dump card state: amd64 + 300G seagate + Adaptec AIC7902 + 5.3-stable

[Ade Lovett]

Scott Long wrote:
> The firmware on two of those drives is dangerouly old and broken.  I'd
> suggest contacting Seagate for an update, and keep a fire extinguisher
> and some holy water nearby until they are upgraded.

Newer firmware doesn't make any difference to this particular problem.

The combination of U320, Adaptec, Seagate, and ahd is very, very prone 
to weird and wonderful warnings, errors, failures, lockups, and general 
crapness.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, things seem to be significantly worse with 
integrated aic7902 chipsets on the motherboard, than with the equivalent 
PCI-X cards.

By all means update the firmware -- particularly in this case -- but 
don't expect it to be the Holy Grail.  You *might* get lucky, but the 
odds are significantly stacked against you.

-aDe