From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 6 06:28:45 2004 Return-Path: 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 3E7AC16A4CE for ; Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:28:45 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp1.server.rpi.edu (smtp1.server.rpi.edu [128.113.2.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B85EA43D60 for ; Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:28:44 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from drosih@rpi.edu) Received: from [128.113.24.47] (gilead.netel.rpi.edu [128.113.24.47]) by smtp1.server.rpi.edu (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id iB66SaN3026126; Mon, 6 Dec 2004 01:28:38 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 01:28:35 -0500 To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org From: Garance A Drosihn Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-CanItPRO-Stream: default X-RPI-SA-Score: undef - spam-scanning disabled X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . canit . ca) cc: =?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren_Schmidt?= Subject: Re: Another twist on WRITE_DMA issues <- ProblemFound X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 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, 06 Dec 2004 06:28:45 -0000 At 9:31 PM -0500 12/2/04, Garance A Drosihn wrote: > >I have now switched from that Western Digital drive to a Seagate >Barracuda 7200.7 120-gig (ST3120026AS). The drive seems to be >working fairly well, but now I sometimes see some combination >like the following three lines: > >Dec 2 20:29:50 kernel: Interrupt storm detected on > "irq20: atapci0"; throttling interrupt source >Dec 2 20:29:54 kernel: ad4: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying > (2 retries left) LBA=20627679 >Dec 2 20:29:54 kernel: ad4: FAILURE - WRITE_DMA timed out > >Where atapci0: >And >ad4: 114473MB [232581/16/63] at ata2-master SATA150 > >This does not come up often, and it usually doesn't cause any >noticeable problem. As it luck would have it, the one time it has >caused problems is during installworlds. ... It has caused problems on many other occasions, too. But in any case, it looks like this set of problems are my own fault. Earlier, I spent about two months trying to solve problems on this PC which (it turned out) were due to the SiL SATA controller combined with the western-digital drive. Just before I realized that SATA controller was the problem, I had added: hw.ata.ata_dma=0 to /boot/loader.conf.local, because someone else had suggested that it *might* help with my earlier WRITE_DMA problems. At that time, the setting seemed to make no difference. But now that I am using a good SATA controller *and* I have switched to the "real-SATA" hard drive from Seagate, the above setting seems to *cause* problems. I removed that setting, rebooted, and I have now done a complete buildworld/installworld cycle without seeing a single "interrupt storm" or a single WRITE_DMA error. While the setting was still there, I would always see at least a few of those warning messages (and sometimes end up with a system panic). So, my hope is that this has finally solved the last of my problems with this machine. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu