SiI3112 SATA controller problems - status

[Scott Long]

Robert Watson wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 09:43, HaggeL wrote:
>>
>>>Hi Guys :)
>>>
>>>Sorry if i waste your time. I®m a freeBSD noob and need some help.
>>>I want to install freeBSD in januar and have some problems. I want to
>>>buy me a new harddrive, a serial ATA one, because i got the "Silicon
>>>ImageR Sil 3112A-Controller" onboard (Asus A7N8X Motherboard). I
>>>didn®t find a driver in the Hardware Notes of FreeBSD 5.1, and on the
>>>Producer homepage are only ready Linuxkernels avaible
>>>(http://12.24.47.40/display/2n/searchDirect/?searchString=Sil+3112A&searchType=allwords&searchby=keywords&r=0.8157617).
>>>So can anyone tell me if i can get a SATA disk run? I don®t want to
>>>boot from it, just read and write. Buying a new disk only for windows
>>>use is wasted money
>>
>>We're having a pretty lengthy discussion about these controllers on this
>>list right now.  I suggest you read the archives.  Bottom line, the
>>controller is supported, but it's problematic.  The ATA maintainer has
>>working controllers, but there are those of us that experience data
>>corruption, and at least one user that can't use his drive at all when
>>connected to said controller. 
> 
> 
> I believe a workaround was recently committed to improve behavior on older
> cards using that chipset.  Specifically the following change to
> ata-chipset.c: 
> 
>     revision 1.48
>     date: 2003/11/28 19:01:28;  author: sos;  state: Exp;  lines: +6 -2
>     Workaround for errata on early versions of the sii3112.
>     
>     Approved by: re@
> 
> Does this make any difference in your configuration?
> 
> Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
> robert at fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research
> 

This commit only fixes a silent data corruption issue.  I believe that
the issue at hand involves DMA not working at all.

Scott