Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:36:54 -0600 From: Adam Vande More <amvandemore@gmail.com> To: Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, "b. f." <bf1783@googlemail.com> Subject: Re: AHCI/ATA_CAM for dummies? Message-ID: <6201873e0912141436j24de325dm45aac38a89bd047c@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4B26A45B.4020302@FreeBSD.org> References: <d873d5be0912132105p6fea5f74ld0caf2cfe43cd808@mail.gmail.com> <4B25D1ED.5060509@FreeBSD.org> <d873d5be0912132214v4410d087xb14e80ae705312ec@mail.gmail.com> <4B25DA75.5080807@FreeBSD.org> <d873d5be0912132306w542a9706r9e070f10d15856db@mail.gmail.com> <4B25EC42.4090604@FreeBSD.org> <d873d5be0912140013u42a9e410qa3701a45f11e2531@mail.gmail.com> <4B26A45B.4020302@FreeBSD.org>
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On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org> wrote: > b. f. wrote: > > On 12/14/09, Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org> 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 ... > A bit of research leads to believe you are SOL on ahci/NCQ for this system unless you're able to hack a BIOS. I believe both drive and controller are capable of running it, but Dell has disabled it as an option for some reason. -- Adam Vande More
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