Re: sata io freeze, 2.6.18 and also 2.6.24 [the real culprit]

[devzero@web.de]

so - you told, you have your disk attached to this controller:

00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80)
	Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Unknown device 0430
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
	I/O ports at ec00 [size=8]
	I/O ports at e800 [size=4]
	I/O ports at e400 [size=8]
	I/O ports at e000 [size=4]
	I/O ports at dc00 [size=16]
	I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

and use sata_via module - and your system works stable with nosmp, but freezes very soon on heavy i/o with smp. disabling dma makes no difference.

correct ?

then i assume this could be an smp issue, probably a bug in sata_via and may need further investigation.

there seem no noticeable changes in that driver since 2.6.24 - but maybe it`s worth trying 2.6.25-rc9 to see if it behaves different?
absolutely nothing in dmesg on freeze ? 
maybe you could try catching some message with attaching serial console?
how reliably can you crash that box with lots of i/o ? just random crashes or after a certain amount of data written/read ?
could you try if just reading from the raw blockdevice makes a differnce ? (dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/zero)




> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: "Luis Sousa" <ls.luis_sousa@yahoo.com.br>
> Gesendet: 14.04.08 12:14:26
> An: devzero@web.de
> CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Betreff: Re: sata io freeze, 2.6.18 and also 2.6.24 [the real culprit]


> 
> Hello,
> 
> I did as planned, and I dare to say now, with
> relative certainty, that the reason I have had all
> these instabilities, including application crashes,
> sneaky corrupt backups, and the dreaded freezes
> every other day was SMP and HyperThreading not working
> properly. Booting with nosmp gives me a stable system.
> Booting only with the sata-related arguments had
> the system freeze overnight.
> 
> Sincerely,
> --
> Luis Sousa
> 
> --- devzero@web.de escreveu:
> 
> > hi luis, 
> > 
> > glad that it worked - but let us better call this a possible workaround, not a solution.
> > 
> > mind that you loose lots of performance with this, because all i/o is handled by the cpu
> > now.
> > 
> > > If everything goes well, I'll reduce the command line
> > > in order to narrow the problem further down.
> > 
> > yes, please!
> > 
> > regards
> > roland
> > 
> > 
> > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> > > Von: "Luis Sousa" <ls.luis_sousa@yahoo.com.br>
> > > Gesendet: 12.04.08 17:34:39
> > > An: devzero@web.de
> > > CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> > > Betreff: Re: sata io freeze, 2.6.18 and also 2.6.24 [POSSIBLE SOLUTION]
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > Hello all,
> > > 
> > > Thanks to valuable help from roland, I was able to
> > > boot with the following options:
> > > 
> > > ``nosmp ide=nodma libata.dma=0''
> > > 
> > > after what I ran an agressive stability test for a
> > > while, with no problem whatsoever. Maybe it's too
> > > soon to say, but I have a good feeling this time. It
> > > seems roland figured it out.
> > > 
> > > If everything goes well, I'll reduce the command line
> > > in order to narrow the problem further down.
> > > 
> > > (and indeed, this is a hyper-threading single core CPU)
> > > 
> > > Sincerely,
> > > --
> > > Luis Sousa
> > > 
> > > --- devzero@web.de escreveu:
> > > 
> > > > did you try UP-kernel or tried booting with "nosmp" and does that make any difference
> > ?
> > > > 
> > > > >This is a 2-processor CPU:
> > > > ># cat /proc/cpuinfo 
> > > > >processor       : 0
> > > > >vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
> > > > >cpu family      : 15
> > > > >model           : 4
> > > > >model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
> > > > 
> > > > most likely this just "appears" as 2-way processor , but iŽm quite sure this is just
> > a
> > > > single-core CPU, but with HyperThreading enabled.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > regards
> > > > roland
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > List:       linux-kernel
> > > > Subject:    sata io freeze, 2.6.18 and also 2.6.24
> > > > From:       Luis Sousa <ls.luis_sousa () yahoo ! com ! br>
> > > > Date:       2008-03-28 22:24:48
> > > > Message-ID: 739784.81690.qm () web46009 ! mail ! sp1 ! yahoo ! com
> > > > [Download message RAW]
> > > > 
> > > > Hello,
> > > > 
> > > > I've been having consistent hard system freezes for a
> > > > long time, every 2 days or so, and finally decided to
> > > > move to the most recent stable kernel. Unfortunatelly
> > > > that didn't fix it. The freezes seem to be io-related;
> > > > they started since I moved my drive to sata. They seem
> > > > to happen mostly when there's an io-intensive operation,
> > > > like extracting a big archive; a reboot is needed.
> > > > 
> > > > Nothing ever shows up in the logs.
> > > > 
> > > > I'm using the following drive:
> > > > 
> > > > ATA device, with non-removable media
> > > >         Model Number:       MAXTOR STM3160215AS                     
> > > >         Serial Number:      6RA2TMJ4
> > > >         Firmware Revision:  3.AAD   
> > > > 
> > > > Linux localhost 2.6.24.4 #4 SMP Fri Mar 28 14:51:50 BRT 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
> > > > 
> > > > This is a 2-processor CPU:
> > > > 
> > > > # cat /proc/cpuinfo 
> > > > processor       : 0
> > > > vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
> > > > cpu family      : 15
> > > > model           : 4
> > > > model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
> > > > stepping        : 9
> > > > cpu MHz         : 3013.697
> > > > cache size      : 1024 KB
> > > > 
> > > > (same goes for processor : 1)
> > > > 
> > > > Sincerely,
> > > > --
> > > > Luis Sousa
> 
> 
> 
>       Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o único sem limite de espaço para armazenamento!
> http://br.mail.yahoo.com/
> 
> 


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