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Date:      Sat, 17 Jun 2000 08:06:22 -0700
From:      Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group <Cy.Schubert@uumail.gov.bc.ca>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   ATA DMA Problem
Message-ID:  <200006171506.e5HF6sg00904@cwsys.cwsent.com>

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I've discovered an interesting problem as follows:

Jun 17 05:16:59 cwsys /kernel: ad2: HARD READ ERROR blk# 
4999424ata1-master: WAR
NING: WAIT_READY active=ATA_ACTIVE_ATA
Jun 17 05:16:59 cwsys /kernel: ad2: DMA problem fallback to PIO mode
Jun 17 05:16:59 cwsys last message repeated 15 times

The IDE devices attached to the system are:

Jun 17 07:06:31 cwsys /kernel: ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0
Jun 17 07:06:31 cwsys /kernel: ata1: at 0x170 irq 15 on atapci0
Jun 17 07:06:32 cwsys /kernel: ad0: 2014MB <WDC AC22100H> [4092/16/63] 
at ata0-m
aster using WDMA2
Jun 17 07:06:32 cwsys /kernel: ad2: 2441MB <WDC AC22500L> [4960/16/63] 
at ata1-m
aster using WDMA2

At first glance it looks like a bad block on disk.  However, the errors 
only occur when running:

	dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/null bs=1024k

After running the Western Digital wddiag scan three times, without 
indication of error, and running:

	dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/null	(notice no bs=1024k)

... also without error.

... and running the dd with bs=1024k a number of times subsequent to 
this, the above error can be repeated 100% of the time when dd is run 
with bs=1024k specified.  (Just a hunch but bs=64k would probably not 
cause the error -- will have to test that theory out).

Otherwise the system and disk have been running nicely, so this is not 
a major issue.  It is an interesting problem of which I don't have too 
much data collected and therefore feel awkward submitting a PR 
regarding this.

I suspect one of the following:

1.  Possible heat problem, bs=1024k probably drives the disk harder than
    the default bs=512.  Interestingly, 3.4 didn't experience this 
problem.
    Maybe 4.0's new ATA driver is more efficient, driving the disk 
harder
    and causing the disk's controller board to run a little hotter than 
it
    did under 3.4.  (most)

2.  Possible disk/controller/DMA timing issue, e.g. hardware problem
    excluding HDA failure.

3.  Possible FreeBSD ATA/DMA driver bug.  (least)

I'm running 4.0S as of May 27.

Any comments would be welcome.


Regards,                       Phone:  (250)387-8437
Cy Schubert                      Fax:  (250)387-5766
Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team   Internet:  Cy.Schubert@osg.gov.bc.ca
Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA
Province of BC            





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