[mythtv-users] OT: SATA errors

[Harry Devine]

Brian Wood wrote:
> On Thursday 09 July 2009 21:14:33 Harry Devine wrote:
>   
>> Brian Wood wrote:
>>     
>>> On Thursday 09 July 2009 20:19:34 Harry Devine wrote:
>>>       
>>>> The MB is an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe with an nVidia nForce4 SLI x16
>>>> chipset (from the MB manual).  I have an nVidia GeForce 9400GT video
>>>> card in the PCI-e slot and a pcHDTV5500 tuner card in one of the regular
>>>> PCI slots.  Both are working fine.  The SATA ports are on the MB itself
>>>> as I mentioned earler.
>>>>         
>>> Can you look at your bootlog? Make sure it looks like yout SATA
>>> controllers are being recognized and initialized properly?
>>>
>>> I'm not familiar with that precise chipset, though I have had good luck
>>> with some of its progenitors.
>>>
>>> It would be interesting to know if things work OK with a PATA drive,
>>> perhaps you could run the OS on that one and be able to give a good
>>> workout/test to a SATA drive connected as a non-system drive.
>>>
>>> Asus generally makes decent boards. Make sure you have the latest BIOS
>>> installed, sorry if that's obvious. I also assume (obviously) that you
>>> are not overclocking and all timings are at default settings.
>>>
>>> Also check for interrupt conflicts.
>>>       
>> I'm not sure where the bootlog is, but I was able to mount the /var
>> partition and looked at /var/log/messages.  I do see a lot of messages
>> like so:
>>     
>
> That is what I meant by the bootlog, I should have been more specific.
>
>   
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel: [1429202.244693] ata1: hard
>> resetting link
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel  [1429207.386529] ata1: failed due
>> to HW bug, retry pmp=0
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel [1429207.560531] ata1: SATA link
>> up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel [1429207.569392] ata1.00:SB600
>> AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel [1429207.570139] ata1.00:SB600
>> AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel [1429207.570145] ata1.00:
>> configured for UDMA/33
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel [1429207.570162] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda]
>> Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
>> Jul 6 22:41:12 hdevine-desktop kernel [1429207.570162] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda]
>> Sense Key: Aborted Command [current][descriptor]
>>
>> This went on for a while, probably until I rebooted and had problems
>> booting up.  This seems to point to a SATA issue on the MB, but I can't
>> seem to figure out why I can see the drive on the SATA bus from the
>> LiveCD, but can't boot from it.  Very strange, but I'm probably missing
>> something.
>>
>>     
>
> I'd say you have located your problem. Either you have a serious hardware 
> problem or the Linux you are trying to use can't deal with the hardware.
>
> Often the kernel on a Live CD is different from the one that gets installed. 
> If you have a kernel that can handle the hardware it means your problem is 
> solveable.
>
> I'd try and find out what module is getting loaded by the Live CD to handle 
> the SATA interface (if it's a module and not compiled in).
>
> There may be some parameter(s) you can pass to the kernel that will help.
>
> Try Googling for that chipset and Linux problems.
>
> A workaround might be a PCI SATA controller, wrong answer but it should work.
>
>   
>> Also, I checked on the Asus website and they give version 1409 as the
>> BIOS firmware.  Well, I have 2201, so I have the latest from what I can
>> gather.
>>     
>
> Hmmm... Odd to have such a large discrepancy, I'd contact Asus about it.
>
>
>
>   
OK.  I'll do some Googling tomorrow.  Its getting late and I'm burnt on 
this. :-)  I just looked at my /boot partition to see what kernel I 
have.  My HD has 2.6.26-9 and its been on since 1/24/09.  The LiveCD has 
2.6.26-7 from October.  The weird thing is is that everything has been 
working fine until a few days ago.  I haven't made any updates 
whatsoever since I had the system working how I wanted.  I followed the 
old "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality.

Thanks!  I'll keep you posted!
Harry