From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265491AbTFSIWT (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Jun 2003 04:22:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265422AbTFSIWT (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Jun 2003 04:22:19 -0400 Received: from 81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk ([81.2.122.30]:24960 "EHLO 81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265491AbTFSIWQ (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Jun 2003 04:22:16 -0400 Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:43:46 +0100 From: John Bradford Message-Id: <200306190843.h5J8hksF000540@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk> To: andre@linux-ide.org, andre@linuxdiskcert.org, despair@adelphia.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, misty-@charter.net Subject: Re: Problems with IDE on GA-7VAXP motherboard Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > Please forgive me if I've sent this to the wrong address, it is the one > listed in the 2.4.21 sources in the MAINTAINERS file as the IDE > maintainer. > Okay, I've spent a LONG time (>48 hrs) trying to fix this problem on my own, and I > have no idea what is causing this totally weird behavior. > I just recently replaced a broken system with a new gigabyte GA-7VAXP > motherboard and an athlon XP 2600 cpu. The Gigabyte motherboard has the > Via VT82C586/B/686A/B (according to lspci -v) chipset on ide0, which is > being used for the WDC WD102AA hard disk (according to > /proc/ide/ide0/hda/model) I have two Gigabyte GA-7VA based machines here with Athlon XP 2200+ cpus. This board also uses the VT82C586B chipset for IDE. They works fine here, except for mis-detection of a 40-way cable as 80-way, (and the devices on the 40-way cable only support a maximum of 33.3MB/s anyway, so it's not a big problem at the moment). > I have disabled everything I possibly could in the bios without making > it impossible to boot the system. I have tried using the original cables > from the old machine, as well as the new cables that came with the > motherboard. I have tried the hard disk in both master and cable select modes. > I have both enabled and disabled ACPI, to see if that would make it > work. I have tried moving the hard disk to a different ide channel. I > have removed all other hard disks from the system. (All are experiencing > the problems, not just this one) I have asked everyone I know that knows > anything about computers what could be wrong - most of their replies were > variants of the above. The default BIOS settings worked fine for me. I notice you've got the IO-APIC enabled - I've left it disabled, basically because I don't need the functionality yet, and it avoids any bugs in the kernel IO-APIC code. > The problem I'm seeing is, even with literally every single setting > disabled in hdparm, the system is VERY VERY SLOW, and I'm often seeing > 'hda: lost interrupt' in console when I try to read/write a large amount > of data. Hmmm, try disabling IO-APIC. > It's so bad I'm actually having to compile my kernels on a separate > pentium 1 133 because it's compiling them *faster* than my computer can. Heh, must take about an hour :-). My rarely-used MMX-200 compiles recent 2.4 trees in about 30-40 minutes. > I am currently using the 2.4.21 kernel, although I started trying this > on the 2.4.20 kernel. Both exhibit the same problem unfortunately. I've used 2.4.21-RC1 and 2.4.21-RC2 on these boxes without problems, but I've been too busy to try more recent trees. I did boot a recent 2.5 tree on one of them, and it booted successfully, but I didn't do much testing, (due to lack of time). I installed KDE, and noticed that it was much slower to start under 2.5, but I've not investigated that. > I am familiar with patching kernels, and am able to fix cosmetic to > minor problems in source, so sending me a patch and saying 'try this' > isn't a problem. > I *am* willing to experiment and try using 2.5.whatever but *only* if > the ide maintainer or someone familiar with the ide subsystem tells me > that it's safe to use in a certain configuration. I don't want to lose > the data on my hard disk, it doesn't have a backup. (long story short, I > was about to do a backup on the machine when the motherboard blewup. > Seriously!) If you don't enable exotic options like IO-APIC and ACPI, I seriously doubt you'll get massive file corruption. The only reasons I'm not using 2.5 as a deault on most of my production boxes, are time and security fixes not having gone in yet. > If someone gives me a patch which makes the machine stable and able to > work even if it's *slow* I'll be happy. I don't want the thing to lose > data, and the message the kernel is giving me could be really really bad > IIRC if it's trying to write when it loses the interrupt. :( Try booting a 2.5 kernel, and mount the root filesystem read-only if you're really worried about corruption. > I currently am limited to using a keyboard only, and I'm stuck in > console as I am unable to use X windows due to problems I was attempting > to fix before the original system blewup. So... it's hard for me to copy > and paste anything - I have to type it in manually. I would fix X, but > considering doing 'make dep' on a 2.4.21 kernel currently takes longer > on my XP 2600 system than it does to compile the *entire kernel* on a P1 > 133 (I'm stone cold serious.) ... ... ... No. Until I can get this fixed, I can't fix X. > I have attached output from lspci -v, /proc/interrupts, my kernel > .config and /proc/ioports in the hopes it is useful to you. > (You'll likely notice I've thrown the kitchen sink at it. *shrugs*) > If you can think of *anything* I can send you that might clear up this > problem, ask for it. Compile a minimal kernel without things like IO-APIC and ACPI enabled. Oh, I don't use modules by the way, so any issues with things being compiled as modules won't be apparent to me :-). So, you might want to try compiling everything in. John.