freebsd stable - Nov 2004 - FAILURE - WRITE_DMA timed out

When I use SATA disks heavily on a 5.3-R machine (Athlon) with the
SiI3512 disk controller, I get frequent (sometimes one every 1-5
minutes) WRITE_DMA timed out messages (with different blocks and both
disks).

It also panics with more than one kind of panic, and sometimes doesn't
even get to finish the background fsck from the previous panic before
dying again.

Given that both disks get the WRITE_DMA messages, and the one with the
OS on didn't have any problems when used with a VIA controller in a
different machine, I tend to think it's either the controller or the
software driving it.

Would I have any joy upgrading along 5-STABLE, perhaps after I move
the disk back to the machine that works, or won't that make any
difference?  (As in, are there any relevant ata changes since then?)

I've already tried setting both hw.ata.ata_dma and hw.ata.wc to 0, but
I still get these timeouts.

-- Frustrated in Sydney

Christopher Vance wrote:
>When I use SATA disks heavily on a 5.3-R machine (Athlon) with the
>SiI3512 disk controller, I get frequent (sometimes one every 1-5
>minutes) WRITE_DMA timed out messages (with different blocks and both
>disks).
>
>It also panics with more than one kind of panic, and sometimes doesn't
>even get to finish the background fsck from the previous panic before
>dying again.
>
>Given that both disks get the WRITE_DMA messages, and the one with the
>OS on didn't have any problems when used with a VIA controller in a
>different machine, I tend to think it's either the controller or the
>software driving it.
>
>Would I have any joy upgrading along 5-STABLE, perhaps after I move
>the disk back to the machine that works, or won't that make any
>difference?  (As in, are there any relevant ata changes since then?)
>
>I've already tried setting both hw.ata.ata_dma and hw.ata.wc to 0, but
>I still get these timeouts.
>
I don't have any solutions for you, but I'm curious to know what kind of
drives you're using... apparently SiI 3114s aren't so good with bridged 
(PATA<->SATA) connections, and Seagates are mostly native...

On my setup (SiI3112+Seagate), I get WRITE_DMA timeo's a few times a 
day. Never had panics as result of the SATA tho.

atapci1@pci0:13:0:      class=0x018001 card=0x02509005 chip=0x31121095 
rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
    vendor   = 'Silicon Image Inc (Was: CMD Technology Inc)'
    device   = 'SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller'
    class    = mass storage

ATA channel 2:
    Master:  ad4 <ST3120026AS/3.18> ATA/ATAPI rev 6
    Slave:       no device present

I don't even use it very heavily, it's *just* for my .oggs. Nothing 
else. It sucks. We're presently looking at 3Ware and others for a heavy 
duty network setup we're doing... hoping we can make the SiIs work 
instead of dropping a few grand on 3Wares... :\ but I'm not confident 
the SiIs are good for anything important.

Myke