Problems with Mylex DAC960P RAID controller

Problems with Mylex DAC960P RAID controller

[Chris Snyder]

I emailed this list a couple of weeks ago with problems I was having 
with an Intergraph SMP server.  I ended up giving up with that box, and 
built a new server with a 2 ghz Athlon, 1GB RAM, etc.  I kept the RAID 
array, however, as it was the most expensive part of the old server, and 
is still usable.  The array is three 9 gig IBM SCSI-2UW disks on a Mylex 
DAC960P controller.  The controller was recently updated to the latest 
firmware (2.73)

I'm having problems, however, trying to get the card to work.  Whenever 
I try to insert the module for the card into my kernel, the system 
completely hangs.  I tried this both with the kernel version that comes 
with my distro CD, and 2.4.18, compiling it directly into the kernel 
with the latter.  In both cases, it hanged when trying to load the 
driver.  It will display the version information, but that's it.

Any idea what's going on?  I just convinced the boss to spend some money 
for new equipment, and I'd rather not have to spend more at the moment. 
  TIA.

Re: Problems with Mylex DAC960P RAID controller

[Morten Helgesen]

Hey, 

On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 12:13:09PM -0400, Chris Snyder wrote:
> I emailed this list a couple of weeks ago with problems I was having 
> with an Intergraph SMP server.  I ended up giving up with that box, and 
> built a new server with a 2 ghz Athlon, 1GB RAM, etc.  I kept the RAID 
> array, however, as it was the most expensive part of the old server, and 
> is still usable.  The array is three 9 gig IBM SCSI-2UW disks on a Mylex 
> DAC960P controller.  The controller was recently updated to the latest 
> firmware (2.73)

DAC960P ? I`ve got a box running 2.4.18 with a Mylex DAC960PTL1 card. The
box is rock solid. If my memory isn`t hosed, the correct name 
of the card is 'Mylex AccelRaid 250'.

> I'm having problems, however, trying to get the card to work.  Whenever 
> I try to insert the module for the card into my kernel, the system 
> completely hangs.  I tried this both with the kernel version that comes 
> with my distro CD, and 2.4.18, compiling it directly into the kernel 
> with the latter.  In both cases, it hanged when trying to load the 

I`ve got it compiled in.

> driver.  It will display the version information, but that's it.

The DAC960 driver is quite verbose - this is what I`ve got :

kernel: DAC960: ***** DAC960 RAID Driver Version 2.4.11 of 11 October 2001 *****
kernel: DAC960: Copyright 1998-2001 by Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@dandelion.com>
kernel: DAC960#0: Configuring Mylex DAC960PTL1 PCI RAID Controller
kernel: DAC960#0:   Firmware Version: 4.07-0-29, Channels: 1, Memory Size: 8MB
kernel: DAC960#0:   PCI Bus: 0, Device: 15, Function: 1, I/O Address: Unassigned
kernel: DAC960#0:   PCI Address: 0xD9000000 mapped at 0xE0800000, IRQ Channel: 11
kernel: DAC960#0:   Controller Queue Depth: 124, Maximum Blocks per Command: 128
kernel: DAC960#0:   Driver Queue Depth: 123, Scatter/Gather Limit: 33 of 33 Segments
kernel: DAC960#0:   Stripe Size: 64KB, Segment Size: 8KB, BIOS Geometry: 255/63
kernel: DAC960#0:   Physical Devices:
kernel: DAC960#0:     0:2  Vendor: IBM       Model: DNES-309170W      Revision: SAH0
kernel: DAC960#0:          Serial Number:         AJLCD237
kernel: DAC960#0:          Disk Status: Online, 17915904 blocks
kernel: DAC960#0:     0:4  Vendor: IBM       Model: DNES-309170W      Revision: SAH0
kernel: DAC960#0:          Serial Number:         AJLCD597
kernel: DAC960#0:          Disk Status: Online, 17915904 blocks
kernel: DAC960#0:     0:6  Vendor: IBM       Model: DNES-309170W      Revision: SAH0
kernel: DAC960#0:          Serial Number:         AJLCE762
kernel: DAC960#0:          Disk Status: Online, 17915904 blocks
kernel: DAC960#0:   Logical Drives:
kernel: DAC960#0:     /dev/rd/c0d0: RAID-5, Online, 35831808 blocks, Write Thru


> 
> Any idea what's going on?  I just convinced the boss to spend some money 

Never had problems with the DAC960 driver in 2.4 (or 2.2 for that matter) ...
Could you provide the message printed by your kernel ? We can continue from
there ... maybe Leonard has an idea of what`s going on ... Leonard ?

> for new equipment, and I'd rather not have to spend more at the moment. 
>  TIA.
> 
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Cheers, 
Morten

-- 

"Livet er ikke for nybegynnere" - sitat fra en klok person.

mvh
Morten Helgesen 
UNIX System Administrator & C Developer 
Nextframe AS
admin@nextframe.net / 93445641
http://www.nextframe.net

Re: Problems with Mylex DAC960P RAID controller

[Chris Snyder]

Morten Helgesen wrote:

> DAC960P ? I`ve got a box running 2.4.18 with a Mylex DAC960PTL1 card. The
> box is rock solid. If my memory isn`t hosed, the correct name 
> of the card is 'Mylex AccelRaid 250'.

The card BIOS says it's a DAC960P - that's all the info I've got.

> The DAC960 driver is quite verbose - this is what I`ve got :
> 
> kernel: DAC960: ***** DAC960 RAID Driver Version 2.4.11 of 11 October 2001 *****
> kernel: DAC960: Copyright 1998-2001 by Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@dandelion.com>

That's all the info it prints, then it hangs.  It seems to be that 
something's happening when it tries to detect the controller.

> Never had problems with the DAC960 driver in 2.4 (or 2.2 for that matter) ...
> Could you provide the message printed by your kernel ? We can continue from
> there ... maybe Leonard has an idea of what`s going on ... Leonard ?

There really aren't any messages printed by the kernel, other than the 
DAC960 version and copyright info, since it completely hangs.  I'm 
booting from a distro (Gentoo) installation CD, so no syslog facility is 
in place.

Re: Problems with Mylex DAC960P RAID controller

[Morten Helgesen]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 02:45:17PM -0400, Chris Snyder wrote:
> Morten Helgesen wrote:
> 
> >DAC960P ? I`ve got a box running 2.4.18 with a Mylex DAC960PTL1 card. The
> >box is rock solid. If my memory isn`t hosed, the correct name 
> >of the card is 'Mylex AccelRaid 250'.
> 
> The card BIOS says it's a DAC960P - that's all the info I've got.

Aah ...

> 
> >The DAC960 driver is quite verbose - this is what I`ve got :
> >
> >kernel: DAC960: ***** DAC960 RAID Driver Version 2.4.11 of 11 October 2001 
> >*****
> >kernel: DAC960: Copyright 1998-2001 by Leonard N. Zubkoff 
> ><lnz@dandelion.com>
> 
> That's all the info it prints, then it hangs.  It seems to be that 
> something's happening when it tries to detect the controller.

Yep - I see ... you haven`t got another linux box around (with a distro actually
installed :), do you ? I guess
it would be easier to debug this if you could move the controller to another
box and actually fiddle with the driver source ... debug printks can actually be
useful :)

I noticed that the return value from request_region() is not checked ...

> 
> >Never had problems with the DAC960 driver in 2.4 (or 2.2 for that matter) 
> >...
> >Could you provide the message printed by your kernel ? We can continue from
> >there ... maybe Leonard has an idea of what`s going on ... Leonard ?
> 
> There really aren't any messages printed by the kernel, other than the 
> DAC960 version and copyright info, since it completely hangs.  I'm 
> booting from a distro (Gentoo) installation CD, so no syslog facility is 

As I said - it would be useful if you could actually put the controller
in a box _with_ a distro already installed :)

> in place.
> 

Cheers

-- 

"Livet er ikke for nybegynnere" - sitat fra en klok person.

mvh
Morten Helgesen 
UNIX System Administrator & C Developer 
Nextframe AS
admin@nextframe.net / 93445641
http://www.nextframe.net

Re: Problems with Mylex DAC960P RAID controller

[Chris Snyder]

Morten Helgesen wrote:
>>>The DAC960 driver is quite verbose - this is what I`ve got :
>>>
>>>kernel: DAC960: ***** DAC960 RAID Driver Version 2.4.11 of 11 October 2001 
>>>*****
>>>kernel: DAC960: Copyright 1998-2001 by Leonard N. Zubkoff 
>>><lnz@dandelion.com>
>>
>>That's all the info it prints, then it hangs.  It seems to be that 
>>something's happening when it tries to detect the controller.
> 
> 
> Yep - I see ... you haven`t got another linux box around (with a distro actually
> installed :), do you ? I guess
> it would be easier to debug this if you could move the controller to another
> box and actually fiddle with the driver source ... debug printks can actually be
> useful :)
> 
> I noticed that the return value from request_region() is not checked ...

I tried putting the controller and drives into my main work machine 
(running Gentoo Linux 1.2), and it also hangs, though it doesn't even 
display the version info.  This leads me to believe that if I debugged 
it on my machine, the results would be different than if I debugged it 
on the server.

Would there be any way for me to use this card as a normal SCSI card, 
using a SCSI driver, and just not use the RAID functionality?  This 
machine isn't going to be stressed very much, and software RAID should 
be adequate.