Re: DMA errors on SATA drive in Gentoo 2004.0 using VT8237 chipset

From: Darkinnit (dislashdot_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 04/26/04 

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:05:30 +0100

Thank you for your reply Rod, I tried unloading those modules, but the
libata one was "busy" and so I could not unload the sata_via module.

HOWEVER, for those people also in my situation with this via chipset, I
have found not one but several solutions:

Gentoo 2004.0 has the 2.6.3-rc2 kernel
but loads sata_via, sata_sil and libata modules (sata_sil can be
unloaded using modprobe -r, but the libata module cannot and so blocks
sata_via) so I get dma errors.

Solution 1:
Knoppix 3.4 c't Edition has the 2.6.1 kernel
(knoppix 3.4 c't obtained using bittorrent from the following page:
http://www.boegenielsen.dk:6969/)
and knoppix does not load those modules and works

Solution 2:
Mandrake 10 Community Edition has the 2.6.3 kernel
and works. (don't know if it loads the modules or not)

Just for comparison the latest 2.6 kernel (as of 26 April 2004) is 2.6.5
or 2.6.6-rc2

Solution 3:
Other versions of Mandrake, Red Hat and Suse are also in luck, on this
page: http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=297

Me? I'm gonna go for Solution 4:
Using Knoppix 3.4 c't Edition to install Gentoo using these instructions:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml

And hopefully the latest gentoo kernel will support sata on my
motherboard. I can just keep trying/wait for different kernels till it
does.

If anyone can recommend somewhere else where I should post this info to
give it better exposure then let me know (or pass it on yourself).

Once again Rod, thanks for your time, you were one of only three people
who gave me any feedback, and yours was the most relevant.

- Darkinnit

Rod Smith wrote:
> In article <qmBic.1024$p72.733@nurse.blueyonder.net>,
> Darkinnit <dislashdot@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
>>I'm trying to setup a Western Digital 120G SATA drive as my boot drive
>>on the Abit KV8-MAX3. The Sata drives are controlled by a VIA VT8237
>>chipset.
>
>
> I've got an MSI K8T Neo-FSR, which also uses the VIA VT8237, and a Maxtor
> 80GB SATA drive.
>
>
>>All goes well booting from the Gentoo 2004.0 minimal CD and lsmod shows
>>sata_sil, sata_via, and libata as active modules. My SATA drive shows up
>>at /dev/hde.
>
>
> OK, something odd is going on here. There are two drivers for the VIA
> VT8237's SATA support:
>
> 1) A driver activated in the ATA section of the kernel configuration (the
> VIA82CXXX driver). This is the ATA driver.
> 2) A driver activated in the SCSI section of the kernel configuration (the
> SATA_VIA driver). This is the libata driver.
>
> Driver #2 makes the drive appear as a SCSI device -- probably /dev/sda for
> the first SATA drive, unless you've got real SCSI disks, too. Thus, if the
> sata_via driver is showing up in lsmod, that suggests that the system is
> using the libata driver rather than the ATA driver; but if that's the
> case, the drive should NOT appear as /dev/hde. Furthermore, unless you've
> got multiple SATA drives, there's no reason to load an sata_sil driver
> (which is for a Silicon Image controller; I suspect your motherboard uses
> that for the 3rd through 6th SATA ports on the motherboard).
>
> My hunch is that the system has loaded the ATA driver, which has "grabbed"
> the device, but that the kernel and/or module utilities then got
> overzealous and loaded the libata drivers for both the Silicon Image and
> VIA controllers on top of that, causing the hardware to be driven by two
> drivers -- not a good situation. Try unloading the libata drivers
> (sata_sil, sata_via, and libata). If that fails, you may be able to burn a
> fresh CD-R with those modules missing, just to force matters; or try
> installing from some other boot system. When it comes time to build your
> Gentoo kernel, be sure to completely omit whichever drivers you're not
> using, just to be safe. Either the ATA or the libata drivers should work.
>
> Another option would be to move the SATA drive to another SATA port -- one
> controlled by the Silicon Image controller. There are also ATA and libata
> drivers for it, but it's conceivable that this conflict situation wouldn't
> arise if you use the Silicon Image controller. OTOH, this might complicate
> installation in other ways and cause problems for your existing Windows
> installation.
>

Relevant Pages

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  • Serial ATA (SATA) for Linux status report
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