delay in boot: ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0

[Alexander Best]

On Mon Feb 14 11, Xn Nooby wrote:
> I get about a 30 second delay during boot for each hard-drive
> connected to my PC.  I'm running FreeBSD 8.1 AMD64 on an ASUS
> Sabertooth X58 motherboard.
> 
> atapci0: [ITHREAD]
> ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
> ata2: [ITHREAD]
> ata3: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
> 
> Is there something I can define or disable to make these timeouts go faster?
> 
> These lines get the delay:
> 
> ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
> ata3: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0

A)
you can rebuild your kernel with

options        ATA_REQUEST_TIMEOUT=3

to reduce the timeout to 3 seconds. that should be enough for new
hdds/controllers.


B)
or you could try switching from ATA(4) to CAM(4) via the ATA_CAM kernel option
(see ATA(4) for an explanation). since you're running pretty new hardware and
a recent fbsd version you would defenately benefit from switching to CAM(4). it
has much better ahci support e.g.

simply add

options ATA_CAM

to your kernel conf and your good to go after building installing the new
kernel.

also the probelm might be in your BIOS. be sure to deactivate all ATA channels
which don't have a device connected to them. otherwise fbsd will look for one
until the timeout gets hit (both in ATA(4) and CAM(4)). in fact you might want
to check the bios before trying any of the steps A) or B), because this very
likely seems to be the problem in your case.

cheers.
alex

-- 
a13x