From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264993AbUE2Oo0 (ORCPT ); Sat, 29 May 2004 10:44:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264962AbUE2OoZ (ORCPT ); Sat, 29 May 2004 10:44:25 -0400 Received: from piggy.rz.tu-ilmenau.de ([141.24.4.8]:59128 "EHLO piggy.rz.tu-ilmenau.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265042AbUE2Onz (ORCPT ); Sat, 29 May 2004 10:43:55 -0400 Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 16:42:56 +0200 From: "Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe" To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: Henrik Persson , Sebastian , Bruce Allen Subject: Re: Strange DMA-errors and system hang with Promise 20268 Message-ID: <20040529144256.GA399@darkside.22.kls.lan> Mail-Followup-To: Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Henrik Persson , Sebastian , Bruce Allen References: <1078602426.16591.8.camel@vega> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 02:05:46AM +0100, Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote: > Mar 4 01:01:06 darkside kernel: hde: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21 hmmm, it seems I solved the issue in my case. I did just connect the two disks on the Promise to a second separate power supply and everything works rock-stable and survives all things that went wrong before (parallel fsck, parallel hdparm -t as well as 'normal operation' over days). Things remain stable even with the WDC disk connected back to the Promise, which was heavy unstable before. Moreover, when I connect the disks back to the machines internal power supply, the problems arise again - immediately. IMHO, this does also explain, why the problems happen while heavy I/O (parallel over all disks) and/or while S.M.A.R.T selftests are running (also: parallel over all disks). Well, I thought, a 300W power supply would be enough for 1GHz P-III and 4 disks. And it definitely was enough for a long time. Most likely, the power supply just aged and its capacity decreased. Perhaps, the disks consume more power with newer kernels, but while crawling the lkm archives I found similar reports also for 2.4.19. I have no idea, why always the disks connected to the Promise controller did fail. Perhaps, the Promise is more sensitive regarding signal quality on the IDE wire. I have no idea, why my WDC disk failed when connected to the Promise, while others did work far more stable. Perhaps, the WDC disks signal quality under low-power is more bad than the one of other disks. I have no idea, why the WDC disk did work well when it was connected to the onboard controller. Perhaps, the lower signal quality of the WDC (if so) and the sensitivity of the Promise (if so) added together was too much at all. Henrik, Sebastian: if you still have problems, this is probably something to test for you. Sebastian: if you experience more instability after exchanging your drive with a newer (bigger? faster?) one, your chance is high to get it solved with a bigger power supply, I'd guess :) Bruce: this is probably something to hint for at the smartmontools warning page. regards, Mario -- It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Dijkstra