I've tested both 6.3 and 7.0-RC2, amd64 architecture, and have found the occurrence of an interrupt storm using an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (nForce 4) motherboard with an AMD Opteron 175.
Relevant dmesg output: atapci0: <nVidia nForce CK804 UDMA133 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xf000-0xf00f at device 6.0 on pci0 ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0 ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0 atapci1: <nVidia nForce CK804 SATA300 controller> port 0x9f0-0x9f7,0xbf0-0xbf3,0x970-0x977,0xb70-0xb73,0xd800-0xd80f mem 0xd3002000-0xd3002fff irq 21 at device 7.0 on pci0 ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci1 ata3: <ATA channel 1> on atapci1 atapci2: <nVidia nForce CK804 SATA300 controller> port 0x9e0-0x9e7,0xbe0-0xbe3,0x960-0x967,0xb60-0xb63,0xc400-0xc40f mem 0xd3001000-0xd3001fff irq 22 at device 8.0 on pci0 ata4: <ATA channel 0> on atapci2 ata5: <ATA channel 1> on atapci2 atapci3: <SiI SiI 3114 SATA150 controller> port 0x9000-0x9007,0x9400-0x9403,0x9800-0x9807,0x9c00-0x9c03,0xa000-0xa00f mem 0xd2000000-0xd20003ff irq 19 at device 10.0 on pci5 ata6: <ATA channel 0> on atapci3 ata7: <ATA channel 1> on atapci3 ata8: <ATA channel 2> on atapci3 ata9: <ATA channel 3> on atapci3 Also, there are lines of the form "ata0: [ITHREAD]" for all of ata0, ata1, atapci1, ata2, ata3, atapci2, ata4, ata5, atapci3, ata6, ata7, ata8, and ata9. There is not such a line for atapci0, I assume by design. Using a Kingwin KF-1000-BK SATA hot swap rack, I can connect and reconnect an SATA hard drive without powering down. This is technically equivalent to using esata. I start with a hard drive in the rack on bootup, and here what I see: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]$ atacontrol list ATA channel 0: Master: no device present Slave: no device present ATA channel 1: Master: no device present Slave: no device present ATA channel 2: Master: no device present Slave: no device present ATA channel 3: Master: no device present Slave: no device present ATA channel 4: Master: ad8 <WDC WD800JD-00LSA0/06.01D06> Serial ATA II Slave: no device present ATA channel 5: Master: ad10 <ST3250620NS/3.AEG> Serial ATA II Slave: no device present ATA channel 6: Master: ad12 <ST380815AS/3.AAA> Serial ATA v1.0 Slave: no device present ATA channel 7: Master: no device present Slave: no device present ATA channel 8: Master: no device present Slave: no device present ATA channel 9: Master: no device present Slave: no device present [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]$ vmstat -i interrupt total rate irq19: atapci3 76 2 irq22: atapci2 1234 35 irq23: nfe0 250 7 cpu0: timer 68395 1954 cpu1: timer 68177 1947 Total 138132 3946 The system is on ad8, a data drive is connected as ad10, and the removable drive is ad12. ad8 is the nForce sata1 (why it isn't ad4 is ASUS's fault for labelling their sata ports weird), ad10 is the nForce sata2, and ad12 is the SiI 3114 sata1. I haven't cropped anything from the vmstat output, which is to say that yes, I've disabled USB, firewire, and the second ethernet adapter so that I can isolate what's going on. Now I disconnect ad12 (edited output for vmstat): [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]$ atacontrol detach ata6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]$ vmstat -i irq19: atapci3 76 0 Next I actually eject the drive: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]$ vmstat -i ; sleep 10 ; vmstat -i irq19: atapci3 7266334 24548 irq19: atapci3 8912703 29126 So interrupts are coming at roughly 160,000 per second. The storm continues even after the drive is re-inserted. It stops after reconnecting with "atacontrol attach ata6". Some variations on this theme: 1) If I do the above but do not re-insert the drive and try "atacontrol attach ata6", I get a "ATA_IDENTIFY timeout", and then a kernel panic "Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode". 2) If I try using the nForce sata3 ports, I always get some kind of kernel panic on attaching a drive and "atacontrol attach ata4". The NVRAID settings in the BIOS don't matter. I don't know if anything is AHCI here. 3) If I try instead with a Dell Optiplex 330, which uses an Intel ICH7 for sata and which is configured as AHCI in the BIOS (and fbsd shows as AHCI in dmesg), I get exactly the same as I did with the SiI 3114, except that the "atacontrol attach" when no device is attached simply detects no devices (no kernel panic), and actually stops the interrupt storm. When it is storming, the rate is more like 190,000 per second. 4) I've tried using a JMicron JMB363 sata port on an add-in PCIex1 card (with most recent firmware), but the attached drive is never detected, on either computer. No interrupt storm occurs through any of "atacontrol attach" or detach, or drive removal or insertion, probably because I can never detect any drives. I'm think this card worked in 7.0-BETA4, but I didn't know to check the interrupt rate. I say in the subject line that this occurs on 6.3-RELEASE, but I've actually only tested numbers 1, 2, and 4, and even then only with amd64. I am making a guess that 6.3-RELEASE would behave as 7.0-RC2 in case 3. Two weeks ago, I also tested 7.0-RC1/i386 in cases 1, 2, and 4, and I saw pretty much the same behavior, but I haven't tested 7.0-RC2/i386. As you might have guessed, my goal was have a system where I could hot-swap my back-up drives. Current workaround possibilities is to always have some drive in the rack and have it attached, since I really need to use the Opteron system. It's nice that Intel users don't even have to keep a drive in the rack, though, since the empty ata channel is detected as having no devices without a kernel panic. Another option is to use USB or firewire, but I planned on using several back-up drives and all the enclosures would add up in cost. With sata racks all you need is the bare drive and you get speed, keep the server room tidy, and don't have to carry around extra power supplies. I just want to say that I'm very grateful to the FreeBSD developers that I'm able to use the SiI 3114 controller in any way. As recently as 7.0-BETA4, I think, I wasn't able to use it at all because it would always panic on attach, and I'm thankful that it started working with RC1. Of course, the JMB363 seemed to stop detecting devices over those same releases, but it may have had the same problems anyway, so I'm not complaining. Finally, I have read much of the discussion concerning the interrupt storms on the ASUS M2N-E from Sept 2007, and I thought they were related until I found the problem on the Intel system. _______________________________________________ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"