[Bug 53754] ata_piix problem with Intel ICH7 chipset

[José M. López-Cepero]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: linux-386

I have an Acer Aspire 9410 Centrino Duo laptop and there seems to be a
problem with the SATA controller. Although I have found no major flaws
yet (ie. no data corruption), every few minutes (maybe 2, maybe 30) the
system seems to hang for a while (about 10-30 sec).

Apparently, the problem is that the ata driver is not fully compatible
with the chipset. Examining dmesg's output, every time a hang happens
the following lines appear:

[17186864.708000] ata1 is slow to respond, please be patient
[17186889.664000] ata1: command 0xa0 timeout, stat 0xd0 host_stat 0x60
[17186889.664000] ata1: translated ATA stat/err 0xd0/00 to SCSI SK/ASC/ASCQ 0xb/47/00
[17186889.664000] ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0x1F7
[17186891.016000] ata1: status=0x50 { DriveReady SeekComplete }
[17186891.016000] sda: Current: sense key: No Sense
[17186891.016000]     Additional sense: No additional sense information
[17186891.020000] sr0: CDROM (ioctl) error, command: <6>Read TOC/PMA/ATIP 43 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 40
[17186891.020000] sr: Current [descriptor]: sense key: Aborted Command
[17186891.020000]     Additional sense: Scsi parity error
[17186891.020000] ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0x1F7
[17186891.020000] ATA: abnormal status 0xD0 on port 0x1F7

The main scheme is always the same: there is an 'ata1 is slow to
respond, please be patient', followed by a timeout and a few errors. The
CD error message may appear or not; I remember having seen a few
different variations (examining /var/log/messages, the "sense key" may
be "No sense", "Scsi parity error" or "Aborted command", and there are
another slight variations, and the error may come from sda or sr0). The
"abnormal status" messages are always there; I have looked around for a
reference to what status 0xD0 means, but to no avail. I think what
causes the hangs is that the system blocks until a 30 second timeout
passes from the "slow to respond" message.

I'm using 2.6.15-26-386 (the 686 version caused the laptop to hang at
seemingly random times); as revealed by lspci, the controler is:

0000:00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family)
Serial ATA Storage Controllers cc=IDE (rev 02)

(numeric code 8086:27c4), which apparently should be well supported by
ata_piix. I have not yet tried with another Linux distro, but Windows XP
does not exhibit that problem. Also, I exchanged the laptop for another
because of an unrelated problem and the hangs kept happening.

I assume this is due to some kind of bug on the sata controllers and
that's why I'm reporting the bug here. Feel free to direct me to any
other source and I'll repost. Alternatively, if there was some way to
set the 'slow to respond' timeout to a shorter time (5 seconds or so),
that would probably be a good enough workaround.

I will immediately attach the output of dmesg, lspci and lsmod.

Thanks in advance for your help.

** Affects: linux-meta (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Untriaged
         Status: Unconfirmed

-- 
ata_piix problem with Intel ICH7 chipset
https://launchpad.net/bugs/53754