Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:30:38 -0600 | From | Robert Hancock <> | Subject | Re: Samsung N130 ATA exception after 5min uptime -- Phoenix FailSafe issue? |
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On 11/28/2009 01:19 PM, Greg KH wrote: > On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 05:42:12PM +0100, Johannes Stezenbach wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I'm refering to >> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14314 >> and I still have this issue on a N130 with latest BIOS (05CM), >> running kernel 2.6.32-rc8 + wireless-testing. >> >> BIOS Information >> Vendor: Phoenix Technologies Ltd. >> Version: 05CM.M011.20091013.JIP >> Release Date: 10/13/2009 >> Address: 0xE6300 >> Runtime Size: 105728 bytes >> ROM Size: 2048 kB >> Characteristics: >> ISA is supported >> PCI is supported >> PNP is supported >> BIOS is upgradeable >> BIOS shadowing is allowed >> ESCD support is available >> ACPI is supported >> USB legacy is supported >> Smart battery is supported >> BIOS boot specification is supported >> Targeted content distribution is supported >> BIOS Revision: 5.0 >> >> Around 5min after boot or resume if generates the following error: >> >> [ 302.364174] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen >> [ 302.364201] ata1.00: failed command: WRITE DMA >> [ 302.364234] ata1.00: cmd ca/00:08:f7:01:1a/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 out >> [ 302.364241] res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout) >> [ 302.364257] ata1.00: status: { DRDY } >> [ 307.408107] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0) >> [ 312.392109] ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset >> [ 312.392138] ata1: soft resetting link >> [ 312.574482] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133 >> [ 312.574506] ata1.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 >> [ 312.574542] ata1: EH complete > > This is because after 5 minutes, the BIOS implements C states in the > processor, which causes a "hic-up" in userspace. Everything should be > fine after this, and most importantly, the power usage drops by a few > watts, which is most important.
Why does this "hiccup" seem to cause interrupts to get lost? This would cause an up to 30-second stall in disk I/O.
> >> This also happens when booting with rdinit=/bin/sh, i.e. only running busybox sh >> inside initrd. The error then appears when accessing the disk after the 5min >> period with dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null count=10000. > > Yup, see above for why. > > Samsung does this to make booting their BIOS faster.
Ugh.. Seriously?
> >> The link in comment #14 is dead but eventually I found >> http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Moblin:/Base/openSUSE_11.1/src/kernel-source-2.6.31.6-37.1.src.rpm >> which contains the attached patch with a samsung_laptop driver. >> >> I think it is weird that the Samsung BIOS has a special "SECLINUX" mode, >> but anyway the samsung_laptop driver works (the backlight control via ACPI >> also works with the 05CM BIOS, though). > > Yes, but Samsung does not support ACPI at this time, even though it is > in their latest bios versions (experimental stuff, needed for Windows 7 > mode or something...)
ACPI support would seem much preferable to implementing power management with such strange proprietary hacks..
> > And yes, a "special" linux mode is weird, but at least they gave us > something that works :) > >> However, it does not prevent the ATA exception. > > Yup, it's not an issue though. > >> (Side note about backlight level 0: I noticed that in Windows when you >> set the backlight to the lowest level, after a minute of inactivity >> the screen would dim one level more. Stupid -- why not allow the user >> to choose that level manually?) > > Talk to samsung about this. There is one more lower level the BIOS can > go to, which is what Windows does here. Samsung doesn't want Linux to > use that mode at this time. It only saves a bit less than .1W, so it's > not that big of a deal. > > Glad it's all working for you now. > > greg k-h
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