Messages in this thread | | | From | Gene Heskett <> | Subject | Re: Strange DMA-errors and system hang with Promise 20268 | Date | Sat, 29 May 2004 18:51:31 -0400 |
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On Saturday 29 May 2004 10:42, Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote: >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.
It probably was, back up the log to when that 1Ghz P-III was new. However, psu's tend to suck up and trap all the dust in the universe (I mean there can't be that much dust in *my* house, can there? :) and can get ungodly hot, thereby cooking the goodies out of the electrolytic caps, which have failure temps ranging from 85C to 105C.
This is one of the reasons I try to pull all my gear apart and give it a good blasting with the air hose from my junky old air compressor at least annually.
Anyway, to make a long story shorter, either have a technician equipt with a ESR reading meter look all the caps in the psu over and replace any that aren't up to snuff, or replace the supply with a fresh one. But, finding a tech with an ESR meter could be quite a chore, so I'd go psu shopping at Circuit City or wherever since the tech will probably want more in labor than fresh new ones cost.
>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
-- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.23% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2004 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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