sata drive problem

[Peter S. Housel]

"Axel Gonzalez" <loox at e-shell.net> wrote:
> When under heavy load, i get the error (just tested from a cvsup
09/02/2004
> src):
> ad4: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left)  LBA=...
> ad4: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left)  LBA=...
> sometimes it crashes right away, sometimes it waits a little.
> can't get the exact LBA sectors because the system crashes cold, and its
not
> logged (i've seen the error before a crash)

I've seen the exact same problem with the same controller (Intel ICH5
SATA150).  The problem went away when I turned off hyperthreading.  With
WITNESS turned on, the TIMEOUT messages were accompanied with some locking
message or other, but I haven't had a chance to reproduce the problem and
record the exact message.  Given this, and the fact that it goes away when
running UP, I speculate that it may be a locking problem somewhere.

-Peter-