that would strongly point to Promise as the guilty party. Whether anything can be done to relieve this problem in the device driver is a question I'm not in a position to answer. Rich Wales Palo Alto, CA, USA richw@richw.org http://www.richw.org