Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:51:19 -0500 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren?= Schmidt <sos@DeepCore.dk> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: sil3112a SATA Controller, current status Message-ID: <p06110403bdc3270a2e36@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <419D145E.8090108@DeepCore.dk> References: <f8646080041118045410a4629c@mail.gmail.com> <419CEFB9.7060604@DeepCore.dk> <p06110402bdc2b6a6d7f3@[128.113.24.47]> <419D145E.8090108@DeepCore.dk>
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At 10:30 PM +0100 11/18/04, S=F8ren Schmidt wrote: >Garance A Drosihn wrote: > >>I am trying to pin down problems "FAILURE - WRITE_DMA timed out" >>in a new PC that I have. I had some local shop build this for me, >>and apparently there were "a few" miscommunications in what I >>thought I asked for, and what they actually built. >> >>The machine ended up with two SATA controllers: >> atapci0: <SiI 3112 SATA150 controller> -- on the motherboard >> atapci1: <VIA 6420 SATA150 controller> -- on a PCI card > >I think its the other way around, the VIA chip is part of the >motherboard chipset, the SiI is a "loose" PCI compatible chip. Ugh. You are correct. Somewhere along the line I got the two mixed up. So now have I removed the PCI-based SATA card, and connected the Western Digital hard disk to the on-board SATA. I have just done a complete buildworld/installworld cycle for 5.3-STABLE. I did not see a single WRITE_DMA time-out message. I was *always* seeing at least a few of those before, especially if I specified -j2 (or more) on a `make buildworld'. Many times those messages were benign, but sometimes they would trigger a failure in buildworld, or even more severe problems (including system panics -- which would then leave the file system in a corrupted state...). >>The hard disk is connected to the PCI card. Would that be >>more reliable quality hardware than the SiI3112? > >I'd say so. You are obviously correct... Now I will have to go to the place that built this, and ask them why on earth they added a PCI card for SATA which was *worse* than what was on the motherboard! When I ordered this, I expected it to use the on-board SATA. I never asked for a SATA card. >>Also, the disk is a Western Digital WDC WD1200JD-00GBB0/02.05D02 >>120-gig drive. I *thought* I was ordering a Seagate drive, but it is >>quite likely that there was some confusion on that. Would that Western >>Digital SATA drive be a problem? I do have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 >>hard drive that I could use (after shuffling a few things around). > >From observation I'd say that those drives that are native SATA >devices has significantly less problems than those that aren't. Well, I am sure that is a true statement, but it does not answer the question I was trying to ask... :-) I did not know anything about this western digital drive that I ended up with, so I didn't know if it was a native SATA drive. But looking around the web for awhile, it looks like this model of Western Digital is not a native SATA drive. So I think I will replace it just to avoid any further hassles, even though I did not get any errors with this drive once I was using the right controller. I had *intended* to get a Seagate SATA drive in the first place, so swamping the drive will just get me back to what my original plans for hardware. Thanks. Now that I may finally be past these hardware problems, maybe I can get back to writing some actual code! -- Garance Alistair Drosehn =3D gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu
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