linux-kernel - Re: Samsung N130 ATA exception after 5min uptime -- Phoenix FailSafe issue?

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Date:	Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:34:46 -0800
From:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>
To:	Robert Hancock <hancockrwd@...il.com>
Cc:	Johannes Stezenbach <js@...21.net>,
	Mikhail Malygin <mmalygin@....de>,
	Hans Werner <hwerner4@....de>, Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Thomas Renninger <trenn@...e.de>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Samsung N130 ATA exception after 5min uptime -- Phoenix
	FailSafe issue?

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 02:30:38PM -0600, Robert Hancock wrote:
> On 11/28/2009 01:19 PM, Greg KH wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 05:42:12PM +0100, Johannes Stezenbach wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm refering to
>>> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14314
>>> and I still have this issue on a N130 with latest BIOS (05CM),
>>> running kernel 2.6.32-rc8 + wireless-testing.
>>>
>>> BIOS Information
>>>          Vendor: Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
>>>          Version: 05CM.M011.20091013.JIP
>>>          Release Date: 10/13/2009
>>>          Address: 0xE6300
>>>          Runtime Size: 105728 bytes
>>>          ROM Size: 2048 kB
>>>          Characteristics:
>>>                  ISA is supported
>>>                  PCI is supported
>>>                  PNP is supported
>>>                  BIOS is upgradeable
>>>                  BIOS shadowing is allowed
>>>                  ESCD support is available
>>>                  ACPI is supported
>>>                  USB legacy is supported
>>>                  Smart battery is supported
>>>                  BIOS boot specification is supported
>>>                  Targeted content distribution is supported
>>>          BIOS Revision: 5.0
>>>
>>> Around 5min after boot or resume if generates the following error:
>>>
>>> [  302.364174] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
>>> [  302.364201] ata1.00: failed command: WRITE DMA
>>> [  302.364234] ata1.00: cmd ca/00:08:f7:01:1a/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 out
>>> [  302.364241]          res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
>>> [  302.364257] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
>>> [  307.408107] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
>>> [  312.392109] ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
>>> [  312.392138] ata1: soft resetting link
>>> [  312.574482] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
>>> [  312.574506] ata1.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0
>>> [  312.574542] ata1: EH complete
>>
>> This is because after 5 minutes, the BIOS implements C states in the
>> processor, which causes a "hic-up" in userspace.  Everything should be
>> fine after this, and most importantly, the power usage drops by a few
>> watts, which is most important.
>
> Why does this "hiccup" seem to cause interrupts to get lost? This would 
> cause an up to 30-second stall in disk I/O.

Yup, it does.

>>> This also happens when booting with rdinit=/bin/sh, i.e. only running busybox sh
>>> inside initrd.  The error then appears when accessing the disk after the 5min
>>> period with dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null count=10000.
>>
>> Yup, see above for why.
>>
>> Samsung does this to make booting their BIOS faster.
>
> Ugh.. Seriously?

Seriously.  It's a BIOS issue, and is the way that Samsung has
implemented this.  There is nothing that the OS can do about it.
Windows has the same "issue" here.

>>> The link in comment #14 is dead but eventually I found
>>> http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Moblin:/Base/openSUSE_11.1/src/kernel-source-2.6.31.6-37.1.src.rpm
>>> which contains the attached patch with a samsung_laptop driver.
>>>
>>> I think it is weird that the Samsung BIOS has a special "SECLINUX" mode,
>>> but anyway the samsung_laptop driver works (the backlight control via ACPI
>>> also works with the 05CM BIOS, though).
>>
>> Yes, but Samsung does not support ACPI at this time, even though it is
>> in their latest bios versions (experimental stuff, needed for Windows 7
>> mode or something...)
>
> ACPI support would seem much preferable to implementing power management 
> with such strange proprietary hacks..

I do not disagree with you at all about this.  This has been
communicated to Samsung, but at this point in time, they are not going
to support ACPI and only want Linux to use this interface.

thanks,

greg k-h
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