From owner-freebsd-hardware Sat Mar 30 21:51:37 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from prometheus.vh.laserfence.net (prometheus.laserfence.net [196.44.73.116]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 633C737B400 for ; Sat, 30 Mar 2002 21:51:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from phoenix.vh.laserfence.net ([192.168.0.10]) by prometheus.vh.laserfence.net with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1) id 16rYF0-0004Bj-00; Sun, 31 Mar 2002 07:50:58 +0200 Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 07:50:58 +0200 (SAST) From: Willie Viljoen X-X-Sender: will@phoenix.vh.laserfence.net To: Andrew MacIntyre Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Instability with offboard IDE controller, CMD-649 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020331074609.D314-100000@phoenix.vh.laserfence.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org I experimented on my own with it abit, even going to using 40-conductor cables and forcing it down to PIO mode 1. Nothing has helped. I've tested the hard drive in another machine and it works fine, even at, as you said, UDMA mode 5. It seems the controller just can't handle any sort of heavy load... in FBSD it dies when doing things like a make world, in Linux, a kernel compile does the trick, and in Windows, playing any post-1996 game eats it alive, even in the slowest of modes. Try running your controller at a high load and see if it survives, if it can handle it, then chances are mine is just a dud (which would not be entirely surprising, in South Africa, nothing works) Also, if anybody reading could recommend some proper hardware that won't put me back too much financially, I'd be willing to try tinkering with hardware configurations... I would also be willing to spend money to get some nice hardware, but with the current situation of the South African Rand, buying anything decent usually puts you back more than a month's salary, easily. Regards Will On Sun, 31 Mar 2002, Andrew MacIntyre wrote: > On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Willie Viljoen wrote: > > > I'd previously posted to freebsd-fs list about this problem, I keep > > loosing data and having stability problems with a CMD-649 PCI ATA-100 > > offboard IDE controller. > > I'm using several of these; one of which is used to boot 4.4R on an old > pre-UDMA chipset board. They're not getting heavy use though... > > {...} > > > I'm down to one last option, being trying to run the drives at low speed > > with old 40-conducter cables, just to try and force this controller to > > slow down. > > man ata(4) shows a sysctl which could be used to force PIO mode for > testing. 40 wire cables should force the controller back to UDMA-33. > > > It claims to be ATA-100, but when booted in windows, the driver is trying > > to run it in what it calls "UDMA mode 5", which to my best knowledge is > > ATA-133, which neither the drive (a 40GB Seagate ST340810A 5400RPM) or the > > controller supports. > > UDMA mode 5 is ATA-100. > > If going slower helps, keep in mind that >UDMA-33 is sensitive to cable > length as well as cable/connector quality, so if you haven't already tried > changing 80 wire cables it might be worthwhile. > > -- > Andrew I MacIntyre "These thoughts are mine alone..." > E-mail: andymac@bullseye.apana.org.au | Snail: PO Box 370 > andymac@pcug.org.au | Belconnen ACT 2616 > Web: http://www.andymac.org/ | Australia > > > > -- Willie Viljoen Private IT Consultant 214 Paul Kruger Avenue Universitas Bloemfontein 9321 South Africa +27 51 522 15 60, a/h +27 51 522 44 36 +27 82 404 03 27 will@laserfence.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message