I am having trouble with my harddisk as it is quite slow. The DMA mode is swicthing off. I am not sure if the harddik is dying or whether it is just soemthing that happend during playing around and plugging hardware into the box.

Following lines are found at boot time in demsg of my linuxbox
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61 hda: error waiting for DMA
hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

when switching dma modus on with hdparm the same message as above is recieived:
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda showas that the dma mode is off

The speed is dead slow:
hdparm -tT /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.31 seconds =412.90 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 26.17 seconds = 2.45 MB/sec

Possible reasons for fault I have ruled out and remedies tried:
1) maybe a cabling issue --> bought new a 80 pin ide cable.
2) Tried booting with knoppix bootoptions (noapci, noapic and similar stuff) --> This did not work, got the same lines in demsg 3) Tried PCI card reshuffling (took out all PCI Cards and booted)-->no result.
4) Tried booting with a more recent version of Knoppix (3.6)(2004-08-16) -Same result
5) Flashed the BIOS of the ASUS Motherboard (A7N8X- E Deluxe) Flash procedure

hdparm specs of the drive: /dev/hda:
non-removable ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: SAMSUNG SP1614N
Serial Number: S016J10X520600
Firmware Revision: TM100-24
Standards:
Supported: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Likely used: 7
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 65535
heads 16 1
sectors/track 63 63
bytes/track: 34902 (obsolete)
bytes/sector: 554 (obsolete)
current sector capacity: 4128705
LBA user addressable sectors = 268435455
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Buffer size: 8192.0kB ECC bytes: 4 Queue depth: 1
Standby timer values: spec'd by standard, no device specific minimum
r/w multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* READ BUFFER cmd
* WRITE BUFFER cmd
* Host Protected Area feature set
* look-ahead
* write cache
* Power Management feature set
Security Mode feature set
SMART feature set
SET MAX security extension
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
56min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 56min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
HW reset results:
CBLID- above Vih
Device num = 0 determined by the jumper
Checksum: correct

Kernel
2.4.24-ctvdr-2

The lspci part regarding the ide interface

00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0065 (rev a2) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 0c11
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 0
I/O ports at f000 [size=16]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

The /var/log/message lines in detail
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
NFORCE2: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:09.0
NFORCE2: chipset revision 162
NFORCE2: not 100%% native mode: will probe irqs later
AMD_IDE: Bios didn't set cable bits corectly. Enabling workaround.
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
AMD_IDE: nVidia Corporation nForce2 IDE (rev a2) UDMA100 controller on pci00:09.0
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda: DMA, hdb: DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc: DMA, hdd: DMA
hda: SAMSUNG SP1614N, ATA DISK drive
blk: queue c035e880, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdc: ATAPI DVD RW 8XMax, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: 312581808 sectors (160042 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=19457/255/63, UDMA(100)
Partition check:
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0:<4>hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

hda: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide0: reset: success
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

p1 p2 p3 p4
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00 ...

you said you played around with the hardware recently? check the cabels and pins at the backside of the drive. also try usin dma 4/3/2, but it rather sounds like a connection problem to me. is hdb working ok?

sl mritch.

That was my initial thought that while plugging in other stuff into the computer that i dmaged the cabels. Therefore I bought a new cable- a round one. This did not show any improvement.

I even went to the samsung site and downloaded some testing utility called HUTIL. You boot up in dos and it has some sort of check, which tells me the drive is in order.

How do I do that ? In man hdparm I did not find anything that hints towards changing the dma mode.
When chaninging the dma modus by hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda, it falls back to dma= off. The same errors that were seen at boot time can be seen in in dmesg:
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: error waiting for DMA
hda: dma timeout retry: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

The question is wheteher it makes sens to return this drive for rma or just buy a new one

afaik it's done with
hdparm -X udma1[2..3..4..] /dev/hdx
the -X option also takes values for pio-modes so iirc -X 66 will program it to the fastest mode. google for that.

------------------------------!update:-----------------------
PIO modes (Programmed IO) (disk mode (above) + 8)
hdparm -X08 -> PIO 0
hdparm -X09 -> PIO 1
hdparm -X10 -> PIO 2
hdparm -X11 -> PIO 3
hdparm -X12 -> PIO 4

SDMA modes (Single-word DMA) (disk mode (above) + 16)
hdparm -X16 -> SDMA 0
hdparm -X17 -> SDMA 1
hdparm -X18 -> SDMA 2

MDMA modes (Multi-word DMA) (disk mode (above) + 32)
hdparm -X32 -> MDMA 0
hdparm -X33 -> MDMA 1
hdparm -X34 -> MDMA 2

UDMA modes (Ultra-DMA) (disk mode (abov) + 64)
hdparm -X64 -> UDMA 0 (ATA16)
hdparm -X65 -> UDMA 1 (ATA 25)
hdparm -X66 -> UDMA 2 (ATA 33)
hdparm -X67 -> UDMA 3 (ATA 44)
hdparm -X68 -> UDMA 4 (ATA 66)
hdparm -X69 -> UDMA 5 (ATA 100)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

anyway, i'm not sure this will help. since this will only (& just maybe) cure the symtoms and leave you with a unreliable disk. the disk maybe has to be buried. i've heard a lot about dying ide drives in past time. i use scsi myself - some of these drives are over ten years old and keep spinning.

trying the drive on other idecannel (or another pc) may be an alternative, but if that also don't work you can try to get onother.

btw. is there another drive on that channel? ond what hardware have u changed recently?

so zeit für 'ne mütze schlaf...
sl mritch.

There is only one drive in the machine

The changes I made to the hardware were:
- Installing cooling fans
- and a newer more quiet power supply.

Maybe the drive overheated before (changes were done at the beginning of august).

Another possible problem could be that the drive is built into a desktop case, but the desktop stands upright.

I have not yet tried the hdparm - X option, need to do some googling before that.
And what is the command iirc? . I could not find a manpage for this one.

I think I might just buy another drive....

I encountered this problem too while trying to load Linux onto a newbie's computer yesterday. I had those same error messages with Slackware 9.1, Fedora 2, and KNOPPIX 3.3.

The kernel developers should find a way to bypass or fix this problem instead of just flashing a cryptic error message. I know that if I wasn't a computer guy, if I got those messages and my computer failed to boot, then I'd go back to Windows, which may be insecure and evil, but at least it works. These kind of errors need to be fixed before Linux is widely adopted.

i think 2.4.24 is quite a stable kernel.
the disks usualy don't care if they are vertical or horziontal mounted. you must not turn them around if they are spinning.

vincebs.. you can always watch into the source about the errormessages:
egrep -ir "( fuck)|( shit)" /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.24

i seldom come across problems with my systems. i can't think of using microsoft for the servers i set up;-)

iirc <chat> = if i recall/remember correctly

sl mritch.

I am having a similar problem, if you have multiple hard drives try removing 1 at a time and than try it.

I have similar problem too... Anybody founded solution?