Stable SATA pci card for FreeBSD 6.x/7.0

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 02:57:48AM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> vmstat -i output should help clear that up, or dmesg output.

Sebastiaan has included vmstat -i output in another part of this thread,
as well as dmesg output for the ATA disks and controllers:

atapci0: <SiI SiI 3512 SATA150 controller> port 0xd200-0xd207,0xd300-0xd303,0xd400-0xd407,0xd500-0xd503,0xd600-0xd60f mem 0xf6081000-0xf60811ff irq 18 at device 10.0 on pci0
ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata3: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
atapci1: <VIA 6420 SATA150 controller> port 0xd700-0xd707,0xd800-0xd803,0xd900-0xd907,0xda00-0xda03,0xdb00-0xdb0f,0xdc00-0xdcff irq 20 at device 15.0 on pci0
ata4: <ATA channel 0> on atapci1
ata5: <ATA channel 1> on atapci1
atapci2: <VIA 8237 UDMA133 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xdd00-0xdd0f at device 15.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci2
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci2
ad0: 286188MB <Maxtor 6L300R0 BAH41G10> at ata0-master UDMA133
ad1: 239372MB <Maxtor 6L250R0 BAH41G10> at ata0-slave UDMA133
acd0: DVDR <LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-1635S/YS0N> at ata1-master UDMA33
ad4: 953869MB <SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA01112> at ata2-master SATA150
ad6: 953869MB <SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA01112> at ata3-master SATA150
ad8: 239372MB <Maxtor 6L250S0 BANC1G10> at ata4-master SATA150
ad10: 239372MB <Maxtor 6L250S0 BANC1G10> at ata5-master SATA150

interrupt                          total       rate
irq6: fdc0                            10          0
irq14: ata0                       645057          7
irq15: ata1                           58          0
irq16: rl0                       7168276         82
irq17: rl1                        914667         10
irq18: atapci0                  30072876        347
irq20: atapci1                   1126099         12
irq21: uhci0 uhci*                   308          0
irq23: vr0                       3265771         37
cpu0: timer                    173289011       1999
Total                          216482133       2498

Here's a breakdown, so no one gets confused:

ad0  = 300GB Maxtor disk, attached to on-board VIA IDE controller
ad1  = 250GB Maxtor disk, attached to on-board VIA IDE controller
ad4  = 1TB Samsung disk, attached to Silicon Image SATA controller
ad6  = 1TB Samsung disk, attached to Silicon Image SATA controller
ad8  = 250GB Maxtor disk, attached to on-board VIA SATA controller
ad10 = 250GB Maxtor disk, attached to on-board VIA SATA controller

IRQ 14 -- atapci2 = On-board VIA IDE controller (primary)
IRQ 15 -- atapci2 = On-board VIA IDE controller (slave)
IRQ 16 -- rl0     = Realtek NIC
IRQ 17 -- rl1     = Realtek NIC
IRQ 18 -- atapci0 = Silicon Image SATA controller
IRQ 20 -- atapci1 = On-board VIA SATA controller

An APIC is obviously in use here.

The problem reported is with disks ad4 and ad6, residing on the Silicon
Image controller.  When the problem happens, rl1 emits watchdog
timeouts, and disks ad4 and ad6 fall off the bus.

SMART statistics on both ad4 and ad6 show no signs of the disks being
power-cycled, sector errors, or anything that would indicate either disk
is bad.

His PSU is 450W, brand unknown.

Sebastiaan, do you know if the BIOS on this system has a Health monitor,
showing voltages and temperatures of things?  If so, can you reboot the
system, go into that part of the BIOS, and write down (or take a photo)
of the voltages/temperatures?

I'm wondering if maybe one of the voltages is too low or high, or
fluxuates severely with so many devices.  It could be enough to cause
some of the ASICs to malfunction, possibly multiples...

I cleared the possibility of this being a PSU problem, but that was
before I knew you were seeing watchdog timeouts on one of your NICs at
the *exact same time* as disks off the Silicon Image controller.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |