From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 7 06:38:35 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 1539816A4CE for ; Tue, 7 Dec 2004 06:38:35 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp1.server.rpi.edu (smtp1.server.rpi.edu [128.113.2.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A11EC43D2F for ; Tue, 7 Dec 2004 06:38:34 +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 iB76cX5E014178; Tue, 7 Dec 2004 01:38:33 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20041207044734.GA7994@nu.org> References: <200410081937.15068.miha@ghuug.org> <200410291044.34973.soralx@cydem.org> <200410291657.33606.miha@ghuug.org> <20041030004556.B13046@unix.local> <4182BD51.6070800@freebsdbrasil.com.br> <20041207044734.GA7994@nu.org> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 01:38:32 -0500 To: Christopher Vance , 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) Subject: Re: ad0: FAILURE - WRITE_DMA 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: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 06:38:35 -0000 At 3:47 PM +1100 12/7/04, Christopher Vance wrote: >I gave up with 5.3 on my SiI3512A with Seagate SATA disks because of >this (mine was not only TIMEOUT, but also FAILURE) and related panics. > >OpenBSD current seems more stable on this hardware. Pity really, as >I've been using FreeBSD for years, and they're not quite so friendly >over on the other side. > >My VIA SATA stuff still seems fine with 5.3, so I have to pick between >a friendly OS (5.3), and one which can run VMware 4 (L*x). I can sympathize. I've been having WRITE_DMA problems, apparently from a variety of causes. At the moment my disk seems to be working fine, but every time I think I can *trust* the disk, I start getting another round of headaches. About all I can do is guess at some possible problems. What is the capacity of the Seagate drive that you're having trouble with? Are you using vinum or gvinum on it? Is your machine set up with a serial console? If the machine panics, can you get a core-dump of it, or do you just get a disk error when it tries to write the dump to disk? [disclaimer: I do not work at this level, so I wouldn't know what to do to fix this. I'm just saying that I know how frustrating these WRITE_DMA errors can be...] -- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu