From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] faster workaround Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:59:01 -0400 Message-ID: <470E3A35.4000104@garzik.org> References: <200710081709.18253.bs@q-leap.de> <200710101112.20448.bs@q-leap.de> <200710111409.56210.bs@q-leap.de> <200710111433.23833.bs@q-leap.de> <20071011142628.48272a4a@the-village.bc.nu> <470E30F9.5060705@garzik.org> <20071011155024.46007973@the-village.bc.nu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:37197 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753874AbXJKO7D (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:59:03 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20071011155024.46007973@the-village.bc.nu> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Alan Cox , Bernd Schubert Cc: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Alan Cox wrote: >> The problem is that the 3112 generates Data FIS's of a size other than a >> multiple of 512 bytes. Spec-legal, but exposed firmware bugs in many >> early SATA drives. Early Seagate hard drives choked when the formula >> (sector%15)==1 was satisfied (or something along those lines). > > And the 3114 is the same ? 3114 should not be affected by this problem (see below). Most likely we are led down this road because the 'slow_down' module parameter has an excellent capacity for hiding all manner of problems. As a tangent from this thread, this is why I was OK with adding the libata.dma even for SATA. Sometimes knobs are found useful by users, though perhaps not its original intended use. Sometimes masking a hardware problem can help you get through the rest of your day on hold with vendor support :) >> 2) Once we identified, over time, the set of drives affected by this >> 3112 quirk (aka drives that didn't fully comply to SATA spec), the >> debugging of corruption cases largely shifted to the standard routine: >> update the BIOS, replace the cables/RAM/power/mainboard/slot/etc. to be >> certain of problem location. > > Except for the continued series of later SI + Nvidia chipset (mostly) > pattern which seems unanswered but also being later chips I assume > unrelated to this problem. The SIL_FLAG_MOD15WRITE flag is set in sil_port_info[] is set according to the best info we have from SiI, which indicates that 3114 and 3512 do not have the same problem as the 3112. Jeff