Every 12-hrs -- "ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE DMA"

[V.I.Victor]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006, Mike Tancsa wrote:

> On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:21:04 +0000, in sentex.lists.freebsd.questions
> you wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Mike Tancsa wrote:
>>
>>>> For the last 4-days, our (otherwise OK) 5.4-RELEASE machine has been
>>>> reporting:
>>>>
>>>> Feb 12 12:08:05 : ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=2701279
>>>> Feb 13 00:08:51 : ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=2701279
>>>> Feb 13 12:09:38 : ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=2963331
>>>> Feb 14 00:10:24 : ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=2705947
>>>>
>>>> So -- can anyone help track this down?
>>>
>>>
>>> It sounds like a hardware issue. Install
>>> /usr/ports/sysutils/smartmontools and "ask" the drive to see whats up.
>>
>> I installed 'smartmontools' but haven't used as yet. I've been waiting to
>> see what happens -- the "problem" simply stopped. There've been no "ad0:
>> TIMEOUT" messages for 3-days.
>
> The errors get logged in the drive so you dont have to wait for more
> errors to happen. Start it running now so you can see if any of the
> "bad" counters are changing as well as to ask the drive what it was.
> My guess is you have some bad sectors the drive remapped.

OK. No problems found... And -- still -- no more "ad0: TIMEOUTs"

But, I'm not really surprised. As mentioned in the original post, a
2-gig file had been created that presumably "moved-past" any bad
sector patches; approx. midway during the TIMEOUT report period.

Plus -- since the drive is (was) storing email, writing logs, etc.
24-hrs a day, it seems improbable that bad-sectors would only show-up
every 12-hrs.

Although I'm uncomfortable with "magic-fixes," I wonder if there's
more than a coincidental connection between setting the date and the
reports starting and stopping.