Compaq Smart Array 4200 controller question

[Andrew Heyn]

Hello,

Please CC me any replies, as I am not subscribed to this particular list.

I have just installed FreeBSD 5.3 on a Compaq Proliant 8500 system.
I noticed I get a lot of these errors:

ida0: soft read error
ida0: soft write error

that 80% of the time prevent me from even booting the system.

The drives in the system are two of FUJITSU MAG3182L SUN18G 1111
drives arranged to be mirrored by the internal Smart Array 4200 controller.
These drives are confirmed to be good, and I've seen this same exact problem
with other drive brand, model, and size, and number configurations.

These errors come up even after erasing the logical volume, and creating a
new one, so it is not because the controller is busy rebuilding a volume.
Either way, the system has been up long enough that this should be finished.
None of the drives are reported as failed.

Also, when I boot without ACPI enabled, I am unable to see any PCI devices.
I saw that somebody else had this problem, but after a dmesg output, there
were no other replies regarding it.

I wonder if there is any BIOS setting and ACPI on/off combination I can use
that will allow me to use my controller, and still be able to use my NIC
on the PCI bus.  Once I was able to boot with ACPI disabled and I was able
to use the controller without seeing any of the soft error messages, but
I was unable to use my NIC, and didnt thoroughly test it out if FreeBSD
was accessing the controller properly.

So, my first question is: Is FreeBSD or the drives causing those soft error
messages?
My second question is:  Is there any way to access my PCI devices with ACPI
disabled?

Please give me a hint on what I can do
Thanks,
Andrew

(Don't forget to CC me)