Kernel or failing harddisc?

Kernel or failing harddisc?

[Alistair John Strachan]

Hi,

Periodically, especially while playing large files with Xine (~1.4GB OGMs), 
playback will pause for up to 10 seconds. I see the following in dmesg;

hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x64
hda: DMA interrupt recovery
hda: lost interrupt

The drive then recovers and playback resumes, no problem.

Is this likely to be the first signs of a faulty HD, or is it some known 
problem? In the event that it's the HD, has anybody been able to successfully 
RMA a Maxtor which has this, albeit minor, problem?

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

personal:   alistair()devzero!co!uk
university: s0348365()sms!ed!ac!uk
student:    CS/AI Undergraduate
contact:    1F2 55 South Clerk Street,
            Edinburgh. EH8 9PP.

Re: Kernel or failing harddisc?

[Alan Cox]

On Maw, 2004-11-09 at 00:54, Alistair John Strachan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Periodically, especially while playing large files with Xine (~1.4GB OGMs), 
> playback will pause for up to 10 seconds. I see the following in dmesg;
> 
> hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x64
> hda: DMA interrupt recovery
> hda: lost interrupt
> 
> The drive then recovers and playback resumes, no problem.
> 
> Is this likely to be the first signs of a faulty HD, or is it some known 
> problem? In the event that it's the HD, has anybody been able to successfully 
> RMA a Maxtor which has this, albeit minor, problem?

It could be anything. An interrupt went walkies which could easily be
the driver, thermals, cabling, phase of the moon, drive,... If those are
the only logged lines then the drive hasn't reported any problems back.

Failed maxtors normally make it very clear they died - both in smart
data (usually) and by spewing drive level errors.

Alan

Re: Kernel or failing harddisc?

[Alistair John Strachan]

On Tuesday 09 Nov 2004 11:07, Alan Cox wrote:
[snip]
>
> It could be anything. An interrupt went walkies which could easily be
> the driver, thermals, cabling, phase of the moon, drive,... If those are
> the only logged lines then the drive hasn't reported any problems back.
>
> Failed maxtors normally make it very clear they died - both in smart
> data (usually) and by spewing drive level errors.
>
> Alan

Thanks Alan, I'll look into it. Since I've not received any SMART warnings, 
I'll just assume the drive is fine and it's something else.

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

personal:   alistair()devzero!co!uk
university: s0348365()sms!ed!ac!uk
student:    CS/AI Undergraduate
contact:    1F2 55 South Clerk Street,
            Edinburgh. EH8 9PP.

Re: Kernel or failing harddisc?

[Tomasz Rola]

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On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Alistair John Strachan wrote:

> On Tuesday 09 Nov 2004 11:07, Alan Cox wrote:
> [snip]
> >
> > It could be anything. An interrupt went walkies which could easily be
> > the driver, thermals, cabling, phase of the moon, drive,... If those are
> > the only logged lines then the drive hasn't reported any problems back.
> >
> > Failed maxtors normally make it very clear they died - both in smart
> > data (usually) and by spewing drive level errors.
> >
> > Alan
> 
> Thanks Alan, I'll look into it. Since I've not received any SMART warnings, 
> I'll just assume the drive is fine and it's something else.

Maybe motherboard? I had once a chipset (an older one, via mvp3 I
believe), that gave me strange errors until I disabled DMA with hdparm.
Besides this, open your case and check cables. Who knows, maybe this will
cure your system.

bye
T.

- --
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com             **


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Re: Kernel or failing harddisc?

[Nick Warne]

Have a quick read of this thread of mine from smartmontools ML:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=12495&style=flat&viewday=11&viewmonth=200406

In my instance, it was a new IDE cable and reseating everything cured it... 
but the reply from Mario is enlightening.

Nick

-- 
"When you're chewing on life's gristle,
Don't grumble, Give a whistle..."