Re: sata_nv + SMP = broken?

[Vladimir Lazarenko <vlad@lazarenko.net>]

> > > > > Yesterday I've tried launching various kernels on Ahtlon64 Dual-core 
> > > > > X2 3800+ with MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI motherboard.
> > > > >
> > > > > The results were a total catastrophica failure. As soon as I enable 
> > > > > SMP in the kernel, the sata driver would randomly hang after a bit of 
> > > > > disk activity.
> > > > >
> > > > > Whenever apic is enabled, the system won't even be able to boot up 
> > > > > completely, and will hang VERY soon. Whenever I disable apic, the 
> > > > > system is able to bootup, but when the software mirror that I use will 
> > > > > try to resync for 2-3-10 mins, it will throw up a message and freeze 
> > > > > again.
> > > > >
> > > > > Whenever I disable apic AND lapic, the system is able to bootup AND 
> > > > > work, however after same 5-10 minutes it start spitting messages, 
> > > > > which are somewhat different thou and don't hang the system completely 
> > > > > but render it rather unusable anyway.
> > > > >
> > > > > As soon as I disable SMP - everything works like a charm.
> > > >
> > > > I too am running an Athlon X2 using sata_nv. I have an ASUS motherboard. 
> > > > But what I noticed was that the problem went away if I used 2 gigs of 
> > > > ram instead of 4 gigs. When you use the whole 4 gigs there is some 
> > > > memory mapping going on and I thought perhaps the problem was related to 
> > > > the sata_nv not liking the memory mapped over the 4gig barrier.
> > >
> > > That's possible.  Unfortunately I cannot verify this, since there are 2GB of
> > > RAM in my box.
> > >
> > > I remeber someone having a problem with sata_nv DMAing over 2GB of RAM,
> > > so there may be something wrong with it.
> >
> > On a second thought. Why would that only occur in SMP mode? Since now 
> > the box is with 3G ram, no SMP and it works like a charm. If I enable 
> > SMP - the hell breaks loose.
>
>
> It looks like an obscure issue.  Apparently, to trigger it you need _both_
> more that 2GB of RAM and SMP.

Looks like it. I played around today as well, and it seems to not to 
occur with 2Gb.

> OTOH, today I played with Tyan Thunder K8WE, based on the Nvidia
> CK8-04 chipset (not that much different to the regular Nforce4) in
> a 2-processor configuration and 8GB of RAM, and it had no issues at all
> (I installed SuSE 9.3 with the distro kernel on it).  Anyway its SATA
> controller is handled by the sata_nv driver, so the problem you describe
> does not seem to be software-related.

Hehe, as if reading your mind I ordered Tyan K8E today, and in case that 
won't work, i'll just put a pci raiser there and stuck an external SATA 
from silicon image or promise there :)

I've heard from another person (thou have not seen it myself) that there 
was kind of the same problem (hanging sata) on an opteron-based machine. 
I was too late to ask the mb model thou, so this info is kind of 
useless, but just for statistical purposes I mention it here.

> [Jeff, could you please say if this is a known problem?]

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